How To Make Iced Sweet Tea (Video)
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A lot of folks have asked me how I make my sweet tea so today I’m bringing you a video showing you exactly how I do it. Hope you’ll join me for a glass!
This is how we make our sweet tea but everyone has their preference. If you prefer a weaker tea, use fewer tea bags. If you like it sweeter, taste it and then add more sugar to suit you. Note: Most restaurants use a much more sugar than this :). We always go through a full gallon a day (at least) but if you have any left you can just store it in the refrigerator and enjoy over the next day or two!
Sweet Tea
- 5 Tea Bags*
- 3/4 Cup sugar (more if you prefer)
- Water
Remove tags from teabags and place in small pot. Fill up pot most of the way with water (exact amount doesn’t matter as long as the tea bags are covered and then some). Place on medium to medium high heat and bring just to a boil. Remove from stove eye and prepare your pitcher.
Fill pitcher halfway (or so) with cold water. Add your sugar**. Add hot tea. Stir until sugar is dissolved and fill remainder of pitcher with cold water. Serve over ice.
*We use Orange Pekoe tea but you can experiment with making iced tea with other teas as well. Earl Grey makes a delicious iced tea!
**I prefer to use Splenda or Ideal Sweetener in my tea but use the same amount as I would were I using sugar.
The trick to having a good smooth tasting tea is to avoid adding hot tea directly to the sugar or sugar directly to the hot tea. This scorches the sugar and creates a very bitter taste in your tea. To avoid this, place cold water in your pitcher first, add your sugar to that, and then pour in your hot tea.
If you have a traditional coffee maker, I talk about how to make sweet tea in that in this post.
Funny Family Stories of Sweet Tea
One time my mother was watching a television talk show and they were talking about how much Southerners love sweet tea. The host said “Well it’s no wonder, they’ve probably been drinking it since they were four!” Mama took objection to this and huffed “Four? I was putting it in your baby bottles by the time you were two!” ~giggles~
My Grandmother Lucille spent a great deal of time at the elbow of my Great Grandmother (Mama Reed) after she was married learning how to cook. A lot of the daughters in law and mothers gathered at Mama Reed’s house on Sundays to help prepare the big meal. Shortly after Grandmama joined the clan she was given the task of making the Sweet Tea. Back then it was made in a large glass recycled pickle jar. Grandmama poured the hot tea directly into the jar and set to stirring it up vigorously with a long handled metal spoon. A few clinks later and the jar shattered, sending sticky sweet tea all over Mama Reed’s clean kitchen floor. Everyone had a good and gracious laugh about it but Grandmama said “I liked to never got the sticky off’n that floor!”
How young were you when you started drinking sweet tea?
Do you have any special or funny memories of Sweet Tea in your family?
I’ll pick one of the comments below to win a Luzianne Prize Pack
Winner announced on this post and notified tomorrow evening. Giveaway closes at noon central time Friday, July 1st.
This Giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Joan Whitaker! I’ve been in contact with Joan and given her directions on how to claim her prize. Have a great day and thank you!
Disclaimer: This post was not sponsored by Luzianne nor was I compensated for doing it. I just think it’s awfully good tea. I also think y’all need to go make some right now.
“Don’t wait for people to be friendly, show them how.”
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I have been drinking sweet tea (never knew there was any other kind until I moved North!) for as long as I can remember! I too am a total devotee to Luzianne tea. You can imagine my dismay when my grocery chain took the 100ct boxes out of the store and now only carry the 24ct “family size” boxes. I visited every other grocery store in the area and one by one they stopped carrying the 100 ct. box! Then one day not long ago my daughter called me all excited and said she found my Luzianne 100 ct. box in Walmart! Now, ordinarily I don’t do my grocery shopping in Walmart, but you can bet I hightailed over there for my Luzianne tea! No other tea makes iced tea so smooth! Come to think of it, I think I will go make a batch. I put 10 tea bags in a pot that holds about 2 quarts of water, bring it JUST to a boil and let it steep for a few minutes (varies by how patient my adult children are being!) and then pour it into my 2 qt. pitcher that already has 1 cup of sugar in it. The hot tea melts the sugar. I then refill the pan with the tea bags in it with cold water from my fridge and pour that into the tea pitcher to make two quarts. It rarely lasts long enough to have leftover tea, but if it does, just put it into the fridge. I serve mine over LOTS of ice (it is usually still hot ’cause the “kids” can’t wait another minute!).
Just curious, is there a reason to use 10 regular bags as opposed to one family size? Is it better?
Hey Jean!
I prefer family size tea bags, I even use gallon size ones when I can get them, but i just used regular sized ones in the video because we have people from all over the world on Southern Plate and those are the ones most widely available 🙂
I use 5 regular sized tea bags in 2 quarts.
I use two family size tea bags for two quarts, four for a gallon
Gratefully, Christy:)
I was going to mention that I use my coffee maker to make tea, but I saw that you left a link for that. So easy! And yes, on occasion, we’ve discovered we have coffee-tea which is just wrong. We’re a Lipton’s family and sweet tea made with Splenda is on hand 365 days a year. Living on the Mason-Dixon Line, some of the fancier restaurants in the larger cities don’t serve sweetened tea and if you venture into Virginia, chances are you won’t find it in most any restaurant. It’s very irritating! Don’t they know the only way to serve iced tea is with a sweetener!!! Sweetening cold tea is a futile effort!
Hey Jean, I agree 110% you cannot add surgar to cold tea that is served in a restaurant. To me that is just wrong. I live in Missouri and is very hard to find it in restaurants but some are coming around.
If you’re lucky, some of them have simple syrup on hand, Bill, so ask for it. If they look at you as if you have a third eye, then they probably don’t. 😉
Been drinking sweet tea my whole life. Gave up pop last year but I can’t do without my sweet tea! I like Luzianne but mainly use Cain’s tea. I think its mainly in Oklahoma. Do they have it in Alabama?
So funny, I can’t even remember how young I was. That’s how little I must’ve been. I know my son was probably around 18 months. And he still loves it. I even converted my Yankee born husband to it!
Great video Christy!
i make sweet tea for some of my family. but I drink mine unsweet.
I have also drank Sw Tea for as long as I can remember…knowing my family around 2 yrs of age or so. I STILL use a recycled glass pickle jar but I stir with a wooden spoon *wink wink*
I’ve been drinking sweet tea since probably age 2 also! It’s second best to mother’s milk! 🙂
I would love to win some Luzianne tea because now that I don’t live in the South anymore, I can’t hardly find it anywhere.