2 Answers

it gets lukewarm. add just a little hot water and it should clear

Causes of Clouding

There are two reasons that iced teas become cloudy. The first possibility is that the water itself may be to blame. David Beeman, founder of Cirque Customized Water explains that “when water quality gets over 300 parts per million the likelihood of iced tea clouding goes up. By the time you hit about 450 parts per million, it is almost definitely going to happen.” Hard water has high concentrations of minerals which, when brewed with tea, can form visible solids that do not dissolve at cooler temperatures.

The second explanation is a bit more complex. Various natural building blocks of tea have been blamed for clouding over the years, including Theaflavins, Thearubigins, Catechins and Caffeine. Yet modern science is pointing to Theaflavins as the chief culprit of the group. As Sanje Widyaratne, CEO of Walter’s Bay & Co. writes, “the percentage of Theaflavins seems to be the largest contributor towards creaming or clouding…especially when precipitates are formed during cooling of the brewed tea.” A 2005 article in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry explains that Theaflavins are only soluble in water at higher temperatures, and will only remain suspended if the temperature changes slowly. So, if the tea cools too quickly (i.e. is stuck into the refrigerator immediately after steeping) the Theaflavins will not remain suspended, and the tea will cloud. Tea industry consultant Richard Guzauskas has coined the term, “iced tea shocking” to describe this phenomenon.

http://www.tealaden.com/teaweb/articles/cloudy_tea.html