History of Sweet Tea

Sweet Tea vs. Iced Tea

As with many beloved regional indulgences, the history of sweet tea is confusing and sometimes full of contradictions. In the American South, it's the drink of choice at church potlucks, wedding receptions, and other gatherings, and it's on the menu at every restaurant, cafe, or diner.

Ask for "tea" this side of the somewhat abstract Mason-Dixon Line, and you'll almost invariably get iced orange pekoe black tea that might be sweet enough to lock your jaws — unless you specify otherwise. Ask for tea anywhere else in the country, and they'll likely bring you something that looks the same – except you'll probably be responsible for sweetening it yourself with sugar packets.

Most Southerners will, with great regional pride, insist sugar be added in large quantities to "sweet tea" during or just after brewing, while it's still hot. It's okay to offer "unsweet" but not okay to offer unsweetened iced tea exclusively, a practice Georgia lawmaker John Noel wanted to make illegal with a proposed bill in 20031.

So, why are Southerners more likely to drink tea sweet, and why has "iced" been almost completely superseded by "sweet" in the South?

Tea in America

Historical records show tea first appeared in what is now the United States in the mid-17th century. Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam brought a love for green tea with them — a love the British kept intact when they took control of the area and renamed it New York. By the time of the infamous Boston Tea Party2, America's tea tastes had largely shifted toward black tea, although green tea is still included in some of the earliest-recorded iced tea recipes.

History of Iced Tea

Americans used to drink most of their tea hot. It's still popular, especially as an alternative to coffee, but more than 85 percent of the tea consumed is now chilled3.

Who Invented Iced Tea?

Americans, especially in the South, initially preferred their chilled tea on the alcoholic side of things, drinking spiked tea punches4 since the early 19th century.

Iced tea's popularity rose with the availability of ice, with a recipe for iced tea being found in an Ohio Cookbook5 in 1876. While not a recipe, a syndicated line6 that ran in newspapers in 1868 calls iced tea "the latest fashionable drink in Gotham." That's 11 years before a Housekeeping in Old Virginia cookbook recipe7 called for hot green tea to be poured over sugar and ice – considered the earliest recipe for sweet tea.

One popular iced tea origin story has tea purveyor Richard Blechynden8 spontaneously adding ice to hot tea during a sweltering 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

While Blechynden didn't actually invent iced tea, its popularity at the fair likely brought increased attention to the beverage and iced tea continued its rise as home refrigerators made ice readily available in the early 20th century.

Prohibition also helped the drink, as law-abiding citizens were left looking for an alternative to the hard stuff, while World War II would eliminate green tea's supply chain and unify iced tea drinkers around black tea. Somewhere along the way, tea got sweeter in the South.

Who Invented Sweet Tea?

At least one locality claims to have invented sweet tea: Summerville, South Carolina9. As part of the Sweet Tea Trail in this Charleston suburb, visitors can experience a Sweet Tea Mural and the World's Largest Sweet Tea.

In a skeptical 2013 op-ed piece for the Charleston City Paper, Robert F. Moss points out this claim is largely related to Summerville's standing as the location of one of the first U.S. tea plantations10. "Yankees," though, were drinking presweetened tea long before tea grew in South Carolina, Moss says, referring to the 1868 newspaper entry which surprisingly calls for tea to be presweetened.

After consulting various older southerners, Hill comes to the self-admitted unscientific conclusion that Georgia and Alabama natives started pre-sweetening iced tea sometime around the end of World War II. The practice of stirring sugar into already cold tea didn't seem to start disappearing from other areas in the South until around the 1970s, according to Hill.

While the question of who invented southern sweet tea as we know it today remains unclear, it's worth mentioning an early adopter of this drink: Milo's Famous Sweet Tea, a company based in Birmingham, Ala., that got its start as a restaurant before later expanding to grocery store shelves. Milo's now distributes its freshly brewed tea across the southeast and beyond.

In an interview with Imbibe Magazine11, Milo's heir and CEO, Patricia Wallwork, claims her grandfather Milo Carlton started pre-sweetening iced tea at his hamburger joint in 1946 to conserve sugar, instead of leaving it out in bowls, adding, "No one did this back then."

Southern Sweet Tea?

Sweet tea is deeply rooted in Southern culture, but it's surprisingly popular in areas outside of the South, thanks in part to McDonald's, Chick-Fil-A, and other chains making sweet tea a hot commodity over the last decade.

As young Americans order "Southern-style Sweet Tea" nationwide, their aging counterparts in Michigan, California, and even Texas12 lament having to specify "un-sweet."

How to Make Sweet Tea

Most Southerners don't look at a recipe for sweet tea when they make it. It's simple, and it's like riding a bicycle. Here's a three-ingredient recipe for those that aren't familiar. You'll need water, sugar, and orange pekoe tea – preferably one made specifically for iced tea. If the box says "sweet tea" or "Southern style" on it, that's a plus. Just make sure it doesn't already include sugar in the tea bags, as you'll want to add your own.

Southern Sweet Tea Recipe

This recipe is adapted from a Luzianne box of family-size tea bags and makes 1 quart of sweet tea. Make sure to check your box to decide how many bags to use since they can differ in size.

  1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and pour over one tea bag.
  2. Steep 3 to 5 minutes.
  3. Sweeten. For this step, you'll want to add sugar to taste (or until it's way too sweet for you to handle).
  4. Add 2 cups of cold water to the mix and serve over ice.

NOTE: Sweet tea doesn't last long13 before it starts to grow bacteria. While some people recommend not sweetening until you drink it, that's definitely become sacrilege in the south. You'll probably drink it too fast for this to be a problem anyway, but if you do need to store it, it will keep safely for 8 hours in a refrigerator. Just wait a few minutes to refrigerate it after brewing or it could turn cloudy. Use an airtight container if you plan on storing it longer.

Resources

  1. Restaurants not sweet on tea bill. The Red & Black. Accessed July 2021.
  2. What tea was thrown overboard in Boston Harbor? Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. Accessed July 2021.
  3. America is slowly—but surely—becoming a nation of tea drinkers. The Washington Post. Accessed July 2021.
  4. As American As Iced Tea: A Brief, Sometimes Boozy History. NPR. Accessed July 2021.
  5. Iced Tea - Methods & History. The Little Red Cup Tea Co. Accessed July 2021.
  6. The Story of Sweet Tea: From Middleton Place to Modern Times. Southern Flavor Magazine. Accessed July 2021.
  7. Recipe: Southern Sweet Tea. The American Table. Accessed July 2021.
  8. 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair: The Ice Tea Question. Irwin, Lyndon N. Missouri State University. Accessed July 2021.
  9. The Sweet Tea Trail. Summerville Visitors Center. Accessed July 2021.
  10. History of SC Tea Farms. Sciway. Accessed July 2021.
  11. Sweet Tea Is an American Classic. Imbibe. Accessed July 2021.
  12. The Sweet Tea Line. Texas Monthly. Accessed July 2021.
  13. How Long Does Brewed Tea Last? Let's Drink Tea. Accessed July 2021.