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If you've spent any time south of the Mason-Dixon line, this query is as familiar to you as "paper or plastic?", but the rest of the USA doesn't have a cotton pickin' clue what you're talking about. See, we may get all schmancy, blending decaf Royal Tiger Spice Baby Assam with cran-kiwi nectar and individually wrapped cubes of Albanian raw beet sugar, but this Yankee is willing to admit that y'all got something special goin' on when comes to iced tea.
Sweet Tea is a staple of restaurants and homes across the Southeastern United States; so prevalent that a guest has to specifically request 'unsweet" in order to get a brew that won't instantly candy their molars, and enough of a cultural institution that several Representatives in Georgia presented House Bill 819 requiring all food service establishments to serve it. Sure, it was quickly revealed as an April Fools Day prank, but it bespoke the region's reverence for the "champagne of the South".
So, just what IS this magical elixir? Essentially, it's bagged or loose orange pekoe (that's a grade of black) tea, that's brewed and blended with sugar while it's still hot. A lot of sugar. If you're making this for the first time and you think you've swirled in enough sugar – you haven't. Keep pouring. Then pour more. If your stirring spoon is threatening to stand up on its own, you may still need to add more. Have a Southerner sample it if you're not sure. They'll tell you to add MORE.
If it's served in a Southern home, there's a good chance it'll be in a tall, slim glass filled with ice, and accompanied by a long-handled iced tea spoon with which one can stir in, bless their heart, even more sweetener if so desired. Milk is unheard of, and lemon or mint – well, that's just being fancy, but if it makes the Yanks feel at home, then so be it. That's just good ol' Southern hospitality.
There are as many ways to make Sweet Tea as there are Southern families. This is how my husband and I (he's from High Point, N.C.) like to make it at home.
The Wagner Family's Sweet Tea
For Simple Syrup:
* 4 cups sugar (Don't worry - not all of that goes in the tea!)
* 2 cups water
For Tea:
* 4 cups water
* 8-10 regular-sized or 3 "family sized" bags orange pekoe tea (preferably Lipton or Luzianne)
* Pinch of baking soda
* Additional water
Pour 2 cups of water and 4 cups of sugar into a saucepan and stir together. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and stir until thickened. Turn off heat, and set aside.
Strip tags from the tea bags, and tie strings to the handle of a wooden spoon, near the bowl. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Turn off the heat, and place the tea-tied wooden spoon in the pan with a pinch of baking soda (It smooths out the tea's tannins.). Once it's suitably darkened, and still hot, pull out the spoon. (Refrain from squeezing the teabags, as that clouds the tea.)
Stir 1 cup of the sugar syrup into the tea until it's thoroughly blended. Pour the mixture into a 1 gallon glass or metal pitcher, and fill to the top with water. Stir, and chill in the refrigerator. Pour the remaining sugar syrup into a glass jar, and cover.
Once the tea has cooled, serve it in tall glasses 2/3 filled with ice, with sugar syrup on the side so that guests may sweeten according to their personal taste.
Y'all come back now, hear?
(P.S. If you're having trouble with the comments link, try this one.)
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1-25-2008 @3:05PM Patricia Gerbig said... Your are going to a lot of trouble to make a good pitcher of southern iced tea. I agree with number 11. Leave it to a yankee to get it wrong. Most home made Southern tea is made with lemon. As for baking soda it was used to stretch your supply of tea leaves doing the time of the depression and war. Have a good day.
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1-25-2008 @3:13PM Carolyn said... Yes Yes! I love sweet tea and there is ALWAYS a picture in my fridge. Growing up, when someone asked for tea, the question was hot tea or iced tea - not sweet or unsweetened! Why I moved 'up north' I'll never know. (sigh) McDonald's has me hooked now - $1 for 32 oz. of real tea!
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1-26-2008 @9:55AM Linda Bullock said... My mother used baking soda in the brewing process - said it brought out the strength of the tea leaves.
Never use any brand other than Luzianne or Lipton.
Always refrigerate tea after it has been sweetened. Leaving it out in the heat (picnic) will cause it to sour.
Born and reared in the South and never had mint in my
tea. That must be what high falutin' city folk do!
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1-25-2008 @7:53PM James said... I was born & raised in the South (Tenn.)& I am 48 yrs. old & cannot remember a day that I have'nt had sweet tea to drink.I can drink it every meal (including breakfast) & have drank enough tea to probably be considered a conisseur.I always thought my mom made the best tea on the planet until I met my second wife;who makes the best in the UNIVERSE!!!,bar none.Every time that we have a church function or around the holidays,it never fails that she is not asked to bring at least a pichter of this wonderful nectar.And by the way;no one mentioned adding fresh lemon slices(it's heavenly !!!!!!)& nothing is more refreshing in life.I start my day off every morning with a big glass of tea to take my herbs & vitamins with after breakfast.As a matter of fact,I just might go have a glass right now.................
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1-28-2008 @11:09AM Josh Teo said... Thanks a bunch! My pa's from Clanton, Alabama, and though I grew up in the military (all over the place), we ALWAYS had sweet tea. It supposedly took Mom a while to get used to it, and even now she says that I add too much sugar, but your guys recipe sounded perfect. Two cups sugar/gallon with lots of ice is how Dad & I like it. Though I'd never heard of it, the extra syrup is brilliant. We can make it to Mom's taste and just sweeten ours - perfect. BTW I use a coffee pot (rarely for coffee) to brew 7-10 bags of whatever type of simple (usually cheap, orange peckoe) black tea we've got, and add it to the sugar, then fill with water and chill for however long it'll last. About a day, maybe two? Best part is, I'm in a dorm right now, and my only option for drinking the tea out of is are glass jars that're only slightly smaller than a mason. Just like at Lil' Mama's. Poor, poor me ;p
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1-28-2008 @7:22PM Vycky said... I grew up on sweet tea in Southern Illinios, I never knew it came unsweetened until we moved up north, by Chi town. But we have a family of diabetics, so now that I'm grown, I make it by nuking water in the microwave, then adding 3 or 4 tea bags to the big plastic cup, let it sit a few, then add it to a gallon jug, with 25 blue packets of sweetener. Fill with cold water n ice, and you are ready to go. We could never do sun tea, cause it takes too long! We go thru about a gallon a day, if it's only 3 of us. But thanks for the tip about baking soda, I just might try that.
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1-30-2008 @11:42AM Sue said... I live in Ala thats pretty southern wouldn't you say and i love my tea but never made it like this.
Sue
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1-30-2008 @11:52AM Sue said... I enjoyed this link very much
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1-31-2008 @1:03AM DiAnn Downs said... From Charlotte, NC and make my tea as listed below, depends on how weak or strong you want it. Boil about 4 cups of water, pour over 3 family size Lipton tea bags and let it sit, burner off, 1 to 4 hours, covered with a lid. Put 3/4 cup of sugar in gallon container and pour the tea into the pitcher, stir it well. Run more water over the bags and pour in tea pitcher until you have a full gallon of tea. Perfect for my yankee husband but I add 1 sweet n low to my glass already filled with 3/4 to full of ice. Perfect for both of us. Southerner all my life. LIPTON TEA-I have never had cloudy tea. Y'all come back, Ya hear.
DiAnn
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1-30-2008 @2:49PM DiAnn said... If you are a beginner in making tea, you might need to experiment on how strong & sweet. I had to do that when I married a yankee 20 yrs. ago.
How did he get in here anyway????? ha ha ha!
DiAnn
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2-07-2008 @8:51AM ep said... I'm a southerner transplanted to New England, and on a few drives back and forth, we found that any Cracker Barrel, North or South, will have southern-style sweetened iced tea. I'm fortunate enough to live near one.
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2-07-2008 @7:48AM TJ said... We live in the far south-Lower Alabama. The concept of unsweet tea here is almost unheard of. Any drive thru you only have about a 1 in 10 shot of getting UNSWEET tea when you order it. More often than not, I drive off, taking a sip, having the enamel come off my teeth, having to park, and go in to get UNsweet. On the other hand, tea here isn't seasonal like some states-365 days a year for iced, but getting lemon is a challenge. "You want WHAT in your tea? A real lemon?? No packet?? Sug, we don't have any lemons. I got some sugar packets though..."
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2-07-2008 @7:58AM Aunt Peg said... Born and raised in the heart of Louisiana I learned at a young age from my grandmother the best tea. I use a 2 quart pot that is used for nothing but tea. Start with cold water, boil, add 12 regular size Lusianne tea bags, hang over side because it needs to be covered to steep. When cool add 1 cup sugar in a gallon jug or pitcher, stir add ice to pitcher, enjoy,,,
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2-07-2008 @9:30AM Cheryl @ the quilt store said... My Mama is from SC and my Daddy was from Mass; so growing up I learned to love both sweet iced tea and milky hot tea. We had sweet tea after dinner in the New York summer and it's a nice childhood memory. Mama made it several different ways including sun tea. We weren't allowed soda pop, but there was always sweet tea!
Here's printing trick to help. It works for PC's anyway. Use your mouse to highlight what you want to print. Then go to the top of the window and hit the file button -> print. When the print window pops open, check the box for 'selection' and then OK. If it works right, only what you have highlighted will print and not the rest of the page!
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2-07-2008 @11:12AM richard said... Don't go too far south for your sweet tea. They don't know what it is from Boca Raton south in Florida
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2-08-2008 @7:21PM patsy mac said... what a tempest in a teapot! do any of these people really make tea? here's the real deal. pour out a quart of the hottest tap water you can get. add 3 tea bags. let set until room temperature. take out bags. add 1/2 cup sugar. stir until dessolved. store in a one quart wine carafe in the fridge. cover with saran wrap as tea soaks up the flavors of every thing else in the fridge. fill a glass as full as you can get with ice.cover with tea. enjoy. tea steeped this way is never bitter. to make it faster,use boiling water but time the tea bag soak to 12 minutes. longer means bitter. thats it!
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2-07-2008 @12:07PM Kary said... I'm a born & bred yankee who has lived most of my adult life in the south, Virginia and Florida. Growing up in the north I always liked my iced tea sweetened, but I had no idea what sweet was until I moved south! It's true that in any restaurant you must specifically ask for unsweetened & even then they look at you kind of funny lol. I like to brew an all day sun tea but I've done it in the coffee pot too. Fresh mint is awesome too, I usually grow my own. Crush the leaves then drop into the sun tea container. I don't use sugar anymore though, I've switched to splenda. It's still good but not quite the same. My opinion is, the further south you go, the sweeter the tea. I moved back north a few years ago, but I STILL ask for 'sweet tea' when eating out & I get some strange looks! Happy sweet tea-making y'all!
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2-07-2008 @5:27PM Lisa from Arkansas said... I make my sweet tea on the stove top. I fill the pan up about half way, add two family-sized tea bags, and turn it on high. While that's cooking, I put 1 3/4 cups sugar in a gallon jug. After the tea has been boiling for 2-3 minutes, I turn it off and pour that in the jug. I close the lid and give it a good shake to melt all the sugar. Then I refill the pan with cold water, squeeze the tea bags out a little, and pour that water in the jug. Next I finish filling up the jug with cold water, put the lid on, and shake it well to mix it all up. Finally, serve immediately over ice (my favorite way) or put it in the fridge for the next day (my husband's favorite way). This is my favorite recipe. Enjoy!
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2-08-2008 @12:33PM Mary Beth said... Skip the syrup...Just pour sugar in the bottom of a heavy pitcher or jar, add the strong (!) hot tea and stir...when the sugar is dissolved add cold water to taste. About 8 tea bags to 4 cups of water should do the trick for a large pitcher of tea!
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2-12-2008 @3:53PM Jennifer said... I'm a born and raised Georgia belle. I love some sweet tea myself. I'm known in my family for being the taste tester. (My dad sent me the link to this page.) We have well water at home and have come to use cold brew tea, which is quick and easy. If on city water you need to boil it to get the chlorine taste out. I always add around 1 cup, stir it up, taste it, and add more sugar if necessary. Splenda for mom and dad. Fresh mint and lemons are okay, but I reserve those for hot tea mostly. Store bought sweet tea is another way to go. My favorite is Milos, oh dear it's so SWEET!
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