Real Recipes From Real Home Cooks ®

real southern sweet tea

(4 ratings)
Recipe by
Tammy Bridwell
Wellford, SC

You will need the following: 1 gallon drink pitcher 3qt sauce pan (I use a stainless steel pan so I can see the color.) My family, for every family get-together, begs me to make my tea and bring it with me. They always tell me it's the best tea they've ever tasted, so I thought I'd post it here. NOTE: This tea is NOT diabetic friendly!

(4 ratings)
cook time 20 Min
method Stove Top

Ingredients For real southern sweet tea

  • 3
    family-sized tea bags
  • 2 c
    sugar
  • water

How To Make real southern sweet tea

  • 1
    In the sauce pan, put the tea bags and fill it up with water, almost to the top.
  • 2
    Put your eye on 7 (about 1/2 way between med and med-high) Put the sugar into the pitcher.
  • 3
    Stand over the pot and watch it simmer until it's very very dark, ALMOST the color of coffee.. should take 15-20 minutes. Then once it reaches the right color, turn the eye up to high and allow it to come to a rolling boil. Let it boil for around 4 minutes.
  • 4
    Remove the pot from the heat and spoon out the tea bags with a slotted spoon. Throw them away. Pour the hot tea (I call it tea concentrate) into the pitcher and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Run cold water into the pot and fill the pitcher up to almost the top. Stir.
  • 5
    Put the pitcher into the refrigerator and allow it to sit in there at least 24 hours before it's served.
  • 6
    Pour over ice in a glass and enjoy!
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