I think the most important part of making GOOD sweet tea is adding the sugar while it's hot. You can't just add sugar to iced tea and expect it to turn out quite right.
You are right about that. I've ordered sweet tea at times at a sit-down restaurant and they'll usually have iced unsweet tea with accompanying sugar packets. Might as well through it down the drain.
I'm a southerner who had to give up sweet tea because of my amazing ability to produce large kidney stones. I had know idea tea contributed to kidney stone formation. But several doctors told me it was the #1 cause of stones in the south and the reason the South is called the Stone-Belt. I sure do miss sweet tea but having stones as big as marbles are PAINFUL AF!!!
If you look up foods that prevent kidney stones, you will learn that bananas prevent the chemicals in your kidneys from forming stones. There are several foods that will help prevent those
where i live in the uk its been 38 degrees centigrade, thats about 100 degrees farenheight, and humidity in the UK in the summer is always high, and our homes and shops don't have any air conditioning, try being in this heat without the air conditioning that you are fortunate enough to have, especially jam packed on public transport. also where i live winter temperatures can reach as low as minus 20 degrees centigrade, although that is rare. i make my own version of ice tea with berry flavour tea bags, and boiling water which cools and ends up in the fridge, as i hate our british hot tea, yes a british person that hates british tea, ice tea is not available here like it is for you, i am jealous, i would love it, if it were available.
@@paxmanjp2765 Two years ago, I kept track: Triple digit heat index from April 27 to September 21. People not from the southeast can't fathom it: It's not the heat, it's the humidity. If it rains, even worse-- just turns into steam. But I wouldn't trade it. Far enough north we get all the seasons, but far enough south to not have to deal with too much winter... Speaking of which, that's another thing north people don't get about winter in the south: sleet and ice storms (kind of how we southerners don't get what's so bad about driving in the rain in Southern California).
David Wellman I was born in Illinois (like 30 minutes from good ole Chicago aka the Windy City) and raised in Alabama (major humidity and rain here lol!) so the extreme heat and cold never really phase me since I experienced both for awhile! That’s also why my mom is a pro at driving in rain and snow 😂😂😂😂
As a Southerner, I will attest to the fact that sweet tea is consumed on the daily by many many folks. In summer months, I pretty much only drink coffee in the morning and sweet tea throughout the rest of the day with an occasional Pepsi. And by "throughout the rest of the day", I mean I go through about three or four gallons a day, just me.
@@devandestudios128 as a southerner you drink Pepsi? As a southerner I ask what flavor Coke you want. If you want "cola" flavored Coke you get a co-cola
I agree. Sweet tea has always been in my fridge and drank daily. I don't care for lemon with it. It's my grandson's favorite drink, although he wants extra sweet, "freshly made" tea. Meaning, he prefers it warm over chilled, but will drink both.
The three food groups are In no specific order Sugar Salt And Fat If you can get them all in one food stuff item you have achieved “foodvana” Example: BBQ
This Tennessee boy has been making it with Splenda since Splenda was available. My southern ass craves the sweet but I don’t eat sugar at all. Prefer Lipton teabags to Tetley.
Luzianne is the brand of tea to buy for making sweet tea. I take my iced tea half and half at the restaurants when I go out. Half sweet and half unsweet. I’m a Southerner and drink this on the regular. I love hot teas, too.
Some places make it too sweet or I want to pound it from heat and thirst, so I'll get it half and half. BTW, if you are in the south and want to buy it pre-made, try Milo's.
Being from Louisiana, I grew up on sweet tea and pretty much drank it everyday. And, as I’ve gotten older, and traveled quite a bit, I have learned to always have sweetener packets on me whenever I leave my house, especially when I travel. No matter where I go, the tea is not going to be sweet enough so I always try to be prepared.
It's like the opposite at southern Chinese restaurants and Hardee's for some reason. It's like tea flavored sugar syrup. But yeah anywhere past Tennessee and I'd be carrying sweetners to
Usually when sweet tea isn't available, is when depression has struck a whole household/family. At least in my experience growing up. Also from Louisiana.
As a kid, iced tea was cheaper than milk and we couldn't afford soda. It was tea or water out of faucet. As a teen there was nothing like chugging a glass of iced tea after mowing the lawn (humid summers in Maryland with no a/c back then).
@@crazzyblueeyes83 when i was living near Prestonsburg, Jerry’s restaurant served unsweet and acted appalled anyone would want sweet...though they did offer me sugar in packets😦
Try an Arnold Palmer. A mixture of sweet tea and lemonade, usually about half and half. I usually water down my sweet tea if it is too much like syrup by adding unsweet tea to improve the taste.
I’m glad to see you trying our southern sweet tea. I would be lost without it. A great diuretic and so refreshing on a hot day. Try Luzianne tea if Lipton isn’t to your liking. Each has a distinct taste.
As a Southerner myself I love Sweet Tea, however, everytime I go up North they make it wrong by putting the sugar in the drink when they serve it to you instead of putting the sugar in the tea when it just gets done boiling on the stove so that the sugar can melt.
I ran into that too. I sat there looking at the glass with the sugar piled at the bottom. I tried stirring and drinking it quick, but it just didn't work, my girlfriend's parent's tea. I changed girlfriends... and that one's mom was an awesome pancake chef.
That's because you're not actually supposed to add sugar to it, it's not "Sweet Tea", it's "Iced Tea". The sugar packets are just a concession to people who want to drink it wrong.
As usual, the southerners have to be arrogant pricks. Just because it's not made "your way" doesn't mean it's wrong. Different people have different tastes. I know you southerners have big problems tolerating those who are different than you but maybe you should learn.
Dugowt Let’s not be that guy in the threads. I’m from the South and I can deal with things and people that are different from me just fine, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of people down South would also say they can be just fine with different things and people as well. We all do not carry weapons, we all don’t have confederate flags, we all don’t think “the South shall rise again”, wear hoods and burn crosses or any other ridiculous stereotype made about us either.
For a true southerner, sweet tea is all day, every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner (or is that breakfast, dinner, and supper?) Non-southerners always comment on how everything seems to move slower in the south; that's because everyone has a glass of sweet tea in one hand! Enjoy your videos, y'all!
I am not a southerner, but sweet tea is everyday all year. On the coldest of winter days, hot tea (with sugar) is a replacement. Sweet tea is not just for cold tea, but honey can replace sugar for hot tea, especially when you have a cold.
As a southerner (I'm from deep east texas) nothing is better than a glass of ice cold sweet tea after working in the texas heat in the middle of the summer (it can easily get to about the lower 100s to the mid 100s in temp. In the middle of the summer)
I remember the first time I explained iced tea to my British friend, she was horrified, but then tried it and loved it, then got her grandpa to try it who ended up getting drunk because he kept putting bourbon in it 😂
I use to order a large sweet tea from McDonald's, no ice, drink a quarter of it, then add Jameson till it was back to the full spot. Stir it with the straw a little and kill it. Ah, lunch breaks at Home Depot.
@@omniXenderman can't do Jaeger anymore. Too many in one night. Ruined me forever. 13 jaegerbombs, 4 O-bombs, 5 tequila shots and 6 beers in 3 hours. I was directing traffic on a one way street that night. Cops were pissed.
Definitely my grandma. After every church dinner or social, we always at least 2/5 jugs of tea leftover. Typically one sweet and the one unsweet tea grandma made to be nice. Lol. 😂
Daniel Mcleod yep pretty much! If you go to a restaurant down here, all you have to say is “I would like some tea please” and they instantly know you mean sweet tea😂 but then again I end up saying “sweet tea” anyways cause I love both hot and cold tea.
I grew up in Arizona and there I was introduced to the concept of "Sun Tea". Take a clear glass jug, fill it with cold water, put in tea bags and set in the direct sun for few hours. Then chill or pour over lots of ice cubes.
The same result can be achieved using room temp water without exposure to the sun. The advantage to both methods is the tea will not turn cloudy when stored in the 'fridge. Using boiling water to make tea extracts substances which are insoluble at cold temperature and precipitate out when the tea is refrigerated resulting in "cloudy" tea.
I remember back in 1956 my family (we live in Kentucky) visited my Aunt and Uncle who lived in Maine. We stopped at a restaurant in Maine and my father asked for ice tea. The waitress looked at him like he was from another planet. She asked him what that was-they didn’t have ice tea. She was very interested though, and asked how to make it. My dad, innocently answered, make hot tea and add lots and lots of sugar and then add ice
As a southerner, I'm from Mississippi, there is only one kind of tea (we just call it tea) which is often described as a little too sweet and a little too strong. We jokingly say the spoon should stand up in it. Lemon is never involved though, unless you are from up north. I have northern family members, New York state and Ohio, so I can sympathize. We use Luzianne bags in our house, 3 family sized should do it, for a gallon of tea. We also put closer to 2 cups of sugar per gallon, but we pour it over ice which waters it down a bit. Great video by the way, keep up the great work!
Brett Johnson I have a coffee maker just for making tea. 1 full pot of tea, 2 cups sugar stir thoroughly then fill 1 gallon pitcher to the top with ice and stir again
My mother met her Southern in-laws 45 years ago as part of their honeymoon tour. One of her mothers in law (I technically had a step grandmother) had heard she liked hot tea. Being hospitable, Hazel or Marie presented her with a cup of hot water with a Luzuanne iced tea bag in it. Being fully versed in Midwestern politeness Mom drank the thing. I somehow missed the gene for enjoying any type of tea (or coffee) despite Mom’s family consuming both hot and iced (they didn’t however add much sugar; Mom asked for unsweetened while we were visiting my aunt and I remember her surprise at the 5 sweetener packets. Aunt told her that she was *obviously* a diabetic). And those were Mom’s adventures without even crossing the pond (and yes I’ve tried Southern level sweet tea. My family has despaired over my tastebuds)
As a child, in the late sixties in Georgia, we had iced tea every day with our meals in the summer. I still prefer it to any soft drink, but now that I'm older, and heavier, I shun all sugar so I drink iced tea with lemon. Quite thirst quenching. And I prefer Luzianne and when I can't find that, I get Tetley. Tara, I love your hair!
Yeah, I grew up in the South about the same time, too...and every supper was served with iced sweet tea (we just called it 'tea', as most everything else was sacrilege, anyhow). We did Lipton tea bags...mother had a single old 'tea pot' (1.2 gallons) that it was SOLELY dedicated to making 'tea, and nothing but tea' (seems that to make tea in something, will carry tea over to other foods...and vice versa, well-washed in-between or not...so DEDICATED TEA POT). Old and retired now, I live in the Desert Southwest...and it gives a WHOLE NEW MEANING to 'sun tea', too...where with 110-F temps and 11-15 UV, you can 'brew a pot of tea' in an hour or so!
I didnt hear about lemon in sweet tea until i started looking at how other states did it, and that my grandfather did it. In Texas we just make it with sugar.
Southerner here. When explaining chemical saturation in a solution, my high school chemistry teacher told us that he always stirred the sugar into his tea while it was still hot. And, he knew he had enough sugar when he reached the saturation point. You didn't use enough sugar is what I'm saying. 🤣
Yes, however, with diabetes also a pandemic, we must make note. There are 201 g of sugar in a cup. Per gallon. If you use 2 cups double it, etc. here’s the clincher, that’s 50g appox per quart and 25g of sugar in a pint. We should all carbs to 180g per day. Two pints of tea sweetened with 1 cup sugar/gallon =50g or 100g if sweetened with two cups/gal. Over half the daily limit. Cutting back is as simple as refrigerating it longer using half. Still good and refreshing and you avoid the scourge of diabetes.
My family iced tea recipe is lightly sweetened, but not “sweet tea.” But we’re New Jersey Neapolitans. The first thing I learned when I moved to Texas was to specify Unsweet tea.
I live in Georgia and when eating out ask for half sweet tea and half unsweetened. To me, pure unadulterated southern sweet tea is way too sweet. Some restaurants have more moderately sweetened tea, but virtually everyone...including fast food places where you serve your own drinks, carry unsweetened as well as sweet.
I've never gotten an iced tea in the south that wasn't extremely sweet. Ok occasionally on a brutally hot day-but FAR sweeter than I'd make it at home.
As someone who once worked in fast food in Atlanta, I can confirm that we carried unsweet as well as sweet tea. That said, both versions arrived in-store the same way all the drinks did - in the form of large boxed 5 gallon bags of concentrate. Punch the perforations out of the carton to access the screw-cap on the bag, and attach to the corresponding hose for the drinks dispenser, which would then dispense the concentrate along with water/carbonated water into the cups. The hose attachment for the sweet tea was always one of the stickiest in the place, right up there with the ones for the slushies. The other big problem was the sweet tea carton and the unsweet tea carton looked way too much alike so it was easy to confuse them, especially if whoever was changing them was in a hurry. We regularly got complaints that customers got the wrong tea out of whichever dispenser. (This was years ago, well before Covid shut down self-serve drinks stations.)
We grew up drinking sweet tea. We called it "iced tea" or just "tea". My mother also made it with one cup of sugar to one gallon of tea, so good on you, darlin'. That's sort of the official appropriate sweetness that has been accepted from way back, across The South. This was our "go to" beverage when I was growing up, not soda pops! Soda pops or "cold drinks" as we called them were FAR too expensive to drink all day long as many tend to do today. And pops are bad for you, whereas tea, an herb, has things in it that are actually VERY good for you. As testimony -- my father lived into his 80s and my mother, her 90s! And none of us suffered serious health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, etc.! And we were all THIN, because we stayed busy doing something EVERY day!! Great video, Laurence and Tara!!! You're making good strides towards getting your 'Honorary Southerner Badge'!!!
"a cup of sugar per gallon" nononononononono that isn't southern sweet darling. if your insulin doesn't go into diabetic shock upon your first sip it's not southern sweet.
I wanted to laugh at her when she said that. To be fair, I was born in GA and moved to WV. Although I never considered WV to truly be southern (to much snow for that), it is country. Her’s is more like country tea. That is my term for it. Many people in WV do know how to make true southern tea there, but many make it less sweet and think it is the same.
@@joyfulchristina I'm from Georgia. I can confirm that we also make our sweet tea extremely sweet. Sorry you weren't able to stick around to discover it for yourself!
I have never seen a sweet tea disappear so fast!🤣 Yes I know there's editing... Love sweet tea and sleepytime tea and tension reliever tea and gingerbread tea
Born and raised Texan here and sweet tea was a mandatory every-day drink in my family in the summer. Esp when my aunt had 5 kids of her own, then babysat me for my single mom and then all our friends coming over. Aunt would make it by the batch. Often having one brew on the stove and another being "sun brewed". Also mandatory- Along with hours of in the fridge, it is brewed not that instant powder. And add sugar when water is hot, not later or you'd get that grainy texture to the tea. I grew up drinking sweet tea. It's only now that I'm in my 50s that I'm trying hot teas brewed for single cups, not an entire pitcher like sweet tea is.
Every so often I like making Sun Tea. Put 8 tea bags in a gallon jug, fill with water, attach lid and set out in the sun for the day. Add 1 cup sugar for half-sweet and 2-3 cups for full sweet.
True, though I go ahead and leave it into the night, so it gets a lot of latent heat from the cinderblock wall(placed for maximum exposure). It gets an almost opaque reddish black. Yum.
Sun tea is awesome stuff. You really want to wait for a very hot day to make it though. Direct sunlight. The kind of heat that you get in Texas or the Southwest. I don’t think it gets hot enough up north to properly make it. Anybody up north make sun tea?
Southern Tea: Luzianne brand - Boil water, add two family-size bags, steep for 1-2 hours, add 2 cups of sugar and water to make 1-gallon. Drink all day, every day. (It's not called 'sweet', it's just "tea"...)
From New Orleans. Not a big fan of sweet tea. But Luzianne, straight up, add sugar to personal taste, all day long. That way people can make it as sweet as they like.
Nevermind Sweet Tea- The Arnold Palmer is where it’s at You can customize, mix and match any variety of unsweetened iced tea with any flavor of lemonade for the perfect refreshing beverage Personally my tea can’t JUST be sweet... Gotta be sweet with fruit flavoring too
@@Parker-930:::::::clutching my southern pearls with a look of shock & horror on my southern Belle face:::::::::: oh lawdy! I can't believe you said anything was better than sweet tea! My granny is rolling in her grave!
@@mylt1z28 Actually that is pretty much exactly how type 2 diabetes works... take in way too much sugar and don't get enough exercise... that's how you get it, which is what they were referring to; and yes, diabetes is rampant across the USA and much worse in the south/southeast - everything they said was correct. You're right about type 1 diabetes though, that's genetic and there's pretty much nothing you can do about that except take your insulin, but it's pretty rare compared to type 2.
@@lamelama22 there seems to be some connection with infection and T1D. As well as insulin, it's important for them to also eat low carb. No wonder T2D is so rampant when people don't know it's entirely diet related and preventable
Michigan here. I make "sweet tea" all summer. It can be made by the glass. Instructions:. Make yourself a cuppa hot tea. While my electric kettle get hot enough, I have a quart size mason jar ready to add my full tray ice cubes. When the water is ready make your cup of tea. I use Lipton or Luzianne brand. Then put sugar in the hot tea to your taste. Then pour the hot sweet liquid gold into the iced mason jar. Make your hot tea a little strong because the hot tea will melt the ice and water it down some, so up the strength of your tea in this case. Stir your ice cubes and tea, then enjoy. This is when I'm the only one that wants iced tea or sweet tea. It's delicious. Of course when we have it with a meal I make a pitcher of it.
I’m from north Georgia, family’s been in Appalachia since we came over to the states, roughly the late 1600’s. My family uses *exclusively* Luzianne tea bags for sweet tea lol and absolutely no lemon. I’m sure every southerner has a dedicated way of making sweet tea that must not be altered 😂 we love our tea what can I say
life long Alabamian - tea, sweetened or unsweetened is more often made with Luzianne or Red Diamond. Lipton is not often the brand of choice. At least in North Alabama. (And yes, unsweetened tea, iced, is more common than generally thought. A cup of tea is generally ordered as "hot tea.")
i live in southern california my mom would often make sweet tea by leaving the glass jug outside and letting it brew that way. We always call that version sun tea
When I lived in NM, we made sun tea as well. Because the water doesn't boil, you don't 'burn' the tea, which releases the bitter oils in tea, so you get a cleaner, crisper flavor. Much more refreshing when it's 105 in the shade.
Pit Wizard I’m a massive Milo’s Tea fan. If I’m buying store bought tea, that’s the only tea I’ll buy but if it’s homemade, I get the tea bags and make iced tea myself.
I spent some time in the south as a child. When I was a kid I would die sweet tea by the gallon. In my book the only tea to make ice tea whether sweet or not is to use Luzzianne. Same recipe but with a superior tea. Lipton is black tea while Luzzianne is orange pekoe. I have no clue what the difference is but I can tell you orange pekoe is much smoother and what is properly used in sweet tea.... at least in my opinion.
SAME! I'm from NC and we know our sweet tea. Until my dad got diabetes, there was an ever present pitcher of tea in the fridge. I stopped drinking it after working in restaurants and having to make HUGE batches of it every day for years. I still respect it and can't stand hearing midwesterners bragging about their bitter version of barely sweetened tea.
I'm from the north but now live in the south. Sweet tea in each if these regions is definitely NOT the same! When I moved to the south I was SHOCKED how sweet it was. I now ask for half and half...half unsweetened, half sweetened...perfect!
Having been born and raised in the South I can tell you Luzianne is the preferred to make iced tea as we call it as it is always sweet but can be sweetened by other means than sugar and yes most of us choose to drink it daily and perhaps even all day instead of soda's.
My southern family brewed "sun tea" in a gallon jar left in the sun all day. Do not disturb. Remove bags gently. Smoothest tea you've ever tasted and naturally sweet.
Yes, sun tea is the only type to make in the south, at least when it's warm. It taste way better than making it with boiling water that turns out bitter.
@@mahna_mahna That confused me too. The Sun naturally sweetened the tea with its characteristically sweet radiation? did the water caramelize? This sounds like some midwest trickery.
My mother was raised in a tiny town in west Tennessee, hot, humid and flat cotton country. She grew up in a family that had a "spring house" and the tea was made in the evening (generally when the woman of the house was cooking supper) and set down in the spring house to cool for the next day. You did not add sugar to the hot tea, you made simple syrup on the stove at the same time you were using the stove for making tea, and you set that in the spring house to cool also. Tea is served in a pitcher and lemon, sliced very thin, was dropped into your glass, syrup was added over the lemon, with the cooled tea added to the glass and everyone used the same "tea spoon" to mix. I make tea like this every day for my 82 yr old mother with dementia. She finds the ritual soothing and I enjoy the stories she randomly tells about her childhood.
I’m from Mississippi and grew up on sweet tea. Mom also used to make cherry limeade tea for special occasions; 3 family sized tea bags brewed in 6 cups of boiling water, 1 can of frozen condensed limeade and about half a cup (or more) of grenadine (which is a liquor mixer). No need to add sugar because the limeade and grenadine are already sweet. Mix together in a gallon pitcher and add ice to top of pitcher. Enjoy!
When my daughter was seven, we took a trip into Germany, Switzerland and Austria. She was raised on unsweetened iced tea, mostly to keep her away from soda, and she prefers it. Try explaining to a German or any European, that you want tea with ice in it.
I went on a trip to Ireland years ago. When I would order a soda, it would come without ice. I started ordering it "with ice" and it would have ice...one single cube, to be precise. 😆
@@bradbutcher3984 No that's sweet tea and spaghetti. Don't ask me how I know. That was 40 years ago and I just started eating spaghetti again like ten years ago. I still can't stomach tea. That vomit episode was bad, I mean REALLY bad.
that's insane because me and my mom grew up in southern California and we would always have it (usually let the sun heat it up to brew but it still had the same amazing amount of sugar)
I am in the south. Georgia, and I put two cups of sugar per gallon in my iced tea, I make it in my coffee pot using ten tea bags. I buy great value brand tea and I am not picky about the brand. I mostly use black tea or orange pekoe, I walk around with a glass of tea all day long in the summer.
I never liked sweet tea but I married a country boy from Alabama, and learned to make it. His mama use two cups sugar per gallon. I was horrified. Using Stevia, I was able to cut it all the way down to a quarter cup of sugar per gallon with a little bit of stevia. Until I went lower than that he couldn't tell the difference in taste. And, I did get his permission to do this.
I grew up in NC and live in FL now. I during sweet tea every single day! Now, to be fair, there is sweet and unsweetened. My prefered level of sweetness fall somewhere between leafy flavores water, and syrup. Medium sweetness, if you will.
Spoken like a true southerner, but tea is without sugar just like coffee, adding anything to either is just making it soda-pop without the fizz. And yes I know you add the sugar while hot not after it has cooled down.
@@DanOKC English people add milk to both tea and coffee. I don't add milk to either tea or coffee. I would that those aren't tea or coffee but milkshakes. LOL
I'm from America, too, and I'd never even *heard* of "sweet tea" until my first trip south of the Mason-Dixon line. Now I've just gotten into the habit of asking specifically for "unsweet tea" when I go out to a restaurant. 50/50 chance the waiter will give me that weird "what-other-kind-is-there" look, but either way I get what I'm looking for.
I'm from "up north" as well, and have developed the habit of requesting UNsweet tea. If someone wants to drink sweet tea, God bless 'em. Just don't give me the hairy eyeball when I order unsweetened tea
@@jeepstergal4043 Unsweet tea might as well be like taking a stick and letting it sit in a cup of water all day and then drinking it. It's about as flavorful. Might as well take some decaying leaves from your yard and crush them up and put it in water and let it seep. The bland taste probably wouldn't be far off.
This is definitely a different recipe than I drink as a child in Texas. We do not use any lemon and double the amount of sugar per gallon. We also would make the tea and put ice cubes in to drink it immediately.
My mom used to make sun tea all the time, but she didn’t put that much sugar in it, so not sweet tea. She would drink plain hot black tea in the winter. Maybe a Delaware thing?
I used to drink a gallon of Sweet Tea every other day and this was back in my extremely healthy years, running 5Ks playing American Football and what not. Sweet Tea still only packs anywhere between 50-70 calories per every 12 - 21ozs based on sugar content as all calories in tea come from sugar. Now I may drink a gallon a week. I got a kidney stone from Gatorade a few years back, wasn't sweating enough, and have switched to drinking a lot more water and it cut into my tea consumption. Although Sweet Black Tea is still my drink of choice.
Ooh, I have to drink salt daily to keep my blood pressure up and I’ve been drinking Gatorade. I also have some kidney stones in the making, and have passed a few, but I passed the first stones before I began drinking the Gatorade daily. Did they analyze the content of your stones? Was it related to Gatorade? As Gatorade is mostly salt and sugar.
@@___LC___ Gatorade should not cause kidney stones. However, a high-salt diet and not enough water can. Gatorade should not be used as a replacement for water, It is more of a supplement to drinking a healthy amount of water. The salt in Gatorade is there to help muscles to transfer the lactic acids out of the cells and into the bloodstream. If there is not enough normal water intake alongside the sports drink, it could lead to stone formation from acid buildup in the kidneys, if the individual's body chemistry is already susceptible to stone formation. I would suggest consulting your doctor about whether or not sports drinks are a good source of the salt you are consuming. The most common kidney stones are actually caused by calcium. If you are taking too much Vitamin D, dietary fiber, or calcium supplements, it can lead to kidney stones. Glucose imbalances are the other usual cause, but usually that occurs with high amounts of sugar intake or diabetes. You doctor is always the best source of info on your situation, since a blood test is usually the best way of diagnosing what may help you to prevent kidney stones.
@@johnjon4688 this is exactly why I developed a stone. It was because I was using Gatorade as a substitute to sugary drunks such as pop/soda and barely drinking water so it wasn't uncommon for me to put down several Gatorades a day. The thing about it is I'm not a novice in terms of being healthy, this simple fact tmjust slipped my mind.
@@___LC___ I don't know I was able to break the stone up before it passed, only one I've ever dealt with and was discovered after I messed my lower back up lifting a trash bag with over 100 lbs of frozen Chicken in it. I had read up about breaking stones up with sound so I tried to do it myself using a speaker, a song with a lot of bass, turning said song up, and placing the speaker on my side. I don't know if it worked, but I never noticed when the stone passed, if it passed whole.
In summary “Tastes better”equals “way less healthy “ We been knew ! FYI that tea tastes WAY better washing down the bbq of your own making I was prepared to be less than pleased with your review but, being the incredibly objective person you are, you have it a fair shake. That’s something I always appreciate about this channel Flagrant objectivity.
Finally! Someone who gets it. Non southerners get so proud of their "sweet tea" after putting a packet of sweet'n'low into a five gallon batch. I worked at a restaurant in NC that constantly had people coming just for the tea....we used 12 cups of sugar per 3 gallon batch. I stopped drinking sweet tea after that job, but I'm saying if it ain't viscous, it ain't sweet tea.
I only use Tetley tea. I use 6 family sized bags to a gallon of water and 3/4 cup of sugar. I place the bags in tea kettle. Heat it almost to a boil without boiling. Shut off. Let steep 2 mins, remove tea bags, pour over sugar in pitcher, stir good and finish filling pitcher with water. We live in SC, we drink sweet tea every single day! Add a bag of your favorite individual tea for some flavor or add a slice of lemon or some bruised mint leaves.
As a Midwesterner who moved to the South, I can't stand sweet tea. I drink iced tea, but just black with no sugar. Brewed from Luzianne tea bags, of course. I'm not a total heathen. LOL
just a cup per gallon? on a diet? you pour the sugar into the tea hot, and when you think you've poured too much, pour a little more, then ice. perfect!
Damn right, this old lady working at mcdonald's taught me how to make the perfect sweet tea. She was dumping 5lb bags of sugar into the tea container at McD's lol. That store had the best tea ever.
Not really. I wrote it out for our northern viewers. Its basically 5 seconds of pouring from a 5 lb bag, or 2 hand fills and 1 hand full. A hand full is about half a cup
@@marccrawford2764, I figured LOL The further South I've traveled, the sweeter the tea seems to get! I just knew Alabama wasn't down there with measurin' cups!
I grew up in California with a southern mama. We always had sweet tea at home, however all the restaurants served unsweetened tea. You had to add you owner sweetener, but it's just not the same. I will never forget the first time I ordered Iced Tea in the South. Having grown up with unsweetened being the norm in restaurants, I reach for the sugar and "doctored" my tea, stirred it really well and tasted a surprisingly syrupy mess! The waitress just laughed and said "You're not from around here, are you?" She was laughing. How was I to know they serve it correctly in the South?
My husband grew up in North Carolina. If you go anywhere and order, "iced tea," it will be sweet. However, we went to California to visit my family and he ordered "iced tea," and he about choked when they brought him tea that was not sweetened in any way, shape, or form. They did not have presweetened tea and tried to add sugar packets, but it obviously did not melt since it was ice. A word of warning for those from the south traveling west.
Yup. I’m from Texas and my diabetic husband always has to specify “unsweet tea”. We went to Colorado last summer and when he’d ask for unsweet tea the servers were like “what other kind is there in a restaurant?” XD
Same thing happened to me when I visit my in laws in Washington state. Only place I've found that has sweet tea is one McDonald's. I just make tea before going anywhere to eat and bring it with me lol.
Yeah, trying to get sugar in already iced tea is quasi-pointless. You have to add 10 packs to get 1 pack worth to melt. Then you get that "snow-globe" thing going at the bottom of the glass.
The southerners I've been around use Luzianne. I prefer it. As a kid growing up, we always had a gallon of tea on the counter. Last one had to make the next pot. We just threw in around 6 bags in a pot with water, let it steep.. Added the sugar to the pitcher, about 3/4 cup and melted it with the hot tea. Then threw in ice cubes and water. I bet at times we went through 3 gallons a day. But, there were 7 of us.
I've made sweet tea with Yorkshire Tea and also Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling and Scottish Breakfast tea. Usually Taylors of Harrogate brand because Twinings is really overpriced in the states, and Taylors is just as good. Speaking of Darjeeling, did you know that there once was a man of Darjeeling, Who boarded a bus bound for Ealing. The sign on the door Said "don't spit on the floor" So he carefully spat on the ceiling.
Crazy how one plant that produces one leaf can produce so many colors, flavors, preparations and variations. America's oldest and only tea plantation can be found in South Carolina.
Try the Arnold Palmer. Sweet iced tea mixed with an equal amount of tart lemonade. Especially bracing in August in Mississippi. I also like a big glass of iced sweet tea and squeeze the juice of a whole lemon or lime into it. A fine cold remedy? A mug of hot tea with lots of honey and the juice of an whole lime. It sooths the cough and the vapor opens the sinuses, the honey has some indefinable but documented health benefits, and the astringent lime freshens your mouth.
"Sweet Tea" used to be the default in the South, and still often is, but less so for big cities now. So you often had to specify unsweetened tea if you wanted that. And iced tea was likewise the default. Hot tea was unusual, even in winter, unless you specified it, or in more formal settings.
The only place in the US where tea is grown is at the Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island just outside Charleston South Carolina. The tea farm was bought by Bigalow Tea company. You can visit the Tea Plantation where they have tours. You can learn how tea is grown and made. In the spring they have a festival called the First Flush. The plantation is open all year long for tours. You should come visit.
Southerner here- I also get mine half-and-half when I order it. However, the tea in this bit I would take full strength. One cup of sugar per gallon is about half the sugar we usually use.
I'm a half-and-half kinda guy. The fried chicken chain here in central Texas has some solid tea that you can get sweet, unsweet, or 50/50 made in the store that you can even get by the gallon.
@@Ephem13 here's a tip from a diabetic friend of mine, when getting half and half tea at a restaurant or fast-food joint: have them put in the unsweetened tea first, then the sweetened tea, that way the sweet tea sinks to the bottom and helps to sweeten the rest. Less mixing that way. 😁😊
I basically only drink tea and water. Occasionally I'll have juice. Usually orange or cranberry. About once a month I'll drink a coconut bai. If it weren't a bit expensive I'd probably have one of those a couple times a week. I love coconut bai. Especially molokai coconut.
Let me say that I absolutely love your channel and adore you both. Here in the South we have been drinking sweet tea since the 1700's. I live in Summerville, SC which is the birthplace of sweet tea. We have been drinking the same type of tea since1888, when Dr. Charles Shepard founded the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in Summerville, SC. Also White tea, Green Tea, and black tea are not different plants; they all are made from the same species of tea shrub, the difference is in the life stage of the leaf and how it's processed. We would love for Y'all to come down and visit the Charleston Tea Garden on beautiful Wadmalaw Island and try the Souths Original USA grown tea known as American Classic.
I lived in Summerville for several years, and I have always missed it terribly. Especially in spring, when the azaleas are blooming. There used to be a white dogwood with a wisteria vine growing up in it. When they bloomed at the same time, it was a breathtaking sight!I grew up in Aiken, and learned to make proper sweet tea from my mother. I still make it the exact same way. Luzianne is best, in my opinion, but I have recently discovered PGTips, a British tea brand.
Perhaps those you know do, but no one I know who makes large batch sweet tea uses artificial sweeteners, and I can’t imagine how gross that could be. The only ones I know who use artificial sweetener in tea is in single serve teas, like from a restaurant. Not sure why do many are adverse to tea in its own. Maybe they’re using crappy tea?
agresticumbra The difference in diabetes rates between CA and NC is less than 2%. The only states with a drastically different rate are WV (high) and CO (low). Considering a typical soda has DOUBLE the sugar of sweet tea, I find the seemingly judgmental comment that seems to be copied and pasted several times on this thread to be laughable.
As long as you don’t drink it every day? Ummm. In the South we drink two or three glasses at dinner and another two or three glasses at supper every day. So we drink fro four to six glasses EVERY day.
My family is from south Georgia and Alabama and we would never, ever put lemon in our sweet tea. I love lemonade but I tried lemon in my tea once and found myself gagging. By the way, I drink hot tea with sugar or honey without milk too.
Savannah, GA here and lemon can absolutely be put in sweet tea. It's a personal choice. Also, very popular is mixing equal parts unsweetened tea and lemonade, Half & Half Tea. (A certain golfer was very fond of the drink.)
@@anij8226 No. I'm from Texas, but that doesnt change the fact that sour does not go with sweet tea. Nobody does that here because we are normal people. 🤠
@@petty7329 Lemon sweet tea is very popular in the southeast. Some brew the lemon with it. Others will get lemon slices and squeeze the juice in the tea. Still others will simply put a lemon wedge in the glass.
That recipe is "sweetened" tea. Southern Sweet Tea has at least twice the sugar in it. A Sweet tea standard recipe for restaurants (worked in family dining for 20ish years) is 5lbs of sugar per 3-5 gal urn. (2 cup per gallon to 3.33 cup per gallon) Btw, Appalachian and Southern aren't exactly the same thing either. There is overlap, but not the same.
I think the most important part of making GOOD sweet tea is adding the sugar while it's hot. You can't just add sugar to iced tea and expect it to turn out quite right.
You are right about that. I've ordered sweet tea at times at a sit-down restaurant and they'll usually have iced unsweet tea with accompanying sugar packets. Might as well through it down the drain.
You put sugar in the picture then add boiling hot black tea stir until all sugar is dissolved and then add in the water and stir again.
Sweat tea is something I will definitely not be trying.
And use a lot of sweat!
YES! Preferably the sugar should go into the water BEFORE the steeped tea
As long as you don’t drink it every day? Being from Georgia I consider that to be blasphemy!
agree am also from Ga.
Agree as well. Georgia gal here.
Gallon a day keeps the doctor away.
Agreed, but I am unlikely to have iced tea with breakfast... For breakfast, coffee... Hot tea just seems *wrong*...
@Phillip Aubin nah
He sure scarfed it down for it being "not bad."
British understatement.
In S,E, Ar., most drink ice tea, every day..with varying degrees of sweetness.
Thats how the addiction starts
The only tea that is proper is Tetley's.
"Scarfed"? From PA?
I'm a southerner who had to give up sweet tea because of my amazing ability to produce large kidney stones. I had know idea tea contributed to kidney stone formation. But several doctors told me it was the #1 cause of stones in the south and the reason the South is called the Stone-Belt. I sure do miss sweet tea but having stones as big as marbles are PAINFUL AF!!!
Lemonade (the real, cloudy home-made stuff) breaks kidney stones up and keeps them from forming. Maybe try some Arnold Palmers in Summer?
Milk causes kidney stones as well
If you look up foods that prevent kidney stones, you will learn that bananas prevent the chemicals in your kidneys from forming stones. There are several foods that will help prevent those
I don't like overly sweet syrupy tea. I like it just sweet enough to take away the bitterness.
Anything high in sugar, more commonly drinks, can cause kidney stones.
And sweet tea often has more sugar in it then most sodas.
English: I don't get iced sweet tea.
American: Experience 100 degree heat, with 100% humidity, and you will suddenly love it.
where i live in the uk its been 38 degrees centigrade, thats about 100 degrees farenheight, and humidity in the UK in the summer is always high, and our homes and shops don't have any air conditioning, try being in this heat without the air conditioning that you are fortunate enough to have, especially jam packed on public transport. also where i live winter temperatures can reach as low as minus 20 degrees centigrade, although that is rare. i make my own version of ice tea with berry flavour tea bags, and boiling water which cools and ends up in the fridge, as i hate our british hot tea, yes a british person that hates british tea, ice tea is not available here like it is for you, i am jealous, i would love it, if it were available.
@@paxmanjp2765 Some places 9-12 months.
@@paxmanjp2765 Two years ago, I kept track: Triple digit heat index from April 27 to September 21. People not from the southeast can't fathom it: It's not the heat, it's the humidity. If it rains, even worse-- just turns into steam.
But I wouldn't trade it. Far enough north we get all the seasons, but far enough south to not have to deal with too much winter... Speaking of which, that's another thing north people don't get about winter in the south: sleet and ice storms (kind of how we southerners don't get what's so bad about driving in the rain in Southern California).
Paxmanjp in Alabama it’s either Hot the whole year or cold! There’s no in between 🤣🤣🤣
David Wellman I was born in Illinois (like 30 minutes from good ole Chicago aka the Windy City) and raised in Alabama (major humidity and rain here lol!) so the extreme heat and cold never really phase me since I experienced both for awhile! That’s also why my mom is a pro at driving in rain and snow 😂😂😂😂
In the South, sweet tea is a daily drink for a lot of people (multiple times a day for some).
As a Southerner, I will attest to the fact that sweet tea is consumed on the daily by many many folks. In summer months, I pretty much only drink coffee in the morning and sweet tea throughout the rest of the day with an occasional Pepsi. And by "throughout the rest of the day", I mean I go through about three or four gallons a day, just me.
@@devandestudios128 same here, from the Lone star state. No Pepsi for me though.
Im having some right now with breakfast.
Yep, my family brew a gallon a day. -A Texan
@@devandestudios128 as a southerner you drink Pepsi? As a southerner I ask what flavor Coke you want. If you want "cola" flavored Coke you get a co-cola
Being a Kentuckian Sweet tea is at every family dinner table. I and a lot of people hate lemon in my sweet tea.
I agree. Sweet tea has always been in my fridge and drank daily. I don't care for lemon with it. It's my grandson's favorite drink, although he wants extra sweet, "freshly made" tea. Meaning, he prefers it warm over chilled, but will drink both.
I don’t mind lemon, but I’m not adding it myself.
I love sweet tea then I discovered iced americanos with extra espresso
Sweet tea extra dark, no lemon. Lemonade lots of sugar. Both super cold.
Yes! Lemon in sweet tea is blasphemous
Drink only on special occasions,
Laughs in southern, we have it at lunch and dinner.
As a Georgian, I drink it for breakfast, dinner and supper.
And of course, at breakfast.
Same. Always a pitcher in my fridge
Lol as a Texan, it’s sweet tea all day!
And breakfast and supper
"it isnt that bad"
*proceeds to demolish 3/4 of the glass*
Yeah I noticed that while she was talking, instead of taking one drink and then being like "Bleck!" he just...kept...drinking it. XD
Classic British Understatement.
and his eyes - you could see the sugary goodness + caffeine going to work lol
" not THAT bad " is high Saxon praise.
Trust me. I'm Irish.
"If you add sugar to something, yes it'll taste better."
WELCOME TO AMERICA, ENJOY YOUR STAY.
Yep, same goes for salt here in 'Merica ❤️
except putting it directly in water... that tastes terrible
Right. He finally figured it out.
The three food groups are
In no specific order
Sugar
Salt
And Fat
If you can get them all in one food stuff item you have achieved “foodvana”
Example: BBQ
This Tennessee boy has been making it with Splenda since Splenda was available. My southern ass craves the sweet but I don’t eat sugar at all. Prefer Lipton teabags to Tetley.
Luzianne is the brand of tea to buy for making sweet tea. I take my iced tea half and half at the restaurants when I go out. Half sweet and half unsweet.
I’m a Southerner and drink this on the regular.
I love hot teas, too.
It's great to live in an area where you can just say "half & half" at any restaurant and everyone's on the same page
Some places make it too sweet or I want to pound it from heat and thirst, so I'll get it half and half. BTW, if you are in the south and want to buy it pre-made, try Milo's.
Being from Louisiana, I grew up on sweet tea and pretty much drank it everyday. And, as I’ve gotten older, and traveled quite a bit, I have learned to always have sweetener packets on me whenever I leave my house, especially when I travel. No matter where I go, the tea is not going to be sweet enough so I always try to be prepared.
Yea, it sucks getting "sweet tea" and it tastes like a sugar packet may have farted near the glass. No, no, pour that sugar in.
It's like the opposite at southern Chinese restaurants and Hardee's for some reason. It's like tea flavored sugar syrup. But yeah anywhere past Tennessee and I'd be carrying sweetners to
Growing up in Louisiana, sweet tea was the standard drink served at the family dinner table, including Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Usually when sweet tea isn't available, is when depression has struck a whole household/family. At least in my experience growing up.
Also from Louisiana.
Hi from Lafayette and yes sweet tea is nectar of the gods.
I've lived right outside of New Orleans my entire life and I second this statement
As a kid, iced tea was cheaper than milk and we couldn't afford soda. It was tea or water out of faucet. As a teen there was nothing like chugging a glass of iced tea after mowing the lawn (humid summers in Maryland with no a/c back then).
Grew up in Bama, lived in GA, now FL. It's a staple y'all!😉✌
I live in Georgia.
We drink sweet tea all day, every day, all year round.
That's about the shape of it 😂
Same here in tennessee
@@ethanjohnson1614 yep Virginia too but for some weird reason Kentucky is not so keen on it....
@@jonnycando kentucky what? I live in Kentucky and all the Kentucky ends I've ever met love sweet tea
@@crazzyblueeyes83 when i was living near Prestonsburg, Jerry’s restaurant served unsweet and acted appalled anyone would want sweet...though they did offer me sugar in packets😦
Try an Arnold Palmer. A mixture of sweet tea and lemonade, usually about half and half. I usually water down my sweet tea if it is too much like syrup by adding unsweet tea to improve the taste.
Been doing this since I was a kid, its THE BEST.
Also like Rooibos Tea.
Most fast food places that’s exactly what I do.
I like peach black tea mixed with limeade.
Drinking that right now. Lol
I’m glad to see you trying our southern sweet tea. I would be lost without it. A great diuretic and so refreshing on a hot day. Try Luzianne tea if Lipton isn’t to your liking. Each has a distinct taste.
As a Southerner myself I love Sweet Tea, however, everytime I go up North they make it wrong by putting the sugar in the drink when they serve it to you instead of putting the sugar in the tea when it just gets done boiling on the stove so that the sugar can melt.
I ran into that too. I sat there looking at the glass with the sugar piled at the bottom. I tried stirring and drinking it quick, but it just didn't work, my girlfriend's parent's tea. I changed girlfriends... and that one's mom was an awesome pancake chef.
That's because you're not actually supposed to add sugar to it, it's not "Sweet Tea", it's "Iced Tea". The sugar packets are just a concession to people who want to drink it wrong.
As usual, the southerners have to be arrogant pricks. Just because it's not made "your way" doesn't mean it's wrong. Different people have different tastes. I know you southerners have big problems tolerating those who are different than you but maybe you should learn.
How to make Southern Sweet Tea. 1- boil water. 2- add lots of sugar, the more the better. 3- forget about adding any tea. 4- cool and serve.
Dugowt Let’s not be that guy in the threads. I’m from the South and I can deal with things and people that are different from me just fine, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of people down South would also say they can be just fine with different things and people as well. We all do not carry weapons, we all don’t have confederate flags, we all don’t think “the South shall rise again”, wear hoods and burn crosses or any other ridiculous stereotype made about us either.
Refrigerate overnight??? I’ve never known anyone to actually be patient enough to let it sit that long without consuming....
You make extra for now and chill the rest for later :D
It's much better after a night in the fridge. I don't really like it fresh. It has a whole different flavor.
Yeah mine doesn't last that long. I'll drink it when it's still warm.
Yep, that's what the ice is for!
Honestly with the amount of sugar in mine unless drank within a very short period of time you end up with a nice syrup.
For a true southerner, sweet tea is all day, every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner (or is that breakfast, dinner, and supper?) Non-southerners always comment on how everything seems to move slower in the south; that's because everyone has a glass of sweet tea in one hand!
Enjoy your videos, y'all!
I am not a southerner, but sweet tea is everyday all year. On the coldest of winter days, hot tea (with sugar) is a replacement. Sweet tea is not just for cold tea, but honey can replace sugar for hot tea, especially when you have a cold.
The insulin crash may contribute to the laid back pleasantness ^_^
As a southerner (I'm from deep east texas) nothing is better than a glass of ice cold sweet tea after working in the texas heat in the middle of the summer (it can easily get to about the lower 100s to the mid 100s in temp. In the middle of the summer)
Breakfast , dinner , and Supper...finally, someone says it right. GEEZ PEOPLE...HKW HARD IS IT?! ..& it is required at all 3, plus snacks.
Breakfast Dinner and Supper for sure
I remember the first time I explained iced tea to my British friend, she was horrified, but then tried it and loved it, then got her grandpa to try it who ended up getting drunk because he kept putting bourbon in it 😂
Grandpa!!! Oh my 😆
I use to order a large sweet tea from McDonald's, no ice, drink a quarter of it, then add Jameson till it was back to the full spot. Stir it with the straw a little and kill it. Ah, lunch breaks at Home Depot.
@@drew3250 Jaeger meister and sweet tea pair well, but on break at work I drink a four Loko 😂
@@omniXenderman can't do Jaeger anymore. Too many in one night. Ruined me forever. 13 jaegerbombs, 4 O-bombs, 5 tequila shots and 6 beers in 3 hours. I was directing traffic on a one way street that night. Cops were pissed.
@@drew3250 look up a song called I can't drink cider any more from Thomas Benjamin wild esquire. 😂
Them: “I wouldn’t drink it every day”
My Momma: “ I made 3 extra jugs of tea when I heard you were headed home”
That sounds like my late Mom. She was the best.
Please give your mom a big kiss and hug. I miss my mom so much and wish she were still alive. 🤗
Definitely my grandma. After every church dinner or social, we always at least 2/5 jugs of tea leftover. Typically one sweet and the one unsweet tea grandma made to be nice. Lol. 😂
@@goldilox369 Grandma tea is the best! Very kind of her to make unsweetened too.
Growing up in the south "Normal tea" is sweet tea.
"We have both kinds: with lemon or without"
Daniel Mcleod yep pretty much! If you go to a restaurant down here, all you have to say is “I would like some tea please” and they instantly know you mean sweet tea😂 but then again I end up saying “sweet tea” anyways cause I love both hot and cold tea.
YES, what you said! Ice tea IS sweet tea. Don't go to Indiana and ask for it unsweetened because they'll put diet sweetener in it. Ugh!
@@Jaxnay219 no you have to say you unsweeted tea.
I grew up in Arizona and there I was introduced to the concept of "Sun Tea". Take a clear glass jug, fill it with cold water, put in tea bags and set in the direct sun for few hours. Then chill or pour over lots of ice cubes.
The same result can be achieved using room temp water without exposure to the sun. The advantage to both methods is the tea will not turn cloudy when stored in the 'fridge. Using boiling water to make tea extracts substances which are insoluble at cold temperature and precipitate out when the tea is refrigerated resulting in "cloudy" tea.
I live in Michigan and have seen this done by family members here as well.
Sun Tea is something I grew up with.
Oh yes I do that too
Originally from Colorado and grew up on sun tea. Lived in the South most of my life. It doesn't come close to sweet tea!
I remember back in 1956 my family (we live in Kentucky) visited my Aunt and Uncle who lived in Maine. We stopped at a restaurant in Maine and my father asked for ice tea. The waitress looked at him like he was from another planet. She asked him what that was-they didn’t have ice tea. She was very interested though, and asked how to make it. My dad, innocently answered, make hot tea and add lots and lots of sugar and then add ice
As a southerner, I'm from Mississippi, there is only one kind of tea (we just call it tea) which is often described as a little too sweet and a little too strong. We jokingly say the spoon should stand up in it. Lemon is never involved though, unless you are from up north. I have northern family members, New York state and Ohio, so I can sympathize. We use Luzianne bags in our house, 3 family sized should do it, for a gallon of tea. We also put closer to 2 cups of sugar per gallon, but we pour it over ice which waters it down a bit. Great video by the way, keep up the great work!
Brett Johnson I have a coffee maker just for making tea. 1 full pot of tea, 2 cups sugar stir thoroughly then fill 1 gallon pitcher to the top with ice and stir again
@@jeremyhagen7684 This is exactly how my mother makes her tea, it is the correct way after all.
Brett Johnson Brett, my mom used to make her tea with Luzianne tea bags. I’m from Atlanta so sweet tea was a mainstay at Sunday dinner after Church.
My mother met her Southern in-laws 45 years ago as part of their honeymoon tour. One of her mothers in law (I technically had a step grandmother) had heard she liked hot tea. Being hospitable, Hazel or Marie presented her with a cup of hot water with a Luzuanne iced tea bag in it. Being fully versed in Midwestern politeness Mom drank the thing. I somehow missed the gene for enjoying any type of tea (or coffee) despite Mom’s family consuming both hot and iced (they didn’t however add much sugar; Mom asked for unsweetened while we were visiting my aunt and I remember her surprise at the 5 sweetener packets. Aunt told her that she was *obviously* a diabetic).
And those were Mom’s adventures without even crossing the pond (and yes I’ve tried Southern level sweet tea. My family has despaired over my tastebuds)
No wonder you all have diabetes
As a child, in the late sixties in Georgia, we had iced tea every day with our meals in the summer. I still prefer it to any soft drink, but now that I'm older, and heavier, I shun all sugar so I drink iced tea with lemon. Quite thirst quenching. And I prefer Luzianne and when I can't find that, I get Tetley. Tara, I love your hair!
Yeah, I grew up in the South about the same time, too...and every supper was served with iced sweet tea (we just called it 'tea', as most everything else was sacrilege, anyhow). We did Lipton tea bags...mother had a single old 'tea pot' (1.2 gallons) that it was SOLELY dedicated to making 'tea, and nothing but tea' (seems that to make tea in something, will carry tea over to other foods...and vice versa, well-washed in-between or not...so DEDICATED TEA POT). Old and retired now, I live in the Desert Southwest...and it gives a WHOLE NEW MEANING to 'sun tea', too...where with 110-F temps and 11-15 UV, you can 'brew a pot of tea' in an hour or so!
As a kid I liked sugar in iced tea. Can’t tolerate it in tea any more. Love iced tea though.
I didnt hear about lemon in sweet tea until i started looking at how other states did it, and that my grandfather did it. In Texas we just make it with sugar.
Southerner here. When explaining chemical saturation in a solution, my high school chemistry teacher told us that he always stirred the sugar into his tea while it was still hot. And, he knew he had enough sugar when he reached the saturation point. You didn't use enough sugar is what I'm saying. 🤣
Yes! Proper (Southern) sweet tea is a supersaturated solution.
Isn't the formula roughly one pound of sugar per tea bag per cup of water?
Wow, I thought I was only one who knew that you put the sugar in before the cool water!
Yes, however, with diabetes also a pandemic, we must make note. There are 201 g of sugar in a cup. Per gallon. If you use 2 cups double it, etc. here’s the clincher, that’s 50g appox per quart and 25g of sugar in a pint. We should all carbs to 180g per day. Two pints of tea sweetened with 1 cup sugar/gallon =50g or 100g if sweetened with two cups/gal. Over half the daily limit.
Cutting back is as simple as refrigerating it longer using half. Still good and refreshing and you avoid the scourge of diabetes.
Yeah it needs at least 2 cups per gallon
My family iced tea recipe is lightly sweetened, but not “sweet tea.” But we’re New Jersey Neapolitans. The first thing I learned when I moved to Texas was to specify Unsweet tea.
I love how he flat out chugged that glass of tea down in no time.
I noticed the same thing... Lol
To be fair it was pretty small glass. But yeah, sugary drinks are generally pretty easy to down.
"An Englishman who does not like tea."
Isn't that the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse? 🤣
No it is just rarer that a Unicorn.
5th column of the Apocalypse, Good Omens style :)
@Scrapyard Ape
I'm American who loves tea and I drink enough to make up for Laurence not caring for it.
That's odd
It seems 2020's now collected all of the horsemen, everyone: War, Plague, Famine, Conquest, and An Englishman Who Doesn't Like Tea.
I live in Georgia and when eating out ask for half sweet tea and half unsweetened. To me, pure unadulterated southern sweet tea is way too sweet. Some restaurants have more moderately sweetened tea, but virtually everyone...including fast food places where you serve your own drinks, carry unsweetened as well as sweet.
There's a reason for that, it's because ice waters sweet drinks down, the increased sugar is to offset that.
I've never gotten an iced tea in the south that wasn't extremely sweet. Ok occasionally on a brutally hot day-but FAR sweeter than I'd make it at home.
Agree, that ratio is more like 2 cups of sugar/ gallon.
As someone who once worked in fast food in Atlanta, I can confirm that we carried unsweet as well as sweet tea. That said, both versions arrived in-store the same way all the drinks did - in the form of large boxed 5 gallon bags of concentrate. Punch the perforations out of the carton to access the screw-cap on the bag, and attach to the corresponding hose for the drinks dispenser, which would then dispense the concentrate along with water/carbonated water into the cups.
The hose attachment for the sweet tea was always one of the stickiest in the place, right up there with the ones for the slushies. The other big problem was the sweet tea carton and the unsweet tea carton looked way too much alike so it was easy to confuse them, especially if whoever was changing them was in a hurry. We regularly got complaints that customers got the wrong tea out of whichever dispenser. (This was years ago, well before Covid shut down self-serve drinks stations.)
I make it with half the amount of sugar that Tara recommends. Just right for us.
We grew up drinking sweet tea. We called it "iced tea" or just "tea". My mother also made it with one cup of sugar to one gallon of tea, so good on you, darlin'. That's sort of the official appropriate sweetness that has been accepted from way back, across The South. This was our "go to" beverage when I was growing up, not soda pops! Soda pops or "cold drinks" as we called them were FAR too expensive to drink all day long as many tend to do today. And pops are bad for you, whereas tea, an herb, has things in it that are actually VERY good for you. As testimony -- my father lived into his 80s and my mother, her 90s! And none of us suffered serious health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, etc.! And we were all THIN, because we stayed busy doing something EVERY day!!
Great video, Laurence and Tara!!! You're making good strides towards getting your 'Honorary Southerner Badge'!!!
"a cup of sugar per gallon" nononononononono that isn't southern sweet darling. if your insulin doesn't go into diabetic shock upon your first sip it's not southern sweet.
I wanted to laugh at her when she said that. To be fair, I was born in GA and moved to WV. Although I never considered WV to truly be southern (to much snow for that), it is country. Her’s is more like country tea. That is my term for it. Many people in WV do know how to make true southern tea there, but many make it less sweet and think it is the same.
Yeah, she needs to double her sugar content.
@@joyfulchristina I'm from Georgia. I can confirm that we also make our sweet tea extremely sweet. Sorry you weren't able to stick around to discover it for yourself!
One cup per gallon is half of what you make Kool Aid with, so you've got that going for you.
My wife is from New Jersey she says the way I make my tea is too sweet. She should have tried my Grandma's.
Sweet tea is the house wine of the south.
Maybe I need to move South. So many people on the west coast love wine, but I can't stand it, and much prefer sweet tea! 😋
In the North, we often drink unsweetened iced tea a lot! I know I sure do!
@@CocoTaveras8975 Only when dieting. But I like hot sweet tea, too. Don't judge
I have never seen a sweet tea disappear so fast!🤣
Yes I know there's editing...
Love sweet tea and sleepytime tea and tension reliever tea and gingerbread tea
@@sinjun1973 Believe it or not, that segment wasn't edited for time. He really did drink it that fast!
Speaking as Laurence’s mum,we never drank tea when Laurence was growing up.
That was our family’s worst secret.
@@susanbrown5080 LOL!😊 if that's the worst you've done, you are an angel by most standards.
...and somehow he turned out okay...
John Marcinko He can still make me laugh.
@@susanbrown5080
That's sweet ♡♡♡
I had a mumsy like you. The sweetest person EVER in my life 🤩😍😘
Born and raised Texan here and sweet tea was a mandatory every-day drink in my family in the summer. Esp when my aunt had 5 kids of her own, then babysat me for my single mom and then all our friends coming over. Aunt would make it by the batch. Often having one brew on the stove and another being "sun brewed".
Also mandatory- Along with hours of in the fridge, it is brewed not that instant powder. And add sugar when water is hot, not later or you'd get that grainy texture to the tea.
I grew up drinking sweet tea. It's only now that I'm in my 50s that I'm trying hot teas brewed for single cups, not an entire pitcher like sweet tea is.
Every so often I like making Sun Tea. Put 8 tea bags in a gallon jug, fill with water, attach lid and set out in the sun for the day. Add 1 cup sugar for half-sweet and 2-3 cups for full sweet.
I used to do that in the desert. My tea would be ready in an hour!
True, though I go ahead and leave it into the night, so it gets a lot of latent heat from the cinderblock wall(placed for maximum exposure). It gets an almost opaque reddish black. Yum.
Are you from the Midwest?
@@elizabethbutler4649 If you mean me, Florida.
Sun tea is awesome stuff. You really want to wait for a very hot day to make it though. Direct sunlight. The kind of heat that you get in Texas or the Southwest. I don’t think it gets hot enough up north to properly make it. Anybody up north make sun tea?
Southern Tea: Luzianne brand - Boil water, add two family-size bags, steep for 1-2 hours, add 2 cups of sugar and water to make 1-gallon. Drink all day, every day. (It's not called 'sweet', it's just "tea"...)
I love to use regular Tetley tea for sweet tea.
Bingo
From New Orleans. Not a big fan of sweet tea. But Luzianne, straight up, add sugar to personal taste, all day long. That way people can make it as sweet as they like.
That's EXACTLY how I make mine.
When I was growing up, we called it "iced tea." That was between 30 and 40 years ago though :)
Just my 2 cents, Luzianne is the best for making Sweet Tea.
Agreed.
Luzianne works, too.
Luzianne is vile
Absolutely 👍. Luzianne is the best, and I use 2 cups of Sugar !!!! Love and sweetness from Tennessee USA ❤️, y'all !!!
@@gayleeidson6724 EXACTLY!
Nevermind Sweet Tea- The Arnold Palmer is where it’s at
You can customize, mix and match any variety of unsweetened iced tea with any flavor of lemonade for the perfect refreshing beverage
Personally my tea can’t JUST be sweet... Gotta be sweet with fruit flavoring too
Absolutely! It’s much better than Sweet Tea.
@@Parker-930:::::::clutching my southern pearls with a look of shock & horror on my southern Belle face:::::::::: oh lawdy! I can't believe you said anything was better than sweet tea! My granny is rolling in her grave!
@@Cent4man 🤣😂😅 ❤️
Arnold Palmers are really good. Love a classic half black tea with half lemonade or half strawberry lemonade.
If your grandpa from West Virginia had a sweet tea recipe, he was probably drinking it every single day.
With how rampant diabetes is in the south & southeast, it would be prudent to reconsider.
All day
@@agresticumbra thats not how diabetes works. It would be more prudent to learn that before telling people to reconsider anything.
@@mylt1z28 Actually that is pretty much exactly how type 2 diabetes works... take in way too much sugar and don't get enough exercise... that's how you get it, which is what they were referring to; and yes, diabetes is rampant across the USA and much worse in the south/southeast - everything they said was correct. You're right about type 1 diabetes though, that's genetic and there's pretty much nothing you can do about that except take your insulin, but it's pretty rare compared to type 2.
@@lamelama22 there seems to be some connection with infection and T1D. As well as insulin, it's important for them to also eat low carb.
No wonder T2D is so rampant when people don't know it's entirely diet related and preventable
No lemon in tea and 2 cups of sugar per gallon. -Mississippi
yeah, that's how I did it till I was 30ish. My taste changed and I had to tone down the sugar.
Michigan here. I make "sweet tea" all summer. It can be made by the glass. Instructions:. Make yourself a cuppa hot tea. While my electric kettle get hot enough, I have a quart size mason jar ready to add my full tray ice cubes. When the water is ready make your cup of tea. I use Lipton or Luzianne brand. Then put sugar in the hot tea to your taste. Then pour the hot sweet liquid gold into the iced mason jar. Make your hot tea a little strong because the hot tea will melt the ice and water it down some, so up the strength of your tea in this case. Stir your ice cubes and tea, then enjoy. This is when I'm the only one that wants iced tea or sweet tea. It's delicious. Of course when we have it with a meal I make a pitcher of it.
Sweet tea, is the "House wine of the South".
I’m from north Georgia, family’s been in Appalachia since we came over to the states, roughly the late 1600’s. My family uses *exclusively* Luzianne tea bags for sweet tea lol and absolutely no lemon. I’m sure every southerner has a dedicated way of making sweet tea that must not be altered 😂 we love our tea what can I say
life long Alabamian - tea, sweetened or unsweetened is more often made with Luzianne or Red Diamond. Lipton is not often the brand of choice. At least in North Alabama. (And yes, unsweetened tea, iced, is more common than generally thought. A cup of tea is generally ordered as "hot tea.")
Ga too. You get what you pay for.
Fellow Alabamian here but a lazy one. I buy Milo's at the grocery store. Great burgers, too.
Same in South Carolina. The Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island is the only tea plantation in the US!
Am I the only New England (specially Connecticut) person here?
Yes true true all true. Parents were from Birmingham but dad was in the military so I didn't grow up there. But mom raised me right. LOL
i live in southern california my mom would often make sweet tea by leaving the glass jug outside and letting it brew that way. We always call that version sun tea
Yep, we call it sun tea in Missouri as well
I call that soure fermented tea and it's Disgusting but I guess if you don't know how to boil water or are too lazy go for it.
@@jeremygenslinger4874 Wow bro, you failed at making tea and you're taking your anger out on everyone else?
@@jeremygenslinger4874 I'd slightly agree if it weren't hot enough outside to grill a steak in.
When I lived in NM, we made sun tea as well. Because the water doesn't boil, you don't 'burn' the tea, which releases the bitter oils in tea, so you get a cleaner, crisper flavor. Much more refreshing when it's 105 in the shade.
I can't speak for all southerners, but most people I know drink Luzianne brand sweet iced tea.
100%!
Red Diamond, at least among my family that drink tea. I can't stand the stuff myself.
Tetley here
Definitely
Pit Wizard I’m a massive Milo’s Tea fan. If I’m buying store bought tea, that’s the only tea I’ll buy but if it’s homemade, I get the tea bags and make iced tea myself.
I spent some time in the south as a child. When I was a kid I would die sweet tea by the gallon. In my book the only tea to make ice tea whether sweet or not is to use Luzzianne. Same recipe but with a superior tea. Lipton is black tea while Luzzianne is orange pekoe. I have no clue what the difference is but I can tell you orange pekoe is much smoother and what is properly used in sweet tea.... at least in my opinion.
Too many companies are now mixing black and orange pekoe leaves. I found it gives me heartburn.
Actually, It’s all black tea. Orange Pekoe is a grade of tea, not a different variety.
Chris Morris correct!!!
We live on sweet tea down here in the South. We drink it several times a day and there is always a gallon of it in the refrigerator.
SAME! I'm from NC and we know our sweet tea. Until my dad got diabetes, there was an ever present pitcher of tea in the fridge. I stopped drinking it after working in restaurants and having to make HUGE batches of it every day for years. I still respect it and can't stand hearing midwesterners bragging about their bitter version of barely sweetened tea.
Thats how we do it in Texas. Every resturaunt you go to, no matter how fancy or cheap, will have a sweet tea option on the menu. 🤠
@@TheRustyAntlers I can confirm since i'm from North Carolina aswell, near the Triangle area.
Sweet tea is definitely a welcome sight. Especially now, in Arkansas, where the average temp. is 100°F (40-ish° C) Some of us drink it like water.
I'm from the north but now live in the south. Sweet tea in each if these regions is definitely NOT the same! When I moved to the south I was SHOCKED how sweet it was. I now ask for half and half...half unsweetened, half sweetened...perfect!
I'm from New Jersey, and my mom made it sweeter than the recipe given here.
Having been born and raised in the South I can tell you Luzianne is the preferred to make iced tea as we call it as it is always sweet but can be sweetened by other means than sugar and yes most of us choose to drink it daily and perhaps even all day instead of soda's.
My southern family brewed "sun tea" in a gallon jar left in the sun all day. Do not disturb. Remove bags gently. Smoothest tea you've ever tasted and naturally sweet.
Oh hell yeah, sun tea is the shit!
Yes, sun tea is the only type to make in the south, at least when it's warm. It taste way better than making it with boiling water that turns out bitter.
True, but it needs to be consumed quickly or it can go off [spoil].
Naturally sweet?? No. They for sure added sugar to that. Tea just isn't sweet, at all. Doesn't matter how you prepare it.
@@mahna_mahna That confused me too. The Sun naturally sweetened the tea with its characteristically sweet radiation? did the water caramelize? This sounds like some midwest trickery.
My mother was raised in a tiny town in west Tennessee, hot, humid and flat cotton country. She grew up in a family that had a "spring house" and the tea was made in the evening (generally when the woman of the house was cooking supper) and set down in the spring house to cool for the next day. You did not add sugar to the hot tea, you made simple syrup on the stove at the same time you were using the stove for making tea, and you set that in the spring house to cool also. Tea is served in a pitcher and lemon, sliced very thin, was dropped into your glass, syrup was added over the lemon, with the cooled tea added to the glass and everyone used the same "tea spoon" to mix.
I make tea like this every day for my 82 yr old mother with dementia. She finds the ritual soothing and I enjoy the stories she randomly tells about her childhood.
Lovely story, glad you are helping your grandma.
That was a really lovely story ❤️
God bless you and your mother!
That is an excellent history story! I enjoyed reading it! From a northerner! I have yet to try sweet tea southern style! Got recipe??
Fascinating
I’m from Mississippi and grew up on sweet tea. Mom also used to make cherry limeade tea for special occasions; 3 family sized tea bags brewed in 6 cups of boiling water, 1 can of frozen condensed limeade and about half a cup (or more) of grenadine (which is a liquor mixer). No need to add sugar because the limeade and grenadine are already sweet. Mix together in a gallon pitcher and add ice to top of pitcher. Enjoy!
Can't wait to try this
Wow does that sound DELICIOUS !
When my daughter was seven, we took a trip into Germany, Switzerland and Austria. She was raised on unsweetened iced tea, mostly to keep her away from soda, and she prefers it. Try explaining to a German or any European, that you want tea with ice in it.
I went on a trip to Ireland years ago. When I would order a soda, it would come without ice. I started ordering it "with ice" and it would have ice...one single cube, to be precise. 😆
@@Hermititis That is hysterical! I can't wait to visit
Now, if you had a bag of boiled peanuts to go with it....
yes yes yes!
You'd throw up.
@@bradbutcher3984 No that's sweet tea and spaghetti. Don't ask me how I know. That was 40 years ago and I just started eating spaghetti again like ten years ago. I still can't stomach tea. That vomit episode was bad, I mean REALLY bad.
@@waynepurcell6058 spaghetti is nasty too.
Yes, a Florian thing, those peanuts.
Grew up in southern California, never had sweet tea until I married my husband who grew up all over the south and now I'm hooked 😂
that's insane because me and my mom grew up in southern California and we would always have it (usually let the sun heat it up to brew but it still had the same amazing amount of sugar)
Bless your heart! 😉
I am in the south. Georgia, and I put two cups of sugar per gallon in my iced tea, I make it in my coffee pot using ten tea bags. I buy great value brand tea and I am not picky about the brand. I mostly use black tea or orange pekoe, I walk around with a glass of tea all day long in the summer.
This video: One cup of sugar per gallon = sweet tea.
Me: *laughs in Southern* Bless your hearts.
I never liked sweet tea but I married a country boy from Alabama, and learned to make it. His mama use two cups sugar per gallon. I was horrified. Using Stevia, I was able to cut it all the way down to a quarter cup of sugar per gallon with a little bit of stevia. Until I went lower than that he couldn't tell the difference in taste. And, I did get his permission to do this.
😆😆😆😆
*laughs in diabetes*
Bless your struggling heart.
Right! That's not sweet tea. Scrap that lemon.
Sweet tea , to me is 2 cups of sugar per gallon. No lemon.
I grew up in NC and live in FL now. I during sweet tea every single day! Now, to be fair, there is sweet and unsweetened. My prefered level of sweetness fall somewhere between leafy flavores water, and syrup. Medium sweetness, if you will.
I also grew up in NC. Mine has gotten less sweet over time, but still sweet.
@Brian Stewart 2 1/2 cups! Yikes!
We never called it "sweet tea" just "tea" if it was unsweetened or hot, you had to specify.
We called it ice tea in north Alabama.
EXACTLY!
Spoken like a true southerner, but tea is without sugar just like coffee, adding anything to either is just making it soda-pop without the fizz. And yes I know you add the sugar while hot not after it has cooled down.
@@DanOKC When in Rome... You're not in "Kansas" anymore Dorothy.
@@DanOKC English people add milk to both tea and coffee. I don't add milk to either tea or coffee. I would that those aren't tea or coffee but milkshakes. LOL
I'm from America, too, and I'd never even *heard* of "sweet tea" until my first trip south of the Mason-Dixon line. Now I've just gotten into the habit of asking specifically for "unsweet tea" when I go out to a restaurant. 50/50 chance the waiter will give me that weird "what-other-kind-is-there" look, but either way I get what I'm looking for.
unsweet tea taste like used bath water
@@petty7329 you would know this how....?
I'm from "up north" as well, and have developed the habit of requesting UNsweet tea.
If someone wants to drink sweet tea, God bless 'em. Just don't give me the hairy eyeball when I order unsweetened tea
@@jeepstergal4043 Unsweet tea might as well be like taking a stick and letting it sit in a cup of water all day and then drinking it. It's about as flavorful. Might as well take some decaying leaves from your yard and crush them up and put it in water and let it seep. The bland taste probably wouldn't be far off.
When we went down South, my wife and I would mix half sweet and half unsweetened, it was perfect then.
"Well that should be good for my sturdy British teeth."
I had to paused the video, and left the room laughing after you said that! 😂😂
Growing up in TX, the beverage of choice in our home was Lipton sweet tea. And it was a cup of sugar per gallon of tea.
Im more of a Luzianne guy if I had to choose.
It's the same recipe as kool-aid.
Go figure. Just like bbq, you're doing it wrong. It's TWO cups of sugar to ONE gallon of tea
@@bushcraftguru682 Thank you! I was getting worried.... We do 2 C. and I was concerned by all the 1 C. comments.
Louisiana here. I pretty much like any black tea for iced tea but it has to be sweetened because it can be bitter if it is too strong.
I had sweet tea in my baby bottle. That is how true southern mamas did it xx years ago. 😁
Rebekah Johansson every night for supper growing up.
Still have all your own teeth? Or teaf?
Me too!
This is definitely a different recipe than I drink as a child in Texas. We do not use any lemon and double the amount of sugar per gallon. We also would make the tea and put ice cubes in to drink it immediately.
Sun tea, is a method we always used when making sweet tea. It gets hot enough here in TX to not have to use the stove to make it.
I had neighbors in Missouri who made sun tea.
When I was a kid, that's how we made it in Southern Illinois as well, let it sit in the sun and steep all day.
My mom used to make sun tea all the time, but she didn’t put that much sugar in it, so not sweet tea. She would drink plain hot black tea in the winter. Maybe a Delaware thing?
@@ChaoticButterfly Yeah in Missouri we make a lot of sun tea. Idk why there's so much Texas circle jerk on the internet.
We made sun tea on the fire escape of our apartment in Brooklyn
My favorite "tea" is an Arnold Palmer. Gotta love the half iced tea, half lemonade taste.
AGREED
Not a fan of straight lemon in my tea. But, I do love that mix.
Those are good too.
Very good.
My utter favorite!
I used to drink a gallon of Sweet Tea every other day and this was back in my extremely healthy years, running 5Ks playing American Football and what not. Sweet Tea still only packs anywhere between 50-70 calories per every 12 - 21ozs based on sugar content as all calories in tea come from sugar. Now I may drink a gallon a week. I got a kidney stone from Gatorade a few years back, wasn't sweating enough, and have switched to drinking a lot more water and it cut into my tea consumption. Although Sweet Black Tea is still my drink of choice.
Ooh, I have to drink salt daily to keep my blood pressure up and I’ve been drinking Gatorade. I also have some kidney stones in the making, and have passed a few, but I passed the first stones before I began drinking the Gatorade daily.
Did they analyze the content of your stones? Was it related to Gatorade? As Gatorade is mostly salt and sugar.
@@___LC___ Gatorade should not cause kidney stones. However, a high-salt diet and not enough water can. Gatorade should not be used as a replacement for water, It is more of a supplement to drinking a healthy amount of water. The salt in Gatorade is there to help muscles to transfer the lactic acids out of the cells and into the bloodstream. If there is not enough normal water intake alongside the sports drink, it could lead to stone formation from acid buildup in the kidneys, if the individual's body chemistry is already susceptible to stone formation. I would suggest consulting your doctor about whether or not sports drinks are a good source of the salt you are consuming. The most common kidney stones are actually caused by calcium. If you are taking too much Vitamin D, dietary fiber, or calcium supplements, it can lead to kidney stones. Glucose imbalances are the other usual cause, but usually that occurs with high amounts of sugar intake or diabetes. You doctor is always the best source of info on your situation, since a blood test is usually the best way of diagnosing what may help you to prevent kidney stones.
@@johnjon4688 this is exactly why I developed a stone. It was because I was using Gatorade as a substitute to sugary drunks such as pop/soda and barely drinking water so it wasn't uncommon for me to put down several Gatorades a day. The thing about it is I'm not a novice in terms of being healthy, this simple fact tmjust slipped my mind.
@@___LC___ I don't know I was able to break the stone up before it passed, only one I've ever dealt with and was discovered after I messed my lower back up lifting a trash bag with over 100 lbs of frozen Chicken in it. I had read up about breaking stones up with sound so I tried to do it myself using a speaker, a song with a lot of bass, turning said song up, and placing the speaker on my side. I don't know if it worked, but I never noticed when the stone passed, if it passed whole.
I’m from the west coast. Sweet tea was a surprise when I first went to the south. It’s quite sweet.
In summary
“Tastes better”equals “way less healthy “
We been knew !
FYI that tea tastes WAY better washing down the bbq of your own making
I was prepared to be less than pleased with your review but, being the incredibly objective person you are, you have it a fair shake.
That’s something I always appreciate about this channel
Flagrant objectivity.
1 cup per gallon is a bit lite in the Tennessee mountains
Amen! I was going to say this. 2 cups minimum.
so is tooth enamel
The reason 1cup is enough is because she leaves it in the fridge over night. Something happens to increase the sweetness when you "age"sweet tea
@@nickheiman6128 lol,you're funny,and wrong.Where are you from?
Finally! Someone who gets it. Non southerners get so proud of their "sweet tea" after putting a packet of sweet'n'low into a five gallon batch. I worked at a restaurant in NC that constantly had people coming just for the tea....we used 12 cups of sugar per 3 gallon batch. I stopped drinking sweet tea after that job, but I'm saying if it ain't viscous, it ain't sweet tea.
I'm about to piss off a bunch of people but I prefer unsweetened ice tea but I put sugar in my hot tea lol
I only use Tetley tea. I use 6 family sized bags to a gallon of water and 3/4 cup of sugar. I place the bags in tea kettle. Heat it almost to a boil without boiling. Shut off. Let steep 2 mins, remove tea bags, pour over sugar in pitcher, stir good and finish filling pitcher with water. We live in SC, we drink sweet tea every single day! Add a bag of your favorite individual tea for some flavor or add a slice of lemon or some bruised mint leaves.
I live in SC too. Since becoming diabetic i’ve stopped drinking it, I miss it.
As a Midwesterner who moved to the South, I can't stand sweet tea. I drink iced tea, but just black with no sugar. Brewed from Luzianne tea bags, of course. I'm not a total heathen. LOL
Same hon.
I prefer unsweet tea as well. And I don't like soda either! I have just never cared for my drinks to be sweet. Ice cold but not sweet 😂
Doesn’t like Lipton. Must be Luzianne. Much better.
Luzianne is 'specially blended for iced tea. :P :P
Luzzianne or Tetley. In that order.
Luzianne is from my state Louisiana.
@@cjmarsh504 Ahhh, so Luzianne is from Louisiana. That makes sense.
Ha. My mom has made the world's best sweet tea for decades using "whatever tea bags are a dollar a hundred."
just a cup per gallon? on a diet? you pour the sugar into the tea hot, and when you think you've poured too much, pour a little more, then ice. perfect!
Damn right, this old lady working at mcdonald's taught me how to make the perfect sweet tea. She was dumping 5lb bags of sugar into the tea container at McD's lol. That store had the best tea ever.
She's from Indiana, bless her heart. Midwesterners always doing the MOST to convince people they're southern.
She said 1 cup of sugar per gallon! Lol. Come to Alabama where 1.5 cups to 2 cups is the normal
My aunt was from Alabama. As a Texan, I was stunned to see the layer of undissolved sugar in the bottom of the pitcher. :-)
Y'all measure the sugar?!
-North Carolina
Not really. I wrote it out for our northern viewers. Its basically 5 seconds of pouring from a 5 lb bag, or 2 hand fills and 1 hand full. A hand full is about half a cup
@@marccrawford2764, I figured LOL The further South I've traveled, the sweeter the tea seems to get! I just knew Alabama wasn't down there with measurin' cups!
Yep I'm from Louisiana and we do 1 1/2-2 cups sugar too
"I wouldn't drink this every day."
*I would drink this every hour.*
Every day all day. Louzianne
Right? I go through a pitcher a day, myself, alone.
It's all I drink but mine really is sweet!
Me too, except I like "Yankee tea". I don't use sweeteners in my tea.
@@barbaramatthews4735 That sounds like Japanese tea
I grew up in California with a southern mama. We always had sweet tea at home, however all the restaurants served unsweetened tea. You had to add you owner sweetener, but it's just not the same. I will never forget the first time I ordered Iced Tea in the South. Having grown up with unsweetened being the norm in restaurants, I reach for the sugar and "doctored" my tea, stirred it really well and tasted a surprisingly syrupy mess! The waitress just laughed and said "You're not from around here, are you?" She was laughing. How was I to know they serve it correctly in the South?
My husband grew up in North Carolina. If you go anywhere and order, "iced tea," it will be sweet. However, we went to California to visit my family and he ordered "iced tea," and he about choked when they brought him tea that was not sweetened in any way, shape, or form. They did not have presweetened tea and tried to add sugar packets, but it obviously did not melt since it was ice. A word of warning for those from the south traveling west.
Yup. I’m from Texas and my diabetic husband always has to specify “unsweet tea”. We went to Colorado last summer and when he’d ask for unsweet tea the servers were like “what other kind is there in a restaurant?” XD
California gets so many things bassackwards. Bless their hearts
I cannot fathom drinking tea that is unsweetened. It's undrinkable. Like eating unsweetened chocolate.
Same thing happened to me when I visit my in laws in Washington state. Only place I've found that has sweet tea is one McDonald's. I just make tea before going anywhere to eat and bring it with me lol.
Yeah, trying to get sugar in already iced tea is quasi-pointless. You have to add 10 packs to get 1 pack worth to melt. Then you get that "snow-globe" thing going at the bottom of the glass.
Yeah I've lived here for over 70 years and only tried Sweet Tea once...never again.
The southerners I've been around use Luzianne. I prefer it. As a kid growing up, we always had a gallon of tea on the counter. Last one had to make the next pot. We just threw in around 6 bags in a pot with water, let it steep.. Added the sugar to the pitcher, about 3/4 cup and melted it with the hot tea. Then threw in ice cubes and water. I bet at times we went through 3 gallons a day. But, there were 7 of us.
I've made sweet tea with Yorkshire Tea and also Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling and Scottish Breakfast tea. Usually Taylors of Harrogate brand because Twinings is really overpriced in the states, and Taylors is just as good.
Speaking of Darjeeling, did you know that there once was a man of Darjeeling,
Who boarded a bus bound for Ealing.
The sign on the door
Said "don't spit on the floor"
So he carefully spat on the ceiling.
I lived in Harrogate many years ago and have been hooked on Taylor's tea ever since. Great tea.
Crazy how one plant that produces one leaf can produce so many colors, flavors, preparations and variations. America's oldest and only tea plantation can be found in South Carolina.
Not its only one, though certainly its oldest. There are several in Hawai'i, one in California, and one in Washington.
Now that weed is legal it's gonna blow your mind.
Try the Arnold Palmer. Sweet iced tea mixed with an equal amount of tart lemonade. Especially bracing in August in Mississippi.
I also like a big glass of iced sweet tea and squeeze the juice of a whole lemon or lime into it.
A fine cold remedy? A mug of hot tea with lots of honey and the juice of an whole lime. It sooths the cough and the vapor opens the sinuses, the honey has some indefinable but documented health benefits, and the astringent lime freshens your mouth.
Sweet Tea is Kool-Aid for adults.
Mmmm kool aid.
Well.. kool-aid for this adult is sweet tea with bourbon :D
@Root 66 Kool-Aid's good. Especially Tropical Punch.
How many down-thumbs must this comment have to have 54 up-thumbs and still be out-ranked by another comment with only 4 up-thumbs!?
Same sugar recipe lol
"Sweet Tea" used to be the default in the South, and still often is, but less so for big cities now. So you often had to specify unsweetened tea if you wanted that. And iced tea was likewise the default. Hot tea was unusual, even in winter, unless you specified it, or in more formal settings.
You two together reminds me a bit of Sheldon and Amy doing "Fun with Flags."
😂😂😂
Oh my word....thats it. I couldnt put my finger on it. They are so cute! Love this couple.
lmfao! but this is witty and interesting, unlike fun with flags. i think i gonna search for fun with flags on you tube and see what comes up.
Oh my god that's it!
The only place in the US where tea is grown is at the Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island just outside Charleston South Carolina. The tea farm was bought by Bigalow Tea company. You can visit the Tea Plantation where they have tours. You can learn how tea is grown and made. In the spring they have a festival called the First Flush. The plantation is open all year long for tours. You should come visit.
True Southern sweet tea is too sweet for me, so I prefer it “half-and-half.”
Southerner here- I also get mine half-and-half when I order it. However, the tea in this bit I would take full strength. One cup of sugar per gallon is about half the sugar we usually use.
I'm a half-and-half kinda guy. The fried chicken chain here in central Texas has some solid tea that you can get sweet, unsweet, or 50/50 made in the store that you can even get by the gallon.
@@Ephem13 here's a tip from a diabetic friend of mine, when getting half and half tea at a restaurant or fast-food joint: have them put in the unsweetened tea first, then the sweetened tea, that way the sweet tea sinks to the bottom and helps to sweeten the rest. Less mixing that way. 😁😊
I greatly prefer iced tea over sweet tea. The art of subtly is lost in the south. What she made was iced tea, 1 cup of sugar per gallon.
@@Ephem13 Bush's? Or Golden? God I miss Bush's chicken so much!
Coffee, tea and water. That's all I drink. And yes, I'm in the South.
I heard that people in the south love mountain dew a whole lot as well. I love it & I'm from the southwest.
I basically only drink tea and water. Occasionally I'll have juice. Usually orange or cranberry. About once a month I'll drink a coconut bai. If it weren't a bit expensive I'd probably have one of those a couple times a week. I love coconut bai. Especially molokai coconut.
Your list is missing beer 🍻
No Coke? I do tea and Coke. Not together though...
My family always drank "ICED
Tetley, yaay!
Let me say that I absolutely love your channel and adore you both. Here in the South we have been drinking sweet tea since the 1700's. I live in Summerville, SC which is the birthplace of sweet tea. We have been drinking the same type of tea since1888, when Dr. Charles Shepard founded the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in Summerville, SC. Also White tea, Green Tea, and black tea are not different plants; they all are made from the same species of tea shrub, the difference is in the life stage of the leaf and how it's processed. We would love for Y'all to come down and visit the Charleston Tea Garden on beautiful Wadmalaw Island and try the Souths Original USA grown tea known as American Classic.
I lived in Summerville for several years, and I have always missed it terribly. Especially in spring, when the azaleas are blooming. There used to be a white dogwood with a wisteria vine growing up in it. When they bloomed at the same time, it was a breathtaking sight!I grew up in Aiken, and learned to make proper sweet tea from my mother. I still make it the exact same way. Luzianne is best, in my opinion, but I have recently discovered PGTips, a British tea brand.
Wouldn’t drink it every day. Laughs in southern.
Right 🤣😂
With how rampant diabetes is in the south & southeast, it would be prudent to reconsider.
agresticumbra in my experience, they use artificial sweeteners.
Perhaps those you know do, but no one I know who makes large batch sweet tea uses artificial sweeteners, and I can’t imagine how gross that could be. The only ones I know who use artificial sweetener in tea is in single serve teas, like from a restaurant. Not sure why do many are adverse to tea in its own. Maybe they’re using crappy tea?
agresticumbra The difference in diabetes rates between CA and NC is less than 2%. The only states with a drastically different rate are WV (high) and CO (low). Considering a typical soda has DOUBLE the sugar of sweet tea, I find the seemingly judgmental comment that seems to be copied and pasted several times on this thread to be laughable.
As long as you don’t drink it every day? Ummm. In the South we drink two or three glasses at dinner and another two or three glasses at supper every day. So we drink fro four to six glasses EVERY day.
as a southerner, i approve.
same
Amen!
Yes ma'am!
My family is from south Georgia and Alabama and we would never, ever put lemon in our sweet tea. I love lemonade but I tried lemon in my tea once and found myself gagging. By the way, I drink hot tea with sugar or honey without milk too.
Savannah, GA here and lemon can absolutely be put in sweet tea. It's a personal choice. Also, very popular is mixing equal parts unsweetened tea and lemonade, Half & Half Tea. (A certain golfer was very fond of the drink.)
@@anij8226 No. I'm from Texas, but that doesnt change the fact that sour does not go with sweet tea. Nobody does that here because we are normal people. 🤠
Macon Ga area here, I definitely add lemon slices to my tea on occasion.
@@petty7329 Lemon sweet tea is very popular in the southeast. Some brew the lemon with it. Others will get lemon slices and squeeze the juice in the tea. Still others will simply put a lemon wedge in the glass.
@@petty7329 No one has ever called Savannah, GA “normal”. 😉
That recipe is "sweetened" tea.
Southern Sweet Tea has at least twice the sugar in it. A Sweet tea standard recipe for restaurants (worked in family dining for 20ish years) is 5lbs of sugar per 3-5 gal urn. (2 cup per gallon to 3.33 cup per gallon)
Btw, Appalachian and Southern aren't exactly the same thing either. There is overlap, but not the same.