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!
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
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!
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!
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.
mmm.we drink sweet tea EVERYDAY!
(made w/ splenda)!
YUMMO
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.
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 🙂