Sweet tea....how do you make yours?

[Ottakee]

How do you make really good sweet iced tea?  I googled recipes online and see so many options/ideas

Sugar or stevia or combo?

How long to brew it?

How many tea bags?

Baking soda or no?

Basically I want to make about 1 gallon (2 different 2 at jugs) of tea that tastes really good.  I would love to reduce the sugar as much as I can But I love a good sweet tea.

[Lecka]

“Real” sweet tea I think will have simple syrup.  You can make simple syrup and then keep it in the refrigerator.

I believe for a pitcher I have seen one big tea packet, the ones that are for making a pitcher.  I believe we followed directions on the box for making a pitcher.  
 

I have not made it by myself...... there is so much sugar in really good sweet tea.  I drink plain black or green hot tea.  

[Pawz4me]

I don't know if mine is "good" or not. I make it for DH, he likes it this way. He prefers half and half.

Warm a pot with warm water and bring about a quart of water to a boil in an electric kettle.

Turn the kettle off, dump the warm water out of the pot, add a pinch or two of baking soda, then pour the kettle water over the tea bags. Put the lid on the pot and let it steep for 15-20 minutes. (ETA: I use four family sized tea bags.)

Meanwhile I add some cool water to a gallon jug and mix in the amount of Country Time Lemonade powdered mix you'd normally use to make about a quart.

After the tea bags have steeped long enough remove them from the pot and stir in 1.5 cups of sugar; stir until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. Add that to the gallon pitcher with the lemonade mix, and then add more water to make the full gallon.

If I were making straight iced tea (not half and half) I'd omit the lemonade mix and use 2 cups of sugar.

Edited March 4, 2020 by Pawz4me

[Lecka]

I just looked and I have had gallon-sized tea bags from Cain’s, Luzianne, and Lipton, and they are all good.  

[sangtarah]

Southern born and raised and this is how my family made it and how I continue to make it: 

boil water, turn water off, add gallon size tea bag to steep for 5-10 minutes, put sugar in large pitcher (we use 1/3 cup nowadays-but real sweet tea should be a cup or so), pour in warm water over sugar. 
I let mine sit on the counter until cooled and then enjoy. 

Edited March 4, 2020 by sangtarah
Mistake with sugar amount 🤪 it’s been a long day

[Pawz4me]

7 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

But hey, I have never heard of putting baking soda in iced tea. What does that do?

Supposedly it reduces the acid/reduces any bitterness.

[Scarlett]

Raised up in the south and I haven’t had sweet tea in 40 years.  I love love love, good unsweet tea.....Quick Trip in my adopted state of OK makes great tea.....

Sweet tea gags me, even though I was raised up with it as a child.  
 

 

[Lecka]

I am pretty sure we made a simple syrup with 2 cups of sugar for one pitcher.  It was a treat.  We also boiled tea in a soup pot.  Then a smaller pot with the simple syrup.  So good but it is way too much sugar.  My step-dad should not have it and we haven’t made it in years.  He likes plain iced tea with lemon.  
 

Edit:  I drink hot tea, but iced tea with lemon is refreshing and also very good 🙂

Edited March 4, 2020 by Lecka

[Lecka]

Something my mom does for iced tea also — she adds two or three small bags of herbal tea, plus one gallon bag.  It can give a good flavor.  I know it is good with peach herbal tea, but she does different ones.  

[Ottakee]

Thanks for the tips.  I have been using 1/4 cup of sugar for 2 quarts....so 1/2 cup or less for a gallon.....no wonder the "real" stuff is so good with 1 1/2-2 cups of sugar.  Sadly, my waistline says I do NOT need that much sugar.  I might need better tea bags.  I think the ones I have right now are the cheap dollar store ones.  My method is pretty right now.

Does anyone make it with part stevia and part sugar to cut down on the calories?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE sweet tea (born and bred on it) but I don't need the calories.

[Lecka]

My mom has added Splenda.  I think they like plain (unsweet) with herbal tea or lemon, better.  Or sometimes they make iced herbal tea from tea bags, with no black tea.  
 

I think my mom made it a lot weaker with Splenda because Splenda is kind-of expensive?  So I don’t know?

I think it is easier for my step-dad when he isn’t getting tempted with it.  It makes unsweet tea taste a lot better, I think.  I am not sure if he is not supposed to have that much Splenda?  He drinks a lot of tea. 
 

 

 

[Lecka]

I could be off on this but in my mind Splenda is about $7 for a bag where white sugar is about $1.  So then my mom wouldn’t use much of it.  So — it is hard for me to say.  

My impression is eh, she makes really good flavored tea.  

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Lecka

[Pawz4me]

I used to make tea with Splenda. I prefer it to sugar, but DH likes the real stuff.

[KungFuPanda]

I only do simple syrup if I’m serving people who I know don’t sweeten their tea. People can sweeten at the table with the syrup  

I use two family sized tea bags for a half gallon and steep in a quart of water that’s just under boiling.  (I think it’s 195 . . .I use a zojirushi water boiler.) I steep for 5 minutes and remove the bags without squeezing them. For southerners I use a cup of sugar. For northerners only 1/2 cup.  
 

I do not add baking soda. I don’t think I taste it right. It makes tea taste old to me; like it’s been in the fridge too long. I also don’t use stevia because it’s bitter to me, so plain white sugar it is. 
 

 

[Chris in VA]

We drank "sweetened ice tea" for years and years. 

We made ours this way--

Put 5 tea bags in a drip coffee pot filter basket (no need for a filter) and fill coffee maker with a full carafe of water. Run the coffee maker just like when you make coffee, only you are making a pot of tea. 

Add the now-brewed tea to a half gallon pitcher/container to which you have added 1 cup of sugar (I actually added less, like 1/2 a cup)  and then fill the rest of the way with ice and water. Ds would first fill the entire pitcher/container with ice then pour the hot tea into the pitcher over the ice, adding more cold water as needed to fill the pitcher completely. Skake to dissolve sugar. I avoided shaking by stirring the sugar into the hot tea before pouring into the pitcher. 

 

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, Ottakee said:

How do you make really good sweet iced tea?  I googled recipes online and see so many options/ideas

Sugar or stevia or combo?

How long to brew it?

How many tea bags?

Baking soda or no?

Basically I want to make about 1 gallon (2 different 2 at jugs) of tea that tastes really good.  I would love to reduce the sugar as much as I can But I love a good sweet tea.

I use loose tea (4 tablespoons), or 6 regular tea bags, or whatever equivalent of family-size teabags make a gallon. 🙂

Boil about, IDK, 1 quart of water. Add tea. Steep for 4 minutes. Remove teabags. Add sweetener and stir (I use about 1 3/4 cup of Splenda, which measures the same as sugar). Add a whole bunch of ice cubes and water to equal 1 gallon. If you added enough ice cubes, your tea should be cold enough to drink right now.

[Scarlett]

7 hours ago, Ellie said:

I use loose tea (4 tablespoons), or 6 regular tea bags, or whatever equivalent of family-size teabags make a gallon. 🙂

Boil about, IDK, 1 quart of water. Add tea. Steep for 4 minutes. Remove teabags. Add sweetener and stir (I use about 1 3/4 cup of Splenda, which measures the same as sugar). Add a whole bunch of ice cubes and water to equal 1 gallon. If you added enough ice cubes, your tea should be cold enough to drink right now.

Is this a typo? 😱

[Lady Florida.]

One gallon size tea bag per gallon of water.
Boil one gallon of water.
Add the number of tea bags for the amount you plan to make. Steep 5-7 minutes.
Remove tea bags. add sugar, and stir until it dissolves. No measurement, you use a sugar scoop and know when it looks right.
Pour it into your pitcher then add the remaining amount of cold water. (ex. if you're making 3 gallons, use 1 gallon hot so the sugar will dissolve and add 2 gallons cold to the pitcher).

We don't add ice to the pitcher. We refrigerate it once it cools, and add ice to individual glasses if desired.

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Lady Florida.

[Bambam]

I put 3-4 regular sized tea bags (I prefer white tea) in a glass measuring cup, add boiling water, let sit for several minutes, remove tea bags, dump some sugar (I use turbinado sugar) in the bottom of a quart size pitcher, pour in tea, stir until sugar is dissolved (we don't like our sweet tea super sweet), add tap water to fill.  We don't like our tea strong either. 

I've never heard of anyone using baking soda. 

[TheReader]

13 hours ago, Ottakee said:

How do you make really good sweet iced tea?  I googled recipes online and see so many options/ideas

Sugar or stevia or combo?

How long to brew it?

How many tea bags?

Baking soda or no?

Basically I want to make about 1 gallon (2 different 2 at jugs) of tea that tastes really good.  I would love to reduce the sugar as much as I can But I love a good sweet tea.

I have perfected a good sweet tea that my family likes; it's not "too" sweet, but is good/well balanced. 

I use a Cuisinart Iced Tea Maker rather than brewing in a pot on the stove. I set it to the strongest brew strength, and fill it with water to the max fill line. 

I put 6 "family size" iced tea bags (but not the "gallon size" or whatever, those are weirdly huge) in the tea bag basket. 

I put 1/2 cup sugar in the bottom of the gallon sized pitcher, and turn on the tea maker. When the first round goes through, I stir the sugar/tea until it dissolves. Then I add water to the max fill line and run it again (over the same tea bags). Repeat until the pitcher is full. 

They key is definitely melting/stirring the sugar at the very start with the hot brew (or make a simple syrup to start with, I guess). 

We played around with it a lot to get it the way we wanted it; I started with 4 tea bags and a cup of sugar (for a gallon). Went to 5 tea bags. Reduced the sugar. Went to 6 tea bags. DH decided to switch to refilling the water (I used to just do the first brew and then fill with cold water; it was DH's idea to rebrew each time to fill the pitcher; before that, half the family would only drink it on the 2nd day....). 

We use Lipton (or store brand that is like Lipton) decaf iced tea bags. 

[Pawz4me]

10 minutes ago, Bambam said:

I've never heard of anyone using baking soda. 

It's a very traditional southern way of doing it. Both sides of my family have been in the south since forever. My grandmothers always used baking soda when making iced tea, so did my mom. I've done it with and w/o and I can't tell any difference, but DH says he can.

[alisoncooks]

Sweet tea is so individual. Every family has their best way. Growing up, my mom had a special pot that was only ever used for tea, lol. It was a little thing, missing its handle, stained a bit brown from years of steeping tea. 4 tea bags and water and steep the heck out of it. Pour it in the pitcher, then add approx. a cup of sugar, and two more pot fulls of cold water. 

I rarely make sweet tea, though I love it. (Too much irritates my mouth.) When I do make it, I make it in a quart jar with a family size tea bag and sugar to taste (I use 1/3-1/4c).

[Lady Florida.]

I'm not from the south but lived in Florida most of my life, barring 5 years in Georgia where I got my first teaching job after college. Dh's family is from Tennessee, near the Cumberland Gap area. I've never heard of baking soda in tea. Not from his family, not from friends born and raised in a southern state, not when I lived in Georgia (first South GA, then the Atlanta area).

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, Scarlett said:

Is this a typo? 😱

Nope, although it's not an exact measurement. More than 1 cup, less than 2 cups. Ish.