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
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I just made a gallon of sweet tea. I also use Splenda and I truly can’t tell the difference.
I have lost 100 pounds in the past 2 years and sweet tea with Splenda has helped curb the sweet tooth.
Now if there were just a replacement for Chicken fried steak, mashed taters and gravy…
How much Splenda did you use in your tea, Bill??
LOL Bill, I know EXACTLY what you mean!!!
And thank goodness for our SPLENDA!!! Diabetic, dieting, and hypoglycemic Southerners would die of misery without it!
Chicken fried steak and gravy fall under the “in moderation” category……so I think I’ll make a moderate amount tonight!
Hi,
Our family has always had big jugs of tea chilled to serve at all time. Once when younger and I went to visit a friend & inquired if they have iced tea in the fridge and they gave me a jar of powdered tea! I could not believe it, everyone that I ever knew has a jug/jar/pitcher or something with tea in it.
In defense of instant tea, if you let it chill it is so/so.
And when you brew it you must not let it come to a boil, must not squeeze the bags. The loose tea is much tastier as is the British tea but both are hard to find. Luzianne is widely available (and look for that $1.00 off coupon on the boxes this summer, inside the package). Other day on History channel, (I think) said if not for WWII and the stoppage of importing green tea that our common iced tea would be green tea as that was the preferred kind to make iced at the time. So they said that is how we ended up with black tea as our iced tea. But green is delicious too.
For variety at my house and my daughters, we will change out some of the regular tea bags for the various flavors like raspberry zinger/ blueberry/peach/etc.
The stevia sweetners now out there are so/so, but the sweet comes across to me like the sweet of say a carrot……..not near as good as splenda. Mama makes half/half splenda & sugar.
Just thought of another tea making tip, skim the foam off and it
helps it stay clear.
I’m a Midwestern gal, but we LOVE Sweet Tea in our house too! I always make sure and have some on hand for my Mother in Law
Big smiles here!
Luzianne (2 family bags)
put into sauce pot that I’ve had for 29 years…I mean the handle is gone it is so old!
3/4 cup Splenda…gotta watch that sugar ya know!
I drink it cold no ice straight from the fridge of a morning…everyone knows not to speak to me till I’ve had it too…LOL!
I have visited your site, but this is the first comment . . .
Thank you, I will have to try this, I have lived in the south since I was 10, but I really do not like my sweet tea . . .my mom never made it, being from colorado.
Maybe now I can make GOOD sweet tea!
Yes I am a southerner but not good a making tea.:) No one ever taught me. But I do remember having tea all the time.:) Love it.:) Thanks for this. I will have to try it.:)
Sharon:)
So true…it’s funny, I had the same “milk” experience when I was about 11 at a friends house. They’d just moved to our little southern town from CALIFORNIA!! Our world was so small then that they might as well have landed from Mars. They probably thought we were all nuts!
I found your blog one night when I was desperately searching for a good Chicken and Dumpling recipe. Sure enough…yours did the trick. I have made it many times since and am actually making it again tonight! I have your link on my blog. Thanks for sharing your recipes!
http://www.jexamae.blogspot.com
My family loves sweet tea! We have even converted one daughter-in-law from Michigan! We all grew up in Georgia, but now live in Oklahoma. The other day we were asking one son for some suggestions of a “new” place to eat out. He included in EVERY suggestion, “they have great sweet tea”, or “they don’t have sweet tea”… I laughed because that pretty much sums it up!
Gotta have that sweet tea!
Coffee has never been made in my coffee pot
OH YES,
There is ALWAYS a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge here. I think if I ever accidentally cut myself, sweet tea would spurt out of my veins instead of blood. LOL. You always come up with winners Christy. We need to have a big ole picnic and just make recipes from here and all get together and have a ball.
Nico Lets hear it for the Midwestern gals! Sounds like you have some great hospitality at your house!!!
That Good Part I use family bags, too! I use four for a gallon and then a cup and a half of splenda, sounds like we have the exact same formula! There is something about just thinking about sweet tea that makes you smile!
Lmerie Hey! I bet your sweet tea is great! If you do try this, though, let me know if there is a difference and if you like it!
Sharon I think tea is one of the things we teach the least as southerners. Its not because we don’t want folks to know how to make it, I think it is just that it is as common as water around here and everyone just assumes we are born knowing how! I do hope this helps and I am so glad you find it useful!
Belle hehe! Don’t you miss the days when your world was that small and innocent? Nowadays we have to live in this world where we know such travesties as families sitting down to glasses of milk are happening every day! ‘makes ya worry fer yer kids!’ So fun that you had the same experience as me! You can understand that I was seriously stunned!
Life as I know it WOW! Thank you!! I am so glad you liked them and have a new favorite! Its hard coming up with new things for a family, I know! Thank you so much for letting me know how they turned out and for putting them on your blog, too!
Merrie That sounds like something my son would say, how funny!! At least you know where his priorities are!! It is very strange for us whenever we travel somewhere that doesn’t have sweet tea, or worse yet, doesn’t even have ICED tea!
Rachel Now THAT’S a true southerner!!!!!
Citycowboy You know, I actually thought about titling this What Southerners Bleed When They’re Cut or something of the like!
Thank you for your compliment, cowboy!! I try but I always worry a bit whenever I post something, thinking “what if they think this is silly” or “what if they don’t like this one?” or “what if this isn’t southern enough?” , lol! It helps to know you think I’m on target!!!
I DEFINITELY Want a big old picnic! Y’all just hang on, if I ever get rich we’re having us a big old SOUTHERN FOOD FESTIVAL!!!! I’ll just fly all of y’all in from the corners of the world and we’ll fast for a few days before hand and then eat so much we have to roll ourselves back home!!!
Thank you all for reading Southern Plate and for taking the time to comment!! Your comments are so very appreciated!!
Gratefully,
Christy
Try using Lipton loose tea. You can find it at WalMart. 3 coffee scoops in the basket of your coffee maker then pour 1 1/2 pots of water through. This will make a gallon of the best tea you ever had. The loose tea is much better that tea bags.
I laughed about the milk story – you see, I was raised in Louisiana by parents from Oregon and milk was served with a meal – not tea. Now I HATE milk – lol! I don’t know if my mom ever made sweet tea when I was living at home. Now that I’ve been married for almost 24 years I have learned to make great sweet tea and chicken fried steak! I love your blog – you have inspired me to try some new recipes – last week we tried 5 in one week. My family probably thought I was crazy.
Of course, being from Mississippi, I grew up on Sweet Tea as well. But imagine my chagrine when I married a man who drank his tea with NO sugar! Yikes! It was almost unpatriotic to me. It still blows my mind that somebody can drink it without sugar.
Splenda is MUCH sweeter than sugar so if anyone is planning on using it they might want to experiment a bit with the amounts. Also, people prone to migraine headaches should stick to sugar. Splenda is a known trigger for migraines.
Life At The Lake Isn’t it funny how we live so very close to each other but our cultures are so very different on some things? LOL Oh wow, five new recipes in one week, that IS inspired!!! I’m so glad you are reading Southern Plate and you have my mouth watering for your chicken fried steak and tea now!!
Donna Bless your heart, having to live with such a travesty! LOL I can drink unsweet with no sweeteners if nothing else is available but….yeah, gimme something sweet any day!!!
Anonymous Its amazing how many of you have the same name! (that was a joke).
I have always found that splenda substitutes in equal amounts for sugar with no additional sweetness. Could you possibly be packing your Splenda when you measure it out, or using the smaller grained variety as found in the packets? When using the fluffy grained splenda which is designed for baking, it works out just fine for me and everyone else I know! I am sorry you’ve had difficulty with it, though!
Myself and my son both have migraines from time to time but Splenda has never been a trigger for either of us. Sounds like you and Splenda just don’t get along. I’m glad you are able to use sugar!
Thanks to you all for reading!
Christy
Great recipe, thanks so much. I LOVE sweet tea but being a (darn) Yankee, I didn’t know how to make it. One tip, though: Another cause of bitter tea is the type of tea used. Now, I love Luzianne tea, but I find most of the standard commercial brands (eg Tetley, Lipton, etc.) far too bitter because the orange pekoe content is too high. When I make any kind of tea, I go for blends such as English or Scottish breakfast. These are true “black” teas and give strong flavor without any hint of bitterness.
Your site is wonderful! My beloved late Aunt Betty was married to a southern gentleman whose mother taught Aunt Betty how to cook, Southern style. I bought her a covered biscuit server because hers were so light and airy that they’d float away otherwise. Gosh, I used to beg Mom to go to Aunt Betty’s for dinner. (Mom was a great cook, too, her specialties being southern Italian and plain old comfort food.)
Anyway, thanks for giving me the inspiration to learn a bit of Southern style cooking myself.
mmm.we drink sweet tea EVERYDAY!
(made w/ splenda)!
YUMMO
Oh Christy I love love love iced tea. While I was overseas I visited a store which produces their own coffee and tea products, and I bought home with me packets of their ice tea mix – I know that must sound dreadful to you to have instant ice tea. I’ve been drinking it non stop since I came home. The rate I’m going I will run out in no time. Actually it’s not meant to be ice tea, they sell it as a warm lemon tea drink, but I’ve been making it up and then chilling it before drinking.
I have tried in the past to make my own ice tea but it always turned out so bitter. Perhaps I let the tea brew for too long? In any case, I will have to try my hand at making ‘real’ ice tea again.
Just “Stumbled Upon” your blog and found your sweet tea recipe. Very interesting. I invented my own version of this a while back and it’s not all that different. I make a gallon at a time, but had no idea I was really making southern sweet tea. LOL!
Put 1 c. turbinado sugar in pitcher. Add half gallon hot water from water cooler. Stir to dissolve sugar. Add 3-4 Red Rose tea bags. Let steep for 15-20 minutes.
Fill rest of gallon with cold water, stir and refrigerate. I don’t use ice, just drink it cold from frig so it’s probably as strong as yours with ice. I use a pitcher with a lid so it stays fresh for the few days it takes to finish.
We grew up having Kool-Aid with dinner. Yuck. Tea would have been much better.
Now to try your Pecan Pie Muffins. Thanks!
Thanks for posting this Christy! Tea seems like such a simple, staple drink to have around, but I just wasn’t sure how to make a delicious iced tea!
I used your recipe, but substituted a couple mint tea bags and it came out great!
Your recipe was great as usual!
Interesting sweet tea article. I do want to point something out though concerning the South and the sugar used that we can see in the picture. If you’re going to talk about the South and sweet tea you should be using Dixie Crystals not Domino sugar!
Mark
Get-togethers at my Nanny’s house when I was growing up included my two grandparents, their 5 kids and spouses, 11 grandkids, and a couple of great-grandkids (all in a two bedroom, 1 bath house!) I remember Nanny making her sweet tea in a Harvest Gold enamel pot. After she’d mixed it all up, she’d hook a Corning Ware coffee cup (remember the one with the “open” handle that wasn’t connected at the bottom?) over the edge of the pot. We’d fill our glasses, jelly jars, or Mason jars (with that many people, you thanked God for whatever container you could find!) with ice PaPaw brought in (it was the round kind, the best I’ve ever tasted) … and pour the sweet elixir over it. I’ve never had tea taste so good since. Close, but hers was the sweetest.
P.S. – I don’t know if you count Texas as part of the “real” South, but we use Imperial Sugar (from Sugar Land, Texas) in our cooking!
Loved your article about sweet tea and I also LOVE sweet tea. The four folks at my house go through at least a gallon a day. We no longer use sugar either, but once you get used to the sweetner it is just as good.
As an army wife, I have traveled a lot and lived in 8 states. I now have a button that says Alabama is my home no matter where I lay my head. I will return there some day and let me tell you I hope it’s soon! (by the by, I lived in Hunstville)
I am stuck in yankeeville and it stinks! No one has heard of sweet tea here. I had a neighbor actually say, it is so funny how you guys…(that would be ya’ll)…always have tea with your meals in the south. Ugh. There’s no accounting for class.
Keep on keepin’ on! I love your site and I have your apple butter recipe in the crock pot right now!
A Southern Insurgent Stuck in Yankeeville
You know I am the dumb one that bought the stupid tea maker when a pot works just fine!! LOL
I made sweet tea for the 1st time in ages this morning. We’ve been lazy and buying the pre-made Milo’s tea. We use Lipton tea. If I ever go back to California I know I will embarrass myself like one of my cousins did by ordering sweet tea at a restaurant. The things you take for granted like not having to spend 20 minutes and have the sugar shaker making sweet tea.
As a southern girl sweet tea is very popular in our family. It’s the one thing that I never get tired of drinking. Plus you can adjust the amount of sugar so it’s better than soda. It goes great with any meal lunch or dinner.
You know, I just don’t know why folks who don’t live in the South get out of bed every day! No sweet tea, no biscuits, cornbread or chicken fried steak, either. I mean, bless their li’l ol’ hearts – they are just clueless – until they come down here!! Folks up north think were just dumb and sweaty, but they sure like to stay around and eat! I can’t believe how many people think Cracker Barrell is country home cooking. My dear late Grandmother would say “well, they ain’t never nothin, poor thangs!”
I just love your blog & recipes! I learned how to make sweet tea in bulk using a coffee maker when I went to work waitressing at the little local Dairy Queen at age 16. Coffee maker still my preferred method of making tea … I tend to let it boil over on the stove.
A dinner w/o sweet tea is like Christmas w/o the tree. We recently started making our tea with loose tea – made in a coffeepot.
Loved the story about the milk.
I love tea- I still remember a road trip as a child, when we tried to order iced tea at a restaurant and they brought us a little hot tea thing and a glass of ice…
I never boil the water with the teabags in it- I pour the boiling water over the teabags in the pitcher. Or put the teabags in the pot after the water’s boiled and you’ve taken it off the heat.
My method:
Put your tea bags in your serving pitcher. Use 1 family size or 4 small bags per quart.
Boil some water – when it boils, pour over your teabags. You just need enough to cover the bags.
Let steep about 5 mins. Fish out bags. Add cold water & sugar.
Also, I’ve never heard of hot water scorching sugar- I’ve melted sugar in hot water plenty of times. I thought bitter tea was from steeping too long.
[...] of the most common types of tea that is consumed is black tea, which is a dark tea prepared from fresh tea leaves. The name “black tea” is also used [...]
It sounds great; now I just need to buy some proper tea as all we have in the house is English black tea.
P.S. I have a link to your site on my blog.
I simply can not function without my sweet tea! I make a gallon a day and I am the only one that drinks it!! My neighbors and the people I worked with at tht Sheriff department love my sweet tea. I like it strong flavored and sweeeet.
When I moved to “yankee land” they only drank tea in the summer time. Freaked me out as we always drank it all year round and with every meal. I may be living in yankee land but my southern sweet tea is with me, when I go to visit my grandson for a few days I take my tea”makins” with me. He loves Mamaw’s tea.
We drink tea all of the time here too. You get a strange look when you go somewhere up north and ask for sweet iced tea!! LOL They just don’t know how to drink good tea!!
Love your site!!
Hugs,
Angie
Even in hard times…if I can find a glass of sweet tea, then I know that “all is well”.
A glass of sweet tea…it just don’t get any better than that!
I am a convert! I tried another sweet tea recipe last year from a show on Food Network, and hated it! But I knew there had to be something better, so I tried yours – fast, easy, and yummy – and calorie free with Splenda! Thanks!
Heidi
I absolutly love sweet tea! I have some friends from Tennesse that tried to teach me how to make some. Not sure they got it right though. This is so much better. I sometimes think that I was meant to be in the south.(I live in the NW)
Man, it’s interesting that a recipe for sweet tea is on here. When you grow up in the south it’s just part of growing up! But thanks to you now the whole world can partake.
My favorite breakfast is cheese toast and a big ol glass of sweet tea!
Hi Christy!
(sorry so long-everything is bigger in TX-even the tangents!)
Just wanted to let you know that your technique for brewed tea has become the cornerstone for my addiction recovery program. Growing up in TX, I grew up on “Sweet Tea” usually made by the gallon and stored in the frig in a glass jar that had once housed pickles. When we were young, we drank from pastel colored Tupperware glasses. When we became adults, we drank from larger colored glasses usually collected from a local steakhouse as their giveaway. Daddy was the only one that ever drank from the huge peanut butter jar, the one that matched the one that Mama kept in the frig with the green onions in it.
But that was a “tangent”. When I started to try to lose weight, the sweet tea was replaced with unsweet tea with sweet and low. After a few years though, I lost the taste for it. I tried everything-changed pots, techniques, brands, and finally gave up and started drinking Diet Coke. You see I was an avid Dr. Pepper drinker and could not fathom drinking Diet Dr. Pepper.
5 years later, I have a terrible habit-I drink at least 2 gallons of Diet Coke per day. Not bottled, fountain only, so not as much aspartame. My family has been worried for years and it has gotten to where my kids refuse to go to 7-11 for me to get my fix.
So I was trolling your website and came across your tea. Addiction cured!!!!
Thanks so much for all you do!!!
PS love the oven guard!!
Christie,
I know I am old and slow but I learned something from this tutorial that I never ever realized before!!! I have made sweet tea
all my married life (39 years) and sometimes it was great and sometimes not so. I thought that strange since I always use the same pot, same amount of tea bags, sugar and same pitcher. I just wrote it off to not a good tea day!!!!My mother in law made tea also and hers was always the same…. now I know why. when I saw that Statement about not putting hot tea over THAT WAS IT!! I now remember thst my mother in law never poured her tea over her sugar but added it to her tea after she added her water. I am now adding water to my sugar then the tea. Also about 15 years ago after a visit to my wonderful sister in laws home in TN, I switched to decaf tea my family doesnt even know the difference!!!!
Great web site. I enjoy many of the comments made. I also, enjoy sweet tea. I make mine in a coffee maker. I put 4 family size tea bags in the basket (cleaned & rinsed out). Fill water compartment and let tea go through the same process as you would making coffee. When all of the water is through tea bags in basket I sweeten the made tea in the pot and let it steep on the hot plate of the coffee maker for about 10 minutes. Then pour into a gallon pitcher and let cool to room temp. Then add tap water to finish filling pitcher. You can turn tea bags back into pitcher for stronger tea. Mighty fine!
Hey y’all,
I grew up in Alanta, GA, and love to make Sweet Tea using a stainless steel pitcher that can be heated on top of the stove.
Our children and grandchildren call this Mimi’s Sweet Tea and, yes, we drink ice cold sweet tea all year long. I married a man raised on a dairy farm in upstate NY, but he soon became a converted Southener.
I’ve found that Luzianne’s Family Style Tea bags have the freshest tea flavor and by attaching a regular clothespin to the paper tag, it hangs over the rim of the pot. I start with cold fresh water from the tap; bring the water to a boil, turn off the burner, then drop the large tea bag into the water, and let it steep for at least 20 min.
It’s important to avoid pressing the tea bag with a spoon. Pressing the bag releases the bitter tannins and causes bitter tea. I’ve added sugar to hot tea all my life and have never burned the sugar.
Sweeten with almost a full cup per large family-size tea bag, add water if necessary to make one-half gallon of scrumptious Sweet Tea.
Give this method a try. I’m going to start using less sugar and more Splenda to see if I can decrease the amt. of natural sugar we consume. I may also try making a full gallon of tea, using one bag of decaf-tea along with a regular bag. Don’t forget, Luzianne is the best.
I don’t drink tea, just can’t stand it, but when I married 30 years ago my husband was a sweet tea addict, growing up in Florida. So after many tries I came up with this one. I don’t drink coffee either, so the only thing my coffee maker gets used for is to brew tea. I use the gallon size Lipton tea bags. I buy them at Sam’s. I put one bag in the machine, pour in 12 cups of water, hit the on button, it does it’s job. I pour it in my gallon Rubbermaid pitcher, add 2 cups, yes 2 cups of sugar, stir. Then I add another 12 cups of water to the pot, hit the on button and when it is done I add it to the jug of tea. It is stronger this way, the way my hubby and kids like it. I let it sit out on the counter to cool down so the tea is clear instead of cloudy. If you put fresh hot brewed tea in the fridge it gets cloudy and who likes cloudy tea? My family goes thru a gallon of sweet tea a day!!My sweet tea is not bitter either from adding the sugar to the first batch of hot brewed tea. Me, I like my ice water.
We’re from Texas, and one of my daughter’s college roommates was a summer missionary intern in California last year. Now,she is legendary for not being able to cook at all. She once exploded an egg in our kitchen. About a week into the summer, I got a desperate text message from her…”tell me EXACTLY how you make your sweet tea.” My daughter became renowned at college for her sweet tea, cake balls, and Monday night dinners. Matter of fact, she is geting married and plans to serve sweet tea at the reception!
[...] Also, the folks at the Southern Plate Food Blog have two simple recipes for making Southern style sweet tea using either a saucepan or a well cleaned cof…. [...]
I think one of the first things I learned to “cook” was sweet tea!
It really made me smile to see this tutorial on here! People all over the world need to know how to make sweet tea. Thanks Christy!
Love your sweet tea comments…I use Lipton tea, I put a gallon size bag, from Sam’s in a tupperware microwave batter/pitcher with water. Set it for 5 minutes. Put 2 cups of sugar in my 1 gallon tupperware pitcher, pour tea over sugar, stir, add water and stir some more.
It’s great my kids loved it and now my grand kids love it. My best compliment is when my son’s friend in college requested some. I gave him a pitcher to bring by for refills on his way back to UT in TN.
My new daugher-in-law fixed it in Mississippi and her new friends really enjoyed it. Southern sweet tea is just plain wonderful. Couldn’t enjoy food without it.
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…