Tetrahedrites, comprised mainly of earth-abundant and environment-friendly elements, copper and sulfur, may pave the way to many new and low-cost thermoelectric energy generation opportunities. However, the preparation of tetrahedrites is time- and energy-consuming. In this paper, we study the melting process and the effect of the annealing time on the microstructure and thermoelectric properties of the Cu12Sb4S13 tetrahedrite, in an effort to shorten the synthesis (melting and annealing) time. Our results show that the Cu12Sb4S13 tetrahedrite phase forms in the melt during cooling. Shortening the melting time does not affect the formation of Cu12Sb4S13. The cooled ingot consists of the principal phase of Cu12Sb4S13 and two secondary phases, Cu3SbS4 and CuSbS2. It is found that prolonged annealing cannot eliminate the impurity phases in Cu12Sb4S13 tetrahedrite, has a small effect on the electrical resistivity, and a negligible effect on the Seebeck coefficient and the thermal conductivity of the tetrahedrite. All our samples have a ZT above 0.47 at 600 K and the maximum ZT obtained was 0.52 when the sample was annealed for 1 day. Based on our experimental results, the time for preparing the Cu12Sb4S13 tetrahedrite can be considerably shortened.