If you don’t live in down south, you probably grew up drinking unsweetened iced tea. Why do we do that up here in the north? I mean, we already have to deal with snow and ice and a higher cost of living and more taxes…so why would we take the sugar out of our iced tea?!
My husband is absolutely in love with sweet tea, and we only get it on our trips down south. Placed up north that say they serve sweet tea are liars. Recently, I thought to myself, I have access to all the powers of the internet…I must be able to figure out how to make authentic southern sweet tea!
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, I sure did figure it out! And now I’m going to share it with you so you don’t have to spend hours on the interwebs and experimenting!
What you need:
— 3 cups Sugar
— 1/8 teaspoon Baking soda
— 3 Lipton family size tea bags or 12 regular tea bags
— water 🙂
Note: I can’t find Lipton family size tea bags where I live, but I just discovered you can get them on Amazon!
My husband is an addict, so this recipe makes a gallon of sweet tea. Get yourself a gallon size pitcher or cut the recipe in half if you want less (but why would you want that?).
Ok! Here’s what you do. Put 4 cups of water in a pot over high heat on the stove. When it begins to boil, turn off the heat but leave the pot on the stove, add your tea bags, and the baking soda. Yes, I said baking soda. Turns out, it removes the bitter taste from the tea. We don’t want bitter tea…we want sweet tea!
Now, leave it alone to steep for 15 minutes. Not 14 minutes, really not 10 minutes…15 minutes! While it’s steeping, add 12 cups of water to your pitcher…and maybe clean your kitchen or something so you’re not tempted to mess with the tea early.
Get ready to add the sweet to your sweet tea!
After 15 minutes, scoop out all of your tea bags and give them a squeeze to get all the tea out of them. Then, add 3 cups of sugar to the hot tea. Yes, 3 cups. Don’t let me find out you added less, because you’re like “I don’t like things too sweet.” Shut the front door. You should have a little sugar mountain in your tea!
Now, stir that sugar into the tea until it is dissolved. Once that sugar is all absorbed, add your tea mixture to the water in you pitcher and stir it all together. You’re done! I promise you, you won’t have better sweet tea unless you have a southern gramma who’s making it for you! Enjoy!
Let me know if you try this recipe and what you thought!
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