I buy bulk boxes of Decaf Lipton iced tea bags from Costco, and use a Hamilton Beach Iced Tea Maker to brew a couple of quarts at a time. This is not expensive. What I'm really asking is why I "need" to "ease into water," if what I'm doing is not any worse than drinking water? Why is water better than decaf unsweetened tea?
Basically it makes it comparable to a coffee maker. If you're out of iced tea and you want some, it takes so long to make that you're just going to drink something else. An iced tea maker will make it in 10 minutes. And it's very easy to use bagless tea.
http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-40911-2-Quart-Electric/dp/B00008VSCO
The people in r/tea are pretty awesome. They gave me a lot of good advice when I was asking how to produce green tea in mass quantities.
I ended up getting an automatic iced tea maker capable of brewing 2 quarts in 10 minutes by pushing one button.
After using it, I found that if you fill the pitcher with hot (not boiling) water instead of ice you get 2 quarts of hot tea instead.
I'm a wuss with super hot tea anyway and I'm too impatient to wait for it to cool, try to blow on it, or sip it from a dumb spoon, so this method is perfect for me.