How To Make Iced Sweet Tea (Video)
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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My sweet tea showed up in my baby bottles as soon as Mom thought I didn’t
need milk all the time (probably pretty young)! We always joked that Mom would put about 5# of sugar in each pitcher. I came to Southern Plate on my
first visit looking for great iced tea as mine always tasted bitter. Your method
works great. THANK YOU-THANK YOU-THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!
I guess I came to the sweet tea pitcher late in life…I was all of 25 when I first tasted real brewed sweet tea. I haven’t looked for anything else to quench my thirst ever since. Mmmm sweet tea!!!
I make sweet tea the way my grandma taught me around age four. By then, I had been drinking it for a couple of years! She always made a syrup of the sugar with water in one pot and heated more water in another pot just to boiling point then she put in the teaball filled with black cut and orange pekoe tea. She always made three gallons at a time so she let the tea brew in the pot until it was very dark then split the syrup and the brewed tea up evenly between the three gallon jars. By the time the tea was dark enough the sugar syrup was cool. I use teabags now, of course, but still have my grandma’s teaball.
While my husband and I were dating, I invited him over for dinner and I had tea on the menu. He likes sweet tea and offered to finish it because I was handling the food in the oven. I had my favorite glass pitcher on the counter awaiting the water and sugar to be added before the hot tea. I was thankful for the help and thanked him for his offer, next thing I know I hear an explosion(a very loud one) and turned around to my favorite pitcher on the counter with hot tea in the bottom and nothing else.
The pitcher was broken all the way around but still held the tea, until I lifted the handle and the top separated from the bottom and tea went everywhere. I have since purchased a new glass pitcher but I don’t let him make the tea, lol. 🙂
Like you, I drank sweet tea from a bottle and remember giving it to my babies on occasion as well. My mother was practically famous in these parts of south Mississippi for her sweet tea, and it had to be Luzianne. She probably would not appreciate my telling this sad, sad story, but I vividly remember that February day in ’94 when Mama died after several days in the hospital. When I went to her house later that day I opened the refrigerator only to find her last pitcher of tea. I felt like such a traitor pouring it down the drain, but I’ll always have the memories of growing up with the best sweet tea ever!
Hi Christy,
Now is know what I hve been doing incorrectly all these years and my tea was tasting bitter. By gosh your method has saved my summer. Do southerners use sliced lemon in their tea as a usual thing? I don’t seem to have seen it used very much. Like you I can’t use sugar and substitute Splenda wherever possible. Diabetes don’t ya know. It’s a cruel thing cause I do love my sweets. Pillsbury now has sugar free cake mixes and they have used Splenda. I made your simple pound cake out of their yellow cake mix and it turned out perfect. Now I can have a slice with strawberries and sweet tea. Yum!
I have been drinking sweet tea all of my life. I can remember my Mother using tea leaves when i was a child. I make a gallon at a time and microwave my tea, which is my family’s favorite. I place 8 family size tea bags in about 8 cups of water and microwave for 4 minutes. I let it “rest” for another 4 minutes. Add 2 cups sugar (or sweetener) to the tea, mixing well, and pour into the gallon tea pitcher, filling with cold water. I have never had a problem with scorching. Love it!