Sweet Tea Season Has Arrived
May 17, 2009 by Marye Audet
Filed under Tea
Yep. The temperatures have officially hit over the 80 degree mark here in Texas (more than once) and it is now officially sweet tea season. Get your glucose meters out.
I did not grow in up the south. We moved to Texas when I was about 10 or 11, but by the time I was 16 I recognized that sweet tea was an institution that was taken as seriously as football in this area. Not everyone could make it right. My mom, for example, bless her Midwestern heart, bought presweetened instant tea with lemon. God rest her soul.
No, tea was an art form, perfected by generations of women that talked like Paula Deen, and knew that sweet tea was the answer to everything life threw at their families. Open any refrigerator door in the South in the early 1970s and there would be a pitcher (probably tupperware) of sweet tea looking back at you. Center shelf.
We created out Farrah Fawcett hair styles with a blow dryer, round brush, hair spray, and a big glass of sweet tea. We chatted around the dinner table in our avocado and orange kitchens over pitchers of sweet tea. In fact, the day that Nixon resigned I watched with a glass of sweet tea in hand. There was protocol, tradition, and several pounds of Domino sugar in that tea.
What wine is to the French and Italians, what vodka is to the Russians, and what beer is to the Germans, sweet tea is to any southerner worth their hushpuppies.
C’mon, you know it is true. Sunday afternoon? Wyatts cafeteria? Fried catfish? Sweet tea!
There is only one way to make sweet tea. The sugar can’t be added last. You have to bring the water and the sugar to a simmer until the sugar dissolves. Then you steep your tea. Then you let it cool at room temperature. Then, and only then can you refrigerate it.
There will be no silliness like adding sugar to all ready prepared unsweetened tea. Just pour that stuff on your roses.
Make yourself a big pitcher of sweet tea, pour it over ice, and drink it out of a mason jar. That’s some real southern libations, y’all.
If you need more instructions than that…well, you are obviously from the north…but here they are How to Make Tea, Hot or Sweet. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
image:maryeaudet
This is such a funny post! Before I comment, let me list my credentials as a Native Texan. My ancestors, on both my mother and daddy’s sides, moved to Texas around 1850
Now, as a Native Texan (who has been displaced to New England for almost 20 years thanks to the United States Navy) I MUST comment on this!
Fist of all, I have never, NEVER known anyone in my family, or any of my friends families, who has made sweet tea by simmering the sugar in the water! Maybe it’s a Dallas thing?? Back when I was a kid my mother, grandmother, great grandmother and aunts used to make sweet tea by bringing water to boil in a saucepan, turning the heat off, then adding loose tea. I have no idea how much… but it was POTENT! They let that steep for God only knows how long, but not til it cooled off too much, then poured it through a strainer into a pitcher with sugar in the bottom of it. Some of my relatives then added water to the pitcher, some did not, leading you to have to ask whether the tea was diluted, or undiluted so you knew if you needed to add water to your glass along with the tea. As time went on, that method evolved into using tea bags instead of loose tea so that we could then actually drink the last few sips without having to chew tea leaves (BLECH)
Second of all, there is a sweet tea “season”? We drank it (and drink it here at our house) all year long!
How I make iced tea:
Fill tea kettle with filtered water
bring to a boil
turn heat off
Pour 1.5 cups sugar or Splenda in the bottom of a gallon sized pitcher
tie 8 regular sized tea bags together
Pour hot water in pitcher over sugar/Splenda
Drop in tea bags
Steep for 10-15 minutes
take out tea bags
Stir
Fill pitcher the rest of the way with filtered water
Stir
Enjoy!
I love you, Marye, but you make sweet tea in a weird way LOL!
LOL Terry..that is just how I learned from the *best* sweet tea maker in Dallas. This woman was about 200 years old and she was renowned for her tea. She told me the*secret* was to put the sugar in the water as you were heating it, always use loose tea, and never put it in the fridge until it was room temp.
Well, I am gonna have to give that a try… not the loose tea part though… don’t wanna go TOO crazy all at once! LOL!
Terry..you need to move back here..you are turning in to such a yankee….God forbid you went too crazy!
I’m workin’ on it! I have gotten some AMAZING confirmations over the last couple of days, that say moving back to Texas is the right thing to do… if I can just last about 3 more years!
You know, the not putting it in the fridge until iot has cooled may be one of those things that are done , not for flavor, but from wierd ideas. My dh insists we mustn’t put hot food in the fridge because it will waste electricity. The thing is all health standards say put the food in the fridge when it is hot so that it doesn’t get a chance to breed nasty stuff that can make you sick.
So when dh insists we leave something out no one will eat the leftovers. They get tossed the next time he goes out.
I wonder if the tea was left to cool because the gal who taught you felt putting hot stuff in a cold fridge used more electricity?
Actually Ginger, many types of tea develop a bitter flavor if you shock them by putting them in the cold fridge while they are still hot. I have tried it both ways…SHould never put ice cubes in hot tea for the same reason.
Good to know, you just keep on educating me.
I feel the need to make sweet tea now. My dad would always make the sun tea, that’s what got me drinking tea. I definitely don’t drink that much tea, but maybe this afternoon, when it’s 90 degrees, I’ll make some. Although not by hand and not sweat tea, but it’s a start.
When we were living in Virginia my then 15 year old son taught me to work sweet tea the way you described it. I use the same method to make iced coffee. Yummy!
Smart boy!
well o.k. then!
Yeah…me..the great educator