I had a wedding cake last night that was Peaches and Sweet Tea, made by some gal who has been featured on Food Network a couple of times. It tasted very good. I also just discovered a peach tree on my new property. So... making a sweet mead that will finish with peach flavor and tea flavor.. that is the goal. That's why I ask the question. I know the peach part of it is a totally different discussion, but there's alot of info I've found just searching the site so far. My main question would be how strong to make the tea. And I know that's very subjective as well.
Well most of the recipes I've seen that use tea for the tannin element would normally use something like 1 teabag per cup (half pint mug), make it with just the teabag and boiling water to about the 250mls level and let it stew until cold.
I'm thinking that if you wanted to double that, you might get some detectable tea flavour. Though I'd think I'd be heading along the lines of making the mead with the fruit, then once it's done, rack it to another fermenter and then allow 2 teabags per cup (the same 250/half pint mug), make it with just boiling water, let it stew and go cold and use it for topping up. Taste it, if you don't get any detectable flavour, then just put the used teabags into the batch and another fresh one and let them steep in the mead for a couple of weeks or so - tasting periodically to see when it gets to the stage where you like it.
Tea will extract in cold water, but it can take a long time. That's why it's normally made with water about the 98 C/208 F sort of temperatures to get the best flavour, quickly.....
regards
fatbloke
p.s. Oh and it depends on what you can get locally. Darjeeling is often advertised as the "champagne of tea", but you might find Liptons or Twinings Orange Pekoe locally. If you don't mind mail order, then one of the "British" brands should do the trick i.e. PG tips, Typhoo, etc etc