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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Coffee has never been made in my coffee pot 😉
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!