Southern Sweet Tea
All you need are a few tea bags, some sugar, a pot, and a pitcher to make this classic Southern Sweet Tea recipe. Ready in just 20 minutes, it’s sweet, refreshing, and perfectly smooth… the kind of drink that makes you want to sit back, relax, and let the sweet, slow rhythm of the South wash right over you!
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Southern Sweet Tea
- Serves: 2 quarts
- Main Ingredients: tea bags, granulated sugar
- Why You'll Love It: Learn how easy it is to make my 2-ingredient Southern sweet tea recipe. It's the most refreshing drink to enjoy on your porch throughout the year!
Sip Back & Relax with This Classic Southern Sweet Tea
Nothing, I mean nothing, is more Southern than sweet tea. Besides the occasional Hawaiian iced tea, Iced mint tea, or Iced cherry apple tea, we make Southern Sweet Tea at almost every meal (yes, iced tea for breakfast is actually quite good), make it daily year-round, and even put it in our baby’s bottles!
Go to any Southerner’s home, and the first question they ask after sitting down is, “Ya wan’ some tea?” These days I make my sweet tea recipe with Splenda, but it tastes just as good as real sugar. Southern sweet tea just completes any meal.
So, how do you make my Southern sweet tea? It’s easy! All you need is your favorite black tea bags (plus some water for brewing) and sugar (or Splenda). All we’re going to do is brew the tea in a sauce pot or a coffeemaker (more details below), then combine it in a pitcher with cold water and sugar. That’s it, and your refreshing glass of tea is ready to enjoy!
Recipe Ingredients
- Tea bags
- Granulated sugar (or Splenda)
- Water
- Small sauce pot or a coffeemaker
Tea Tips Mama Taught Me
- There are many tea brands on the market. Mama prefers Luzianne, but I usually use Tetley or Red Diamond. Just make sure you get a general blend or orange pekoe tea that’s specifically blended for iced tea (all of these brands will have this marked on the package). Orange pekoe is a generic term for a basic, medium-grade black tea.
- A handy tip: when you squeeze your tea leaves or tea bag, you release extra tannins, which will cause a more bitter taste. So just dump ’em without that extra squeeze.
- Adjust the amount of sugar to suit your taste. You might like more or less, and that’s totally fine!
How to Make My Sweet Tea Recipe
1. Brew the Tea
There are two popular ways of brewing tea. The one Mama and I use most right now (this may change when the wind shifts) is the sauce pot method.
The Sauce Pot Method:
For half a 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). You don’t have to worry about taking the tea bag labels off, either.
Now, as Mama says, “In a pot, bring tea just to a boil and then remove from heat and turn off the eye.”
Cover and steep the tea for 15 minutes. Once done, your tea is ready to be mixed!
The Coffee Pot Method:
You can also place your 5 tea bags INSIDE your coffee pot and run a water cycle through the coffeemaker. Once the cycle goes through, your tea is done and ready to be mixed.
If you do this, though, be sure to remove the coffee grounds from your basket. 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!
2. Make the Southern Sweet Tea
No matter which method you choose, in a matter of minutes, you will have brewed, concentrated tea.
Take your pitcher and fill it about halfway with cold water. Then add your sugar (or Splenda).
Note: This is a VERY important step because if you add your sugar to the hot tea, it will scorch the sugar and you’ll have terribly bitter tea.
Once you’ve mixed the water and sugar, THEN add your hot tea.
Adding the brewed tea will warm the water enough that the sugar will easily dissolve.
Give that a good stir, then serve your sweet tea over ice.
That’s that! Now sit back and enjoy a glass of authentic Southern sweet tea! I love enjoying a glass with delicious tea cakes, Southern fried chicken, or grilled pimento cheese sandwiches.
Storage
So, we always drink the tea fresh. It can be kept in the refrigerator, but Southern people prefer fresh sweet tea. Personally, I always throw out the leftovers and start fresh the next day, and so does my Mama. But if you do want to extend the life of your iced tea, use the baking soda trick below and store it in the fridge for up to 2 days.
You can also put those leftovers to good use by making this juicy sweet tea brined grilled chicken!
Recipe FAQs
You simply serve sweet tea in a glass with ice. Some people like to add a squeeze of fresh lemon, a dash of bottled lemon juice, or a lemon slice garnish. Mama likes to add an orange slice. Give it a go and see what you think!
Southern sweet tea is special because of the way the sugar is dissolved into the tea. Unlike other iced teas where sugar is stirred into cold liquid, the trick with Southern sweet tea is to first mix your sugar with cold water in your pitcher before adding the hot tea. Doing this gives you that perfectly smooth, even sweetness in every sip!
You want to steep the black tea bags for up to 15 minutes. The longer you steep, the stronger the tea taste.
So, some Southerners add a pinch of baking soda to their sweet tea to remove any bitterness from the black tea leave tannins. However, this is totally optional and not something I’ve ever done. But if you wanna give it a go, add it to the water when you boil your tea.
Y’all, I want to hear from you. Did this recipe transport you straight to a Southern porch? Leave a rating and comment below!
Ingredients
- 5 tea bags
- ¾ cup granulated sugar (or Splenda)
Instructions
- Place tea bags in a saucepot or coffee maker (down in the coffee pot). If using the coffee pot, run a cycle of water through it to brew the tea. If using a saucepot, fill it about three inches with water and bring it just to a boil, then remove it from the heat.5 tea bags
- Fill a pitcher halfway with cool water and add sugar. Stir. Then add hot tea and stir again. Add more water, if necessary, to make two quarts. Serve over ice.¾ cup granulated sugar
Notes
- There are many tea brands on the market. Mama prefers Luzianne, but I usually use Tetley or Red Diamond. Just make sure you get a general blend or orange pekoe tea that’s specifically blended for iced tea (all of these brands will have this marked on the package). Orange pekoe is a generic term for a basic, medium-grade black tea.
- A handy tip: when you squeeze your tea leaves or tea bag, you release extra tannins, which will cause a more bitter taste. So just dump ’em without that extra squeeze.
- Adjust the amount of sugar to suit your taste. You might like more or less, and that’s totally fine!
Hello everyone, I live in florida and I been making my own sweet tea for years now. And since I am the only one in my house that drinks it. I make a gallon at a time. I am trying to figure out if I use Splenda instead of sugar, do I use the same amount of Splenda?
I use Splenda and use the same amount for tea 🙂
Whenever I made it with a saucepan like this, I alway put the sugar in the pan too. I never really thought of it as tasting bitter. But I tried putting it in the ice water instead, and it does actually taste different. I can see where one might consider the other method tasting bitter, though I think most people are just used to it. It tastes better when I used plain old Lipton. I might try it with something better. One thing though.. the sugar can dissolve really well in the ice water. It’s not quite the same thing as mixing the hot and cold water, and then mixing the sugar. If you pour the sugar into the ice water and mix it well with a spoon, then by the time you add the hot water, it will still completely dissolve.
I make a gallon of “sun tea” every other day, for my youngest son, who likes unsweetened tea. using 6 teabags. I also make myself, and everyone else, sweet tea. I use the stove method and I boil the tea for 5 minutes, let cool down, remove tea bags and add the sugar to it. Then I pour it in the pitcher of cold water. Never had scorched taste n I been making it that way for 40 years. Tea is much sweeter, believe me.
The only thing I can’t understand and hate to hell about it all is the tea BAGS!!! No good tea tradition can be started without good loose tea! D’you know what is in the bags? Fannings , which are tea production leftovers (or simply, the dust).
One of the teachers I work with was born and raised in New York. She and her family moved here to Tennessee a few years ago and they are now hooked on sweet southern tea. While they were visiting New York for several weeks this summer, she emailed me for a recipe for sweet tea. They were having withdrawals. I sent her my recipe which is almost exactly the one you posted. I use Luzianne only. I must say good old sweet tea is hard to beat.
I have to say you don’t have to live in the South or be from the South to love Sweet Tea. I am from Chicago area and always loved Sweet Tea. There is always a pitcher of it in my refrigerator.
Ruthy when i make sweet i use my honey from my son beehive that is the best tea ever
I LOVE honey in my lemonade. Don’t care much for it in my tea though. We tried that earlier this summer. Have to make to different batches because my partner loves honey tea.