Sweet Tea: The Elixir Of The South
Nothing, I mean nothing, is more Southern than sweet tea. We drink it at almost every meal (yes, iced tea for breakfast is quite good, actually), we make it daily, and we even put it in our baby’s bottles.
Dr. Phil once jokingly mentioned that Southerners started drinking sweet tea at age three, but Mama and I looked at each other in complete confusion as we knew perfectly well all of us had started on it by age one!
Go to any southerners home and the first question they ask after sitting down is “Ya wan’ some tea?” These days I make my sweet tea with Splenda, but it tastes just as good. Sweet Tea just makes the meal. Mama did these photos for me so you get to see more of her beautiful sun room. I’m also including the email she sent me where she put some writing ideas for the post!
Mama Says, “The drink that puts the drawl in our speech and the pep in our step. It has been known to be fed to our babies in their bottles as soon as they can have something other than formula. Do you remember when you came back from Gusty’s and was so surprised that they served milk at supper??? You had never seen anything other than tea served at suppertime. Just thought I would give you a few things to write about.”
She’s right. I was sixteen the first time I had dinner at a friend’s house and they served glasses of milk with their supper. I had never seen nor heard of such a thing in all of my life. To my sixteen year old self, they could have just as well had walked right out of a flying saucer and started playing the bagpipes and it wouldn’t have been any stranger than seeing milk on a dinner table!
There are two popular ways of brewing tea. The one Mama and I use the most right now (this may change when the wind changes direction) is the saucepot method. For a half gallon of tea, put five regular sized tea bags in a pot. Cover with water. You want about three inches of water in your pot.
I use Luzianne tea because I hate to take all the little envelopes off the tea bags. I even leave the tags on them when I brew the tea. It hasn’t killed me yet. I guess it adds fiber.”
In a pot, bring tea just to a boil and then remove from heat and turn off eye.
Your tea is now ready to be mixed.
The other thing you can do is place your 5 tea bags INSIDE your coffee pot and just run a cycle of water through the coffeemaker. Once the cycle goes through, your tea is done and ready to be mixed.
Be careful if you do this, though, to remember to remove the coffee grounds from your basket. Many times growing up Mama would have supper on the table looking all wonderful and we’d take a sip and discover we were having “Coffee-Tea”. Hehe, we always had fun with her when that happened!
No matter which method you choose, in a matter of minutes you will have brewed, concentrated tea.
Mama adds:We always drink the tea fresh. It can be kept in the refrigerator but southern people prefer their tea fresh. I always throw out the leftovers and start fresh the next day. I don’t personally like lemon in my tea. If I add anything, it is a slice of orange.”
Sweet Tea
5 tea bags
3/4 cup sugar
Makes 2 quarts
Place tea bags in sauce pot or coffee maker (down in the coffee pot). If using coffee pot, run a cycle of water through to make tea. If using a sauce pot, fill about three inches and bring just to a boil, then remove from heat.
Fill pitcher 1/2 of the way with cool water and add sugar. Stir. Add hot tea, stir. Add more water, if neccesary, to make two quarts. Serve over ice.
Thank you for reading Southern Plate!! Have a GREAT Day!
~Christy
Posted by Christy Jordan
on Oct 9 2008. Filed under Beverages, FEATURED Southern Favorites!, Southern Classics.
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I have never been able to make good sweet tea…. until now!!! I have bought 2 tea kettles and two electric tea makers in the past, and I never could get it strong enough or sweet enough. Well, you have made my husband so happy because he loves tea, and I have been making the best tea ever! Thank you so much!
I wish you would try my sweet tea and post it. I think you would love it a lot more
http://themiddleeasterncook.blogspot.com/2009/09/smooth-sweet-tea.html
I LOVE Cold Sweet Tea but can’t stand it when it gets watered down by ice! So I started making Sweet Tea Ice Cubes! I just pour sweet tea into ice cube trays and put them in the freezer. Now my is always cold and never watered down!
I am smiling. I vividly remember being a girl, probably 16 or 17yrs old, working at a restaraunt in Tennessee. A woman came in and asked for a cup of hot tea. It was the oddest sounding request I’d ever heard but I was happy to oblige. I don’t know who was more confused, her or me. I brought her a glass of sweet tea w/out the ice!
[...] Sweet Tea: Elixir Of The South [...]
I am so happy to have found your site, as well as receipe for sweet tea. My husband has asked me to make this so many times and I never get it quite right. I am hoping this does the trick. Again, love your website and all the great receipes. Makes me long to be from the South!
I think water can make a big difference in the taste too.
My mama has town water…her tea tastes different than mine. I have well water.
I make almost 2 gallons a day of tea. I use a quart jar, 5 teabags and heat in microwave 4 minutes. Let it sit for however long it takes me to get back to it…then mix with cold water and 1-1/2 cups of sugar. My husband drinks this constantly….
I cannot have sugar substitute due to migraines. sigh…
Haha i like the fresh part my husband picks on me cuz a pitcher of tea lasts me 2days at the most. And you better believe tea for breakfast i drink it from the time i get up till im in bed.
[...] Sweet Tea [...]
[...] Drink Iced tea [...]
I love this article! My family has entered the modern age, though. We always brew a mason jar of tea in the microwave then add it to a pitcher of sugar water
i used Stevia extract as a sugar substitute because i am diabetic. Stevia is really sweeter than sucrose.,-.
My father grew up in Kentucky and his family is scattered around Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. As a kid, I always knew to expect lots of sweet tea when we went to visit my grandparents! I remember getting tired of drinking only tea after a few days and finally asked my grandmother for a glass of water after I’d been outside playing with my cousins. Everyone thought it was hilarious that I wanted water! Also, I didn’t know that tea has to be sweetened. There was always a big pitcher of sweetened and unsweetened tea because back then there wasn’t Splenda or other good artificial sweeteners. Maybe it’s because they were from Kentucky and people do things different there? Or maybe my grandmother just started making unsweetened tea after my grandfather became a diabetic? I don’t know!
In any case, I love sweet tea (and I have to admit, “unsweet” tea too) now. I hope you don’t mind me sharing how I like to make it sometimes. Get your 10 tea bags and put them in a 1 quart measuring cup. Fill the measuring cup with boiling water and let it sit for a couple of minutes. Fill a gallon pitcher half full with cold water, then stir in 2/3 cup Splenda (or regular sugar, or you can leave it out). Pour in the concentrated tea, then put in a 10 oz container of thawed 100% frozen juice concentrate (if it’s still frozen, just put it in anyway and it will thaw in the fridge). It works best if you use a cranberry or raspberry blend. Tonight I used Raspberry Apple. (Note: Whatever you do, do NOT use a tea blend that has pineapple juice in it because it will look disgusting and taste worse! I’d imagine a juice blend that has orange would be just as bad) Stir it up, top off the container with the rest of the water so you have a gallon of tea, and enjoy! It’s so nice with the tea and fruit flavors and looks pretty to boot. Would actual southerners make my Fruitea, or would you consider it to be an abomination?
Oops, meant to say don’t use a JUICE blend that has pineapple in it. Not a tea blend. Man, I remember it seemed like such a good idea to use pineapple, too…
[...] will be sweet tea served from large pickle jars and lemonade served from a barrel and stirred with a [...]
I’m a midwesterner but have lived in NC over 20+ years. I make some pretty good “sweet tea” but does anyone know how to make “sugar syrup”? I like to make unsweetened tea for myself but my BF likes sweetened. I could make 2 pitchers (too easy) but I hear the syrup dissolves easily even in cold tea – I tried to make it once but it didn’t turn out right – any ideas out there?
thanks, Linda
The “sugar syrup” you are referring to is sometimes called a “simple syrup” typically made with 1 part sugar to 1 part water. Here’s a good recipe: Mix three cups of sugar and three cups of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Lower the heat to medium and simmer for about 3 minutes. Let cool completely. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
i just thought that married life is the happiest point of my life.:,~
Has anyone tried the Lipton ice tea with a hint of peach or raspberry? Wal-Mart is the only place I have found them, but they make really good iced-tea. They come in family size tea bags. Both are good, but the peach is my favorite.
I haven’t tried it but it sounds like something my mother would LOVE. I’ll tell her about it!
Thank you!
Christy
I have to share one of my daddy’s stories, this one about sweet tea … When he was a young man, in the early 1930s, he was a dishwasher around Smackover, Arkansas, where the oil industry was beginning. This was way before Splenda, Sweet N’Low, or even saccarin – if you wanted sweet tea, you put sugar in it. You put sugar in tea that has ice in it, and it takes a LOT of sugar and a lot of stirring to get it sweet enough to drink … and people tended to leave a lot of sugar in the bottom of the glass at the cafe where he worked. He and his fellow dishwashers were tired of scraping out all the sugar from all those glasses. So they posted a sign:
“USE LESS SUGAR AND STIR LIKE HELL. WE DON’T MIND THE NOISE!”
He didn’t keep that job long, but that’s OK, ’cause that’s when he moved to Wink, Texas, where he met my mom, and where they got married in 1938.
Thanks for everything, Christy! Here’s to you and sweet tea – clink!
There must be something wrong with me, because we don’t make sweet tea that way.
When we make sweet tea we add the sugar to the water “before” we boil it….and after the water is boiling we turn it off and add the tea bags. It really makes a difference in the taste.
Must be a Kentucky thing or maybe just a family thing. I ain’t sure which.
Do you have one for instant tea? I’ll try this one to. I usually make a gallon, Do you have recipe for a gallon? or is it just better half a gallon. I love tea, but i can’t seem to get it just right.
Girl….dont you know you are ‘sposed to put a pinch of bakin’ soda in your tea…(takes the bitterness out)…and makes your tea sit longer in the frigerator. Try it! You can taste the difference. (Add the pinch when you remove your bags from the heat)
[...] at Tina~ and it absolutely stunned me. I happily found your site when I was looking to perfect my sweet tea. My tea had a taste that must have been the scalded sugar. Thank you… my tea is now [...]
[...] 4. Don’t forget the iced tea! No matter the season, Sweet tea is always the beverage of choice in the South. Here is my recipe for perfect sweet tea every time! To view the tutorial, click here. [...]