Southern Sweet Tea
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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.
Nothing, I mean nothing, is more Southern than sweet tea. We drink sweet iced 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! Dr. Phil once jokingly mentioned that Southerners started drinking sweet tea at age three, but Mama and I looked at each other in complete confusion as we knew perfectly well all of us had started on it by age one!
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 literally all you need to do before you can enjoy a big glass of icy and refreshing Southern sweet tea.
Okay, enough chatting, let’s make some sweet tea, y’all!
What You’ll Need to Make Southern Sweet Tea:
- Tea bags
- Granulated sugar (or Splenda)
- Water
- Small sauce pot or a coffeemaker
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How to Make My Sweet Tea Recipe:
Brew the tea
There are two popular ways of brewing tea. The one Mama and I use the most right now (this may change when the wind changes direction) is 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.
Your tea is now ready to be mixed.
If you do this, though, be careful to remember 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!
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).
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.
So, we want to start with cold water, add the sugar…
…THEN add the 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.
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.
Recipe 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!
Recipe FAQs
How do you serve Southern sweet tea?
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!
What is the mixture of sweet tea?
Sweet tea is simply a mixture of brewed black tea with sugar, served cold over ice.
How long should I steep tea for sweetened iced tea?
You want to steep the black tea bags for up to 15 minutes. The longer you steep, the stronger the tea taste.
Why do Southerners put baking soda in sweet tea?
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.
How does Paula Deen make sweet tea?
Paula Deen makes sweet tea how I make sweet tea! The only difference is hers includes a garnish of fresh lemon slices and fresh mint.
Check out these other refreshing drink recipes:
Hawaiian Iced Tea (Non-Alcoholic Punch)
Iced Cherry Apple Cider Vinegar Tea
Sugar-Free Peach Lemonade (2 Ingredients Only)
Ingredients
- 5 tea bags
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
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.3/4 cup granulated sugar
Nutrition
Thank you for reading Southern Plate! Have a GREAT Day!
The tea bags do contain Fannings (aka floor sweepin’s) but we are the poor folks from the south and we are used to using the scraps/leftovers of the rich. That’s why our Pappys and Grannies dipped snuff or chewed tobacco instead of smoking tobacco. That’s why their dresses and shirts were made of flour sacks. That’s why if they had shoes the soles were probably cardboard. That’s why our coffee and tea are made from floor sweapin’s. I’m glad that most folks today have access to everything that money can buy. Me, I find myself saving the used tea bags and when I get enough from 4 batches of brewed tea (either by the cup or by the gallon) I brew them together one last time like my Grannie did before adding the bags to the compost pile and I find that brew to be the sweetest of all. TY little Grannie (Edna Earl Ward) McCulloch.
Very true and well said!!
I’m a 3rd generation Yankee, and the folks of my grandmother’s 1st generation of Americans had to be just as frugal and enterprising to survive, also. We didn’t have sweet tea growing up, but we had hot tea at every meal summer through winter (but glasses of milk also for kids) and slightly diluted warm tea had been put into our bottles too when we were infants, also. I used to be a bit envious of kids whose parents stocked Coke & orange soda refreshments in the summer or year-round, since a cold tea “punch” had been what had constituted a soft drink at home. A concoction of mainly tea with Concord grape juice, Zarex raspberry concentrate, lots of lemon juice and lemon rinds, plus sugar. I’ve missed that punch in years since, because Zarex is no longer available. As kids we had quilts made from old blouses and shirts, backed with store-bought flannel depicting kittens and other figures, with tied floss holding the squares to the flannel backing, but nothing insulating in between those layers. We’d cherished those quilts, though, and even my dad wore one or another of the many calico and flower print big-pocketed full aprons my grandmother had stitched, whenever he’d been the cook for Sunday dinners or had helped our mother cook meals. My dad had been quite a renaissance man in his own way–he could fix, build and repair just about anything, plus cook a full Sunday dinner on his own, diaper & entertain babies, and sew a loose button eye back onto a stuffed animal for an inconsolable toddler, also. I guess it takes a very secure man to don a big, flowery apron over his Sunday best suit pants, vest and shirt, but he’d worn them with a certain panache, or had tucked a clean dish towel around the waist band of his everyday clothes like short-order cooks had. It had taken me years to track down a big ol’ full country-style 1930’s-1940’s apron almost as good as those fabulous old aprons had been, and that had been only after coming up empty when trying to find an approximate Simplicity or McCalls pattern for one, though I’m not even sure my grandmother had used a pattern at all. I must confess to not being such a fan of sweet drinks anymore, but do appreciate all the “make do” knowledge that had been passed to me from earlier generations, particularly by the Greatest Generation and the remarkable generation before it, since both had endured both great hardships and the Great Depression as well.
To flavor the tea a bit, add a bag of Raspberry Zinger tea to the other tea bags. Yum!
I remember my redheaded, redneck uncle was visiting my aunt who lived in Southern California. In his best southern drawl, he asked the waitress for “sweet tea, please.” This was before McDonald’s had come out with sweet tea, so she had no idea what he was talking about. My aunt had to explain they serve tea unsweetened around these parts.
Christy,
I love your site, and this how to recipe is just great! Loving the pictures showing each step and the depth of information included.
I own a company that custom crafts our own Loose Leaf Tea blends, so I’ve learned a few things about Sweet Tea over the years, and you’ve absolutely got it right when you say there is nothing more Southern than Sweet Tea! Keep up with the posts!
I make my tea without sugar…Mom drinks hers that way, I swing from sweet to not sweet, and my husband and the boys like theirs as sweet as you can get it. I make up some sugar syrup and keep it in the fridge and everyone can add as much or as little as they like, it mixes well with even cold tea, and I go through a lot less sugar that way (no pile of unmixed sugar sitting at the bottom of the glasses).
Hello everyone, I live in florida and I been making my own sweet tea for years now. And since I am the only one in my house that drinks it. I make a gallon at a time. I am trying to figure out if I use Splenda instead of sugar, do I use the same amount of Splenda?
I use Splenda and use the same amount for tea 🙂
Whenever I made it with a saucepan like this, I alway put the sugar in the pan too. I never really thought of it as tasting bitter. But I tried putting it in the ice water instead, and it does actually taste different. I can see where one might consider the other method tasting bitter, though I think most people are just used to it. It tastes better when I used plain old Lipton. I might try it with something better. One thing though.. the sugar can dissolve really well in the ice water. It’s not quite the same thing as mixing the hot and cold water, and then mixing the sugar. If you pour the sugar into the ice water and mix it well with a spoon, then by the time you add the hot water, it will still completely dissolve.