Sweet tea (American Southern style)

How it works

Sugar dissolves far more readily in hot liquid than in cold, so sweetening the concentrate before dilution puts the sugar into solution completely and avoids the gritty undissolved layer that stirring sugar into a cold jug leaves. Brewing as a concentrate rather than at drinking strength means the cold dilution water does the cooling, which shortens the time the tea spends in the temperature range where it goes cloudy. Cloudiness is the method’s signature fault: as strongly brewed tea cools, some of what is dissolved in it comes back out of solution and hazes the liquid, and cooling it quickly through that range limits how much. Some households add a pinch of bicarbonate of soda, which does soften the astringency of an over-brewed batch, and is a correction for hard water and long steeping rather than a required ingredient.

Why choose it

It makes a large volume of consistent cold tea quickly, which cold brewing cannot do and flash-chilling cannot do at scale, and it is the drink an entire regional cuisine expects.

Equipment

• Brewing saucepan — Stainless steel or heavy-based aluminium; enamelled steel in many households
• Kettle — Stainless steel, glass or enamel
• Cold brew bottle — Borosilicate glass or BPA-free plastic with a steel or plastic filter core

Tea types it suits

Recorded on the method rather than inferred from the catalogue. A type missing here is not ruled out; it simply has not been written down.

• Black tea

Common problems

• Sweetening after chilling, which leaves undissolved sugar at the bottom of the jug
• Brewing at drinking strength, so the dilution water flattens it
• Over-steeping the concentrate on the theory that stronger is better, which gives a harsh, hazy result
• Chilling slowly in a warm kitchen, which both clouds the tea and leaves it standing at room temperature far longer than it needs to

Diagnosed problems

Written from the symptom, with the likely causes in order and a question to rule each one out.

• My iced tea has gone cloudy — Tea that was clear when hot turns hazy or milky once chilled.
• My tea is drying and puckering rather than bitter — The tea makes the mouth feel dry and rough, gripping the tongue and cheeks, without necessarily tasting bitter.

Teas with parameters authored for this method

4 teas have a parameter set written for sweet tea (american southern style), in alphabetical order. Each row is transcribed from that tea’s own record.

Other western methods

Same family, so the approach is close — the vessel, the ratio and the intent still differ.

• Herbal infusion (tisane) — Steeping leaves, flowers or fruit that are not Camellia sinensis. The method looks like tea brewing and follows different rules, because the material has none of the compounds that make tea sensitive to heat and time.
• Korean green tea brewing — A low-temperature approach to Korean green tea in which the water is cooled through a separate open vessel before it ever meets the leaf, and the pot is emptied entirely into the cups each time. Darye names the etiquette; the brewing approach below is shared by everyday practice outside any formal setting.
• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.
• Low-temperature brewing (gyokuro style) — A great deal of shaded Japanese leaf in a very small volume of water that is deliberately far below boiling — cool enough that the vessel can be held bare-handed. It is the most extreme low-temperature steeping in common practice, and it exists to extract one part of the leaf while leaving another behind.
• Mug infuser brewing — Loose leaf in a basket inside a mug — the most common way loose tea is actually made, and the method most often responsible for people concluding that loose leaf is not worth the trouble.
• Tea bag brewing — Pre-portioned tea in a permeable bag. The format was an accident of early twentieth-century sampling practice and became the dominant way tea is drunk worldwide, because it removes every decision except how long to leave it in.
• Western brewing (teapot or mug) — A small amount of leaf in a large volume of water, steeped once for a few minutes and then strained off. The approach most English-speaking drinkers already know, and the one most teas sold in the West are made for.

Sources