Sweet tea

An Example of Sweet Tea from the Southeastern region of the US

Sweet tea is a style of iced tea commonly consumed in the United States, especially the Southern United States. Sweet tea is made by adding sugar to bags of black tea brewing in hot water while the mixture is still hot. The tea is traditionally served ice-cold with only sugar. It may sometimes be flavored, usually with raspberry, lemon, or mint. Sweet tea can also be made with a simple syrup and is sometimes tempered with baking soda to reduce the drink's acidity.

Although sweet tea may be brewed with a lower sugar and calorie content than most fruit juices and sugary sodas, it is not unusual to find sweet tea with a sugar level as high as 22 brix (percent weight sucrose in water), twice that of Coca-Cola.

History

In the early 1900s, sweet tea was an item of luxury due to the expensive nature of tea, ice, and sugar. Ice was possibly the most valued of the ingredients since it had to be shipped from afar at a time when access to cool drinking water was already a relative luxury. In modern times it can be made in large quantities quickly and inexpensively.

The oldest known recipe for sweet iced tea was published in 1879 in a community cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree, who was born in Texas. The recipe called for green tea since most sweet tea consumed during this period was green tea. However, during World War II, the major sources of green tea were cut off from the United States (due to anti-Japanese sentiment at the time), leaving them with tea almost exclusively from British-controlled India which produced black tea. Americans came out of the war drinking predominantly black tea. Sweet tea was once consumed as a punch mixed with hard liquor with flavorings of mint and cream, with mint julep being a close version of the punch drink with its similar ingredients.

In 2003, supposedly as an April Fool's joke, the Georgia House introduced a bill making it a "...misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature" to sell iced tea in a restaurant that did not also offer sweet iced tea on the menu. The bill never went to a vote.

See also

• Amacha (literally sweet tea), a Japanese drink
• Cuisine of the Southern United States
• Iced tea
• Lipton
• Luzianne
• Red Diamond
• Tata Tea
• Tea
• Tortuga (cocktail)
• United States Regional Cuisine

Bibliography

• History of Iced Tea and Sweet Tea
• Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree. ISBN 1-4101-0508-3
• A Slate article on sweet tea