For The Best Southern-Style Sweet Tea, Follow These 9 Tips

Tea has been around through much of recorded history, and it's a prominent drink in many different countries and cultures today. One specific type of tea has become so ingrained in an American subculture that it's synonymous with that region, and that's Southern-style sweet tea. It features in movies and songs about the South, and is ubiquitous throughout the region in restaurants, homes, grocery stores, and convenience stores. Although you can purchase a jug of sweet tea at your local grocery store or grab a tall cup of iced tea at the fast-food drive-thru, there's nothing quite like a big pitcher of freshly homemade Southern-style sweet tea.

Making tea seems easy at first glance, but brewing the best tea is an art form — each step of the process has to be done a specific way if you want everything to come out perfectly. I should know. I grew up in a "two pitchers of tea in the fridge" family, where making fresh tea daily was a part of the household routine. I still keep freshly brewed sweet tea in my own home, and I've even made it in a few restaurants over my more than 15-year food industry career. And today I'm going to share nine essential tips for making the best sweet tea so you can start brewing it like you were taught the tradition by your Southern Mamaw, too.

The first step to brewing perfect Southern sweet tea begins long before you ever start boiling your water. When you're at the grocery store doing your shopping, you want to choose the best tea available to you. The gold standard brands for iced tea of any kind are Luzianne and Lipton, but you can technically use any kind of unflavored and labeled black tea. Orange Pekoe is the ideal choice, but Ceylon or English Breakfast black teas also work in a pinch. Avoid any flavored teas, including fruity varieties, as well as green or white teas, among others.

There can be a little variation in the strength of your tea, based on personal preference, and the right amount of tea bags for you will change based on this. However, it's important to note that Southern-style sweet tea should be fairly dark. Some iced teas are so light you could read the newspaper through your jug, but traditional Southern options won't be. Three to four family-sized tea bags or about 12 to 15 standard tea bags per gallon of tea is the sweet spot. Go for the minimum if you want something a little lighter or the maximum if you like a stronger drink. Remember, if you choose the right tea bags in the right amount, you'll end up with something that's not only perfect for drinking, but also for brining your fried chicken in — a true Southern double whammy.

You should use filtered or spring water to make your Southern-style sweet tea — or any drink that requires water, including a refreshing pitcher of lemonade. Avoid using tap water because it can contain odd flavors from the chemicals it's treated with, your pipes, or (in the event of well water) the minerals and bacteria it contains. These odd flavors might be metallic, chemical, salty, earthy, tart, or even reminiscent of rotten eggs. Everyone's tap water is different, and it's not uncommon for it to change slightly from one day to the next. Regardless of which odd flavors your tap water has on any given day, they'll make their way into your Southern-style sweet tea and ruin the flavor.

To avoid this issue, you can buy a couple of jugs of filtered or spring water at the grocery store or use water bottles if that's what you already keep in your home. These will have a more consistent neutral flavor. Alternatively, you can use a water filter pitcher or home water filtration system if you're worried about using too much plastic or want an option that's more cost-effective in the long run. Some systems are hooked right into your home's plumbing system, while others are simply attached to your kitchen faucet.

One of the most widely accepted ways to make proper sweet tea is to steep your tea bags in hot water. And yes, your technique is incredibly important if you want to make a big pitcher of refreshing, delicious tea.

To start, you're going to fill a large pot with fresh water. The exact amount doesn't matter that much, but I like to add half as much water as I'll need in total. So if you're going to make one pitcher of sweet tea, fill it up halfway and dump it in the pot. If you're making two pitchers (which is what I prefer), you'll fill one up all the way. While that comes to a rolling boil, tie your tea bags together by their strings and drop them into the bottom of the container. Once the water has boiled, carefully pour it over the tea bags, and allow it to steep until it reaches the color you're looking for. Then, carefully pull out your tea bags, pressing them gently on the side of the pitcher to get out extra water — don't squeeze them or they might burst.

This process is perfect if you want a standard-strength tea that doesn't have any extra bitterness. But if you're looking for a Southern-style sweet tea with a little more oomph, try our next tip instead.

I know most people will tell you to never boil your tea bags at all, but to only steep them in hot water like the above tip says. You can absolutely do this, and it works great every time. But in my family, we like our tea strong with the first hints of true bitterness outliving the added sugar.

For this reason, I was always taught to bring the water to a boil, drop in my tied-together tea bags, and let it go for two minutes — but don't boil any longer than that because the tea bags might burst! After two minutes, take the pan off the heat and allow the tea to steep off-heat for an additional five minutes in the pot. Then remove the tea bags, pour your tea into the pitcher, and continue the process like normal.

If you're worried about damaging the tea bags or boiling too long, you can also drop the bags into the boiling pot after turning off the heat. Leave the pot on the heat for two minutes before pulling it aside to steep for five more. The result will be a little less strong and bitter than the brief actual boil, but not too much so.

If you want to make truly traditional Southern-style sweet tea, there's only one sweetener option — granulated sugar. And despite some belief to the contrary, you don't want to add so much of it that it becomes overpowering. The tea and sugar should be costars, so the sugar shouldn't be given the starring role.

There's a little wiggle room in achieving this balance if you want to stick to the traditional path. Per gallon, between ½ cup and 1½ cups of sugar is the sweet spot (pun intended). Using ½ cup per gallon will create something subtly sweet, while 1½ cups of sugar per gallon will verge on the sweeter side. If you want a truly perfect balance between the sweetness and the tea, 1 cup is ideal.

While it may not be traditional, there are alternative sweetening methods you can use, depending on your preferences or dietary restrictions. Traditional or not, the best sweet tea is the one you can safely drink and enjoy, so do what works best for you. For example, some people prefer to use a simple syrup to sweeten their tea, which uses granulated sugar but doesn't dissolve it directly in the brew itself. Other people might use sugar alternatives like monk fruit, coconut sugar, stevia, xylitol, or Splenda if they can't use real sugar for any reason. Just keep in mind that the final taste will be a little different than real Southern-style sweet tea.

You should never boil the sugar with the water or tea bags. This gives everything a syrupy, overly sweet, and sometimes burnt flavoring that ruins your sweet tea — even a simple syrup should be made separately if that's what you choose to use. Instead, you want to dissolve your granulated sugar in the hot tea water at the bottom of your pitchers after removing the tea bags. Since the liquid should still be quite hot, just stir it thoroughly. This may take a few minutes, but you want to keep stirring until the sugar's fully dissolved, or you'll be left with little gritty bits that give your tea an odd texture.

If you're briefly boiling your teabags, like my family does, I suggest dumping your sugar into the bottom of your empty pitcher. If you're making two or more gallons at once, do this for each container. Then, pour the pot of tea water over the sugar, dividing it across appropriate containers, before stirring until it's all dissolved. Pouring the hot liquid over the sugar will help it dissolve more easily.

This tip brings us to the part where I provide my middle-of-the-road answer to one of the most controversial questions revolving around Southern-style sweet tea: Does baking soda belong in brewed cold tea? I'm one of those who rarely add it, but I also believe there are times when it's crucial.

Baking soda works to keep your tea clear and stops it from becoming too bitter (or even downright astringent) when it's left in the refrigerator. When tea's made right, it will only cloud and become overly bitter after it's been sitting a while. So if I know the tea will be drunk within three days, I don't add baking soda. If I'm not sure, or if I'm making a big batch I know will take longer to go through, I'll add it. It's not even that baking soda changes the flavor or texture of sweet tea. You should add so little that it doesn't make any real difference, but this is the way I was taught to do it, and it's worked well for me for roughly three decades.

If you decide to add baking soda, only add the tiniest amount so it doesn't give your tea a powdery or drying taste. Each gallon only needs between ¼ teaspoon and ½ teaspoon to work. Add it at the very end, after you've diluted your tea with water and just before you pop it in the fridge to cool.

Southern-style sweet tea is always served cold. It's the main thing that distinguishes it from common teas served in places like the United Kingdom, China, or India, where tea is often drunk hot. Leaving your tea in the refrigerator overnight will make the tea cold without issue, so this tip is optional, but I still recommend it.

My Mamaw didn't like to wait long for her tea to be cold enough to drink, so she'd dump ice into the pitcher until it was about halfway full after dissolving her sugar. Then she'd stir it for a few minutes so some of the ice would melt before filling the pitcher with room temperature or cooled water, leaving one to two inches of empty space at the top for ice melting. Whether she realized it or not, this technique actually offers several distinct benefits beyond the tea getting colder faster.

If you pour a big glass of iced sweet tea when the tea is still even slightly warm, it makes the ice melt. In turn, this makes the tea taste watered down. But if you pour cooled sweet tea into that same glass, the ice melts more slowly, so it gets colder without losing its full-bodied flavor. As a bonus, adding ice from the beginning means your refrigerator's temperature won't rise as much when you put in a gallon or two of tea, which is good for food hygiene.

Generally speaking, I'm a very experimental chef and baker. I love trying new techniques and testing out brand new ways to make traditional things. For example, you can find me adding extra ingredients to my baked beans — things like canned fruit, cheesesteak meat, and fresh apple slices are just as likely to grace my pot as the standard bacon and brown sugar. But I'm a purist when it comes to Southern-style sweet tea, drinking it plain and unflavored, just as it's meant to be. However, there are some variations that modern non-purists accept under the Southern sweet tea umbrella, and you might want to try one (or more) to switch things up.

Although you should never add lemon to traditional sweet tea, some people accept lemon sweet tea and Arnold Palmers as approved variations. In case you're not familiar with them, Arnold Palmers are also sometimes called a "half and half" because they contain equal parts lemonade and sweet tea. Spiked and peach options are also widely accepted, as is mint sweet tea — if you've ever had a Mint Julep, you'll know Southerners are quite fond of their fresh minty drinks. Whether you consider any of these variations true Southern sweet tea or not, they may be worth trying. In particular, any mint or lemon drinks are especially refreshing on a hot summer's day.