How do you make your Southern Style Sweet Iced Tea?
This question would of been more suitable for the summer time, but I get cravings for it during the worst of winter. I use Luzianne tea, boil water, add baking soda, brew it 7 min concentrated, add sugar, then pour of ice cubes. I’ll add a lemon or mint sometimes, but mostly plain.
What kind of tea do ya’ll use? I have been stuck on Luzianne, since up here north of the Mason Dixon line, that’s what I found to be the best blend. What other blends or tea companies capture the brightness of sweet tea?
Grandma’s recipe calls for Lipton yellow label tea. Obviously, not the best tea but I think for sweet tea it’s perfect.
I used to use American Classic being from South Carolina, but it’s been a bit hard to find lately. They also changed their blend a bit a few years ago, but it’s still really good.
Now, I’ve been using 4 Luzianne family size tea bags in 6 cups of boiling water for 1 min, take off heat and cover for another 10 minutes. Remove tea bags and add 1 1/3 – 1 1/2 cups of sugar until dissolved and pour over ice. Fill with cold water to make 1 gallon. Serve over ice with 1 T ReaLemon juice.
The tartness of that much lemon juice makes it impossible to stop drinking because it tastes sooooo good.
I like to make simple syrups for sweetening iced teas. Using herbals like fresh lemon verbena or fresh mint adds some nice flavor to the syrup. Put the crushed leaves in the hot brew of sugar water and after steeping strain them off.
I’ve found that most teas I like hot, I like iced as well. Infuse stronger but not longer.
Just brew as you would for hot tea and pour into your pitcher of ice to cool it before
pouring off to your iced glass.
The Ingenuitea is especially nice to brew in and then set over a pitcher of ice.
Because the sugar is already disolved it will be fine to add to the cooled tea.
Born and bred southerner here (S. Carolina and Tennessee) – now a northerner.
Lipton yellow box bags and a full cup of real sugar – that’s all I ever had for tea growing up. Brewed outside in the sun in a large glass gallon jar whenever it was possible.
To this day, that’s what I call “sweet” tea. There are other ways of sweetening and making iced tea, but the flavor just isn’t the same. I can’t drink sweet tea anymore for health reasons, but once in a while I buy a bottle of Lipton and reminisce.
I remember Luzianne as well, back in the 80’s – can still hear the commercials in my head :).
Hi all, I just found this site…
When I make iced tea, I do it very lazily. Gallon jug, 2 cups of sugar, 10 teabags, put in enough hot water to melt the sugar, fill up with cold water and stick in the fridge. Drink when cool/dark enough :)
I always tell people that McDonald’s sweet tea is almost sweet enough for me :)
If anyone would like to share their iced tea recipes for a chance to win $50 to our tea shop, here’s the chance for you to enter!
This is our facebook page for the contest: http://www.facebook.com/sanctuaryt#!/sanctuaryt?sk=app_210637892313370
Can’t wait to see them!
Gallon jug
1 oz of tea of choice
hot water
2/3 cup of agave nectar
Shameless I can drink almost a gallon of tea in a day. If it is a hot day it the whole gallon. I love iced tea.
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