Southern Style Sweet Tea

With summer fast approaching, I thought I’d brew up a batch of my favorite beverage: sweet tea, southern style. The internet is a great place to find recipes, but if it has one flaw it is that there is too much information. It’s hard to find any two sweet tea recipes that even look similar to one another, and we all know that in the south they cook by eye. I thought I’d post a somewhat stable recipe as a good starting point, and then from there you can alter it more to your liking.

First things first, a picture to wet your appetite:

sweet tea

The Recipe:

(Makes 2 quarts)

  • Add 4 cups of water to a large pot on the stove.
  • Add 4 regular sized teabags of your choice. In this case I used 2x chamomile, 1 country peach passion, and 1 tangerine orange zinger. I think this combo is just about the best you can get without having any black tea on hand.
  • Heat the concoction until boiling, then turn the flame off and let it steep while you prepare your pitcher
  • In a 2qt pitcher, add about a cup of sugar (I use slightly less) and a whole bunch of ice. The ice will prevent your boiling tea from melting the plastic, and cool it off so it’s ready to drink faster.
  • Finally, pour the tea in and stir. Before the ice melts, the tea will still be warm which will dissolve the sugar much faster.
  • Throw it in the fridge, or pour into a glass with ice. Top with a lemon wedge and some mint if you have them on hand.
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