Sweet Tea

Mary Ross’s Sweet Tea

One Gallon of Sweet Tea

  • 2 cups boiling water
  • 4 quart-size family tea bags
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 14 cups cool water or 10 cups  water and 4 cups ice cubes

Boil 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and add tea bags to the water in the sauce pan. OR if you are using a hot-water kettle to heat the water, pour 2 cups of boiling water over tea bags in a small heat-tolerant pitcher or 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Steep tea bags for exactly 10 minutes.

Pour hot water and tea bags into a heat-tolerant serving pitcher with sugar already in it.  Remove tea bags and stir until the sugar is dissolved (about 2-3 minutes).  Add chilled water or water and ice cubes to bring the quantity to one gallon (4 quarts or 16 cups).  Serve over additional ice cubes in glasses.

Mary Ross
One of Carlyn’s friends from the Single Circuit and New Beginnings Sunday School Classes, 1st Methodist UMC, Houston, Texas

Tips for Beginners

To make this tea, you need a sauce pan or 1 small pitcher or a glass measuring cup that holds 3-4 cups of hot liquid, and a large serving pitcher that can stand heat.  If your serving pitcher is crystal, make the tea in a plain ceramic pitcher or storage container like (Rubbermaid, Tupperware, etc.), then transfer to the serving piece when your meal is ready.

To make one half gallon of sweet tea, you will need

  • 2 cups boiling water
  • 2 quart-size family tea bags
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons white sugar
  • 6 cups cool water or 6 cups combined water and ice cubes

Boil 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and add tea bags to the water in the sauce pan. OR if you are using a hot-water kettle to heat the water, pour 2 cups of boiling water over tea bags in a small heat-tolerant pitcher or 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Steep tea bags for exactly 10 minutes.

Pour hot water and tea bags into a heat-tolerant serving pitcher with sugar already in it.  Remove tea bags and stir until the sugar is dissolved (about 2-3 minutes).  Add chilled water or water and ice cubes to bring the quantity to 1/2 gallon (2 quarts or 8 cups).  Serve over additional ice cubes in glasses.

Carlyn’s lessons learned

1. After years of making this tea, I tried a short-cut when pressed for time and cracked a 20-year old wedding gift, one of my favorite crystal pitchers, when I tried to dissolve the sugar and 10-minute hot tea in the crystal.

2. A few years after that, I was making the tea to take to our Thanksgiving gathering and forgot to remove the tea bags before stirring.  Tea bags disintegrate when left too long in hot water. It took more time to strain the bits of tea leaf out of the gallon of tea than it would have taken to make a fresh batch, which I ended up doing anyway.