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!
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!
This is a great idea!
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!
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 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!
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!
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.
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.