Sweet tea; the oldest most exceptional southern tradition. It’s refreshing, sweet, cold, and you probably have a pitcher of it in your refrigerator right now. It’s easy to take this southern staple for granted when you’ve had it with almost every meal growing up, but there is actually quite a bit of history to this American classic.
While the world has been cosumming hot tea for thousands of years, iced, sugary tea has only been popular since the 19th century. There is evidence that the first tea plants were brought into the country in the 1700s, and were planted in a colony in South Carolina by French explorer Andrew Michaux. South Carolina is the first place in the United States where tea was grown, and the only state to have ever produced tea commercially.
The sweet tea you know today is much different than what people of the old days consumed. Generally, green tea plants were used and it was flavored with citrus, or even liquor. In fact, most sweet tea recipes then were mixed with alcohol, and typically referred to as “punches”, and served exclusively at lavish parties. The oldest known recipe for cold, sweetened tea was published in 1879 by Marion Cabell Tyree. In her recipe she called for “a pint and a half of very strong tea, pour it boiling hot on one pound and a quarter loaf of sugar, half a pint of rich, sweet cream, and a bottle of claret or champagne”
It wasn’t until the 1900s that the use of black tea became popular, when a man named Richard Blechynden serving hot tea at the World’s Fair realized the heat was too intense, and started offering free black tea over ice to fair-goers, and because of this, it changed the way American’s thought of tea, thus popularizing iced tea. Although he did make the drink popular, he is often credited with the invention, but there had already been several publications of the cold drink in various cookbooks in prior years.
So, what makes sweet tea southern, you ask? The answer is undoubtedly sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. In 1928 a southern cookbook by Henrietta Stanley Dull, wrote a recipe that remains the standard in the South for years to come. She wrote the recipe that called for tea to be boiled strong to allow for dilution with water, and the sugar was to be put in while hot, cooled, and served over ice. It can be argued that this drink gained such a reputation in the South as it offered a cool refreshment to beat the classic and undeniable summer southern heat. Despite its boozy roots, society changes transformed this drink from party punch to the sweet, wholesome family refreshment you have at your dinner table today.