Sweet Tea

[energyzer]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, being a non BBQ topic, but I noticed a thread in the Catering section about sweet tea. That made me think, there are a lot of people here from the south. Question, What is your best sweet tea recipe? It seems that sweet tea from the south is just in a class of it's own. Would anyone care to share their recipe?

[Swine Spectator]

This is a hot topic in my family. We all seem to have settled on two family-sized tea bags per gallon (Luzianne or Community preferred). The argument is over the sugar content. I am on the low end with 3/4 cup and my uncle is on the high end at 1 1/2 cups. Most of the family is in the 1 cup camp.

David

[Pyrotech]

Does anyone else make a simple syrup first? or just add the sugar to the hot brewed tea?

[T-Man]

Luzianne tea and sugar to personnel taste... There you go...

[Bludawg]

This how Granny BluDawg made it and I have never had a better glass of Texas Champagne.

6 lipton tea bags
1 cup sugar
*1/8 tsp baking soda
3 quarts + 1 cup ice water
* baking soda cuts the acid/tannins leaving a clean tea flavour

Put the 6 tea bags into a 1 quart mason jar and the sugar and baking soda into a pint jar
Bring 3 cups of water just to a boil pour 2 cups over the tea and 1 up over the sugar stir until the water turns clear
Steep the tea until the it is around room temp.
Remove the tea bags and squeeze them out into the mason jar. add the sugar syrup to the tea. pour the tea syrup into a 1 gal pitcher and fill with ice water. Enjoy!

[uhpilot]

Luzianne, 6-7 bags.
1 cup of sugar (the wife likes 1.5 cups) added while still hot.

Unsweetened tea + sugar does not = sweet tea. :)


Ricky

[bigluelok]

Mmmm sweet tea I toga try making some since ive only had sweet tea from the golden arches gotta have some homemade

[T-Man]

Hmm ..Bludawg ... The Baking soda deal.. I remember hearing that years ago ... Thanks

[Mdboatbum]

Luziane decaf. 2 family sized bags. 12 cups* of water run thorough the drip coffee maker into the carafe. In the carafe is 1 cup of sugar, the tea bags and 1/4 tsp baking soda. The water will be hot enough to melt the sugar. Let steep for 15 minutes, then pour into a pitcher with another 12 cups of cool but not cold water. Refrigerate over night.
*this the 12 cup mark on the coffee pot. I believe it's based on 6 oz. cups.
The baking soda really, really makes a huge difference.

[landarc]

I use a simple syrup for sweet tea. But, I add it when I add the tea bags. And I use Liptons, 4 bags per gallon. No boil and remove after 10 minutes or until I remember to.

[BluegrassSmoke]

3 Family size tea bags
we use 3/4 cup sugar, but most use 1 cup

boil water in sauce pan, remove from heat, place 3 tea bags in water for about 20 min.
gal jug ( old clean milk jug works) add sugar and then hot tea..shake to mix sugar and tea, fill up with cold water....
works for me. Not as sweet as Micky D's tea

[captndan]

In the restaurant if you have a sweet tea brewer it calls for corn syrup. Just put it in the place on top that says "syrup' and the machine does the rest.

[deguerre]

Tea is like cornbread. I don't put sugar in it either...

[Pitmaster T]

Originally Posted by Pyrotech

Does anyone else make a simple syrup first? or just add the sugar to the hot brewed tea?

On my trailer or at an event I made LOTS of sweet tea. Only thing was, I was in Connecticut and the name didn't quite catch there then. Most resturants you would ask for sweet tea and they would say yes they have it, bring you regular tea and pull out some sugar packets.

NOT THE SAME THING!!!!

The answer to your question is yes!!!!

I made a TON of simple syrup. TON... it keeps in the fridge well and I used it for my teas and lemonade.

For lemonade, I think somewhere when I used to make the Lemonade BBQ sauce that I used for the Baked Smoked Chops (smothered in the sauce), I started making my lemonade WITH a food processor, whole lemons (peels, pulp, seeds) and sugar which helped break things down. The mess of lemon crap is then strained and food milled and always needed more syrup to make a good lemonade. This would also be the base of my sauce. It is amazing how the taste came from the oils in the peels. This was doubled up with standard country time lemonade though to make it go further and with some added pulp people thought I had made a huge batch of homemade lemonade (10 gallons) when actually I made half of it from scratch.

So about tea. I think the SS is crucial to this but for some reason, like I said, people were buying more cokes and stuff than tea up there. In much the same way changing the name from BBQ Spaghetti and Meatballs to Cosmic Slop and Armadillo Eggs more than Tripled my sales (the recipe never changed), going from sweet tea to Fruit Tea, doubled my tea sales.

My fruit tea was a blend of Luzianne (which I had to have mailed to me) and frozen fruit concentrates, and of course water. SS was added to make it balance. I added one other thing to a 5 gallon supply. Almond Extract!!!! I would have women come just for the tea. Later they started buying my other items like "BBQ Sundaes" (Plastic Vintage Coke glass filled with two inches of brisket or pulled pork, followed by two inches of my Stellas' Sweet and Tangy Baked Beans, and two inches of a choice of Grady Tater Salad - a mix of sweet, red and white potatoes in a hit me fred inspired sauce OR Slaw all topped by a Pickle Spear, "Cup O Pizza" (inspired by the Movie the Jerk) and "Cup of Slop" (Cosmic Slop and an Atgomic Buffalo Turd to top it off) all served in a cup with a fork so they could get their Q on without the intimidation of a big ass meal. 5 bucks... dolla for the tea.

Hold it...wasn't this about the Tea?:blabl a:

[Pitmaster T]

I wonder if people will realize that many of us forget things... and this little diddy here is about the most valuable damn thing I have seen on here in quite some time.

People ask me why my coffee is so good, I use a trail hand trick that adds a bit of salt to the brew to soften the water (often quite hard round regions here)...

the other day I was going on about baking soda.... this brings an out of balance water back to neutral (remember the exchange in hydrogen atoms), adn yes it also fixed the ph of tea. When things are in balance you taste more. There are tons of flavor receptors on your tongue and they ring bells of all sorts; sour, acidic, salt, sweet, savory.... heat.... anyway.... when one of these is out of balance, it throws off the ability for you to perceive what the others are saying. I would liken it to making a BBQ sauce that has so much heat in it you cannot enjoy it...so you bring the heat down with carrots or reducing the peppers so you can taste other things.

BROTHER YOu ARE MY HERO FOR THE MONTH FOR THIS. I LIKE THE TEXAS CHAMPAGNE NAME TOO!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Bludawg

This how Granny BluDawg made it and I have never had a better glass of Texas Champagne.

6 lipton tea bags
1 cup sugar
*1/8 tsp baking soda
3 quarts + 1 cup ice water
* baking soda cuts the acid/tannins leaving a clean tea flavour

Put the 6 tea bags into a 1 quart mason jar and the sugar and baking soda into a pint jar
Bring 3 cups of water just to a boil pour 2 cups over the tea and 1 up over the sugar stir until the water turns clear
Steep the tea until the it is around room temp.
Remove the tea bags and squeeze them out into the mason jar. add the sugar syrup to the tea. pour the tea syrup into a 1 gal pitcher and fill with ice water. Enjoy!