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.
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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.
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Christy;
I was born and raised in Tennessee, and we always had a gallon of sweet tea & homemade lemonade in our frig. Mama never kept soda’s, but you could always count on a glass jug of sweet tea. I remember we had some new neighbors to move in and they had some kids my age, my sister baby sat them. They would not drink sweet tea, and we all thought they were just crazy for not liking sweet tea. Come to find out, they were Mormons, and were not alllowed to drink it. Well being from the South and Hillybilly country, we had just never heard of such a thang! Who ever heard of someone not drinking sweet tea? Just thought I would share that with you! Thanks for the tip on adding the sugar to the cold water, I’ve always put it in the hot tea! I will try your tip the next time! Love all your post!
Hi I am a Mormon tranplanted from Memphis to Utah. I drink sweet tea I just use decaf tea.
Hey, Christy! I started using your recipe & not adding my sugar to the hot tea. It DOES make a huge difference! I believe I started drinking sweet tea when it was put into my bottle as a baby, like you did. I was the most ALERT kid at my preschool! Haha!
I don’t remember when i first started drinking sweet tea, probably right after i quit the baby bottle.LOL I grew up on a farm in rural alabama and that or sweet
milk straight from the cow was all we had to drink… I agree with the comment about it being “Alabama Holy Water”. Life just wouldn’t be right with my Sweet tea..
My sweet mint tea is famous. 3 Luzianne decaf family size tea bags, (only Luzianne!), 4-6 decaf green tea with mint tea bags. Put the green tea in first, when you can start smelling the mint, add the other tea bags. Let steep for at least an hour. Put a bit of hot water and 1.5 cups of sugar in a gallon container. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the tea from the pot. Add the additional water into the pot, “swish” it around and pour into the pitcher until it’s full. Put in the refrigerator to let set, it’ll taste even better tomorrow!
We’re having the deep dish pizza tonight and we’ll just have to *suffer* through newly made sweet mint tea. 😉
From one southern girl to another….I’ve been drinking brewed sweet tea for as long as I can remember. It’s something my brother, dad and I always enjoyed, and now my kids love it, too! If it’s not brewed, it’s just not tasty enough for me. I’ve always loved sweet tea, too! Something about being a southern girl and sweet tea go hand-in-hand, doesn’t it?
Thanks for the tip on the sugar and cold water! I’ll sure do that next time I make a pitcher of tea. I always love it when I learn something new to make something great even better!
Thanks and have a wonderful 4th with your family!
My trick for avoiding the bitterness is the add a pinch of BAKING SODA (up to 1/2 tsp.) to the pitcher of tea. Since I sweeten with Equal or Splenda added to the glass, bitterness is not related to sugar added to hot water. I’m not sure where I found this tip–possibly Alton Brown. He’s always talking about food chemistry, so I assume the baking soda neutralizes acid that might cause bitterness. I don’t really know how it works, but it does work.
The first time I had sweet tea was when I got married. He was from Oklahoma and we had sweet tea every day from that day on.
My sweet southern Mama made the best sweet tea and I can’t even remember the first time I had it–probabaly in my bottle like you. The one unusual thing about it was that she didn’t drink tea, but I can remember years of seeing her make the best tea and tasting one teaspoon full to make sure it was right!!–It always was! She is gone now, but thank you for helping to bring back such a wonderful memory of her.