In The United States there are two traditional iced teas; the only difference between them is the variation in sugar. The Southerners are the ones who most commonly make sweet iced tea recipes.
It is served all year with every meal, unlike other places where people only drink it in the summer. What exactly is a sweet tea you might ask? Sweet tea is a form of iced tea that has sugar added to the hot water at any time, whether it is added before brewing, during brewing, or post-brewing. After you add the sugar the drink is then chilled and served.
This tea is common in the Southern states because it can be made in large quantities. It is also very quick and inexpensive to make. Some restaurants in the South will even put a pitcher of sweet iced tea on a table for the dinner party to keep refilling for free.
But where did the idea of sweet tea come from? The oldest sweet tea recipe that is found in print was written in a community cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, which was published in 1879.
At first this recipe stated that the maker of the iced tea had to use green tea, but during World War II we were cut short of green tea supply and people started using black tea. After that black sweet iced tea became revolutionary.
