Correct, the greater Chicago area is not the south.
Neither are Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or New York which are the other states I’ve been in recently.
Also very annoyed when lemon is mandated and not an option - I do not like lemon in my tea.
Good tea doesn’t need any sugar, or at at most just a very slight amount, not to make it sweet but to bring out the flavor. Most restaurants don’t have very good tea, particularly not the tea from fast food joints. So, if I’m at, say, McDonald’s, I’ll either mix the sweet and unsweet at about 50/50, or mix in some lemonade if they have that. If I’m at a sitdown restaurant and order tea, it’s less likely to suck, so I’ll generally take it however they bring it, sweet or unsweet. When I make my own tea at home, since I’m using good tea, it’s never sweet.
It’s NEVER sweet enough. I like a little tea in my sweetener. But McDonalds sweet tea comes very close.
Hear! Hear! Sweet Tea isn’t a TX tradition – unlimited unsweetened tea is. I’m trying to wash down chips and salsa, and I don’t need any sweetness muting the carefully balanced heat they’ve prepared for me.
[quote=“Broomstick, post:21, topic:728907”]
Correct, the greater Chicago area is not the south.
Neither are Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or New York which are the other states I’ve been in recently./QUOTE]
So many different spellings for the word “Yankee!” 
In the South, I ask for sweet tea mixed with unsweet (half and half). Outside of the South, I get unsweetened tea and do it myself.
Restaurant “sweet tea” is an abomination, grossly sickly sweet.
I’ll add a small amount of sugar to a glass of iced tea (the Missing Poll Choice). I don’t need to dump the entire bowl in there.
I prefer unsweetened tea, but I usually make it at home if I want it done right.
However, it’s my experience that “sweet tea” done properly is not exactly the same as unsweetened tea. It’s certainly not that Lipton-from-concentrate nonsense you get in fast food places and most restaurants. If I’m in a good Southern restaurant, I’ll order the real sweet tea and thin it out with water.
And those chips & salsa are free–& also unlimited. Texans disagree on many matters–but some things are universal.
(Blue Bell will begin appearing in stores in Brenham, Houston & Austin next Monday.)
Southern sweet tea is absolutely horrid. It makes my teeth hurt.
Blend it? I’d need a firehose to water it down enough.
I like unsweetened tea when I drink it which isn’t very often.
My mom gets sweet tea and then puts artificial sweetener in it. Hurts my teeth to think of.
I understand drinking unsweetened tea if it’s the lighter tea that you often drink hot. But if it’s the South’s sweet tea (which is actually opaque), it’s way too bitter to not have some sweetener.
I find that the restaurants, around here at least, don’t oversweeten. It’s never the liquid syrup. And if we get it at church, the whole thing is always watered down, so it’s not too sweet.
I mean, if you want lightly sweetened–and I do sometimes–I can see mixing, but I’d mostly just get unsweetened and add my own until it’s right.
Damn straight! The masters who can keep me from seeing the bottom of my tea glass or the chip bowl (without me pleading them to stop) can count on their tip starting at 25%.
Oh sure, rub it…err, thanks for the heads up. I may have to make a trip to Austin on Monday.
The first time I found Sweet Tea “Up North by here, ya hey” I was excited. I’d read about it (on my favorite message board…) and assumed it was an antebellum delicacy. Visions of Vivian Leigh and George Reeves on the veranda of Tara sipping lightly sugared tea as I brought it to my lips… WHAAAAA? This isn’t Sweet Tea, it’s just Sweet, a cup of sugar barely diluted!
Hey, I love sugar (just blissed out on deep-fried Oreos at the local Corn Fest), but that first time, I had to gingerly sip it while nodding appreciatively to the transplanted Daughters of the Confederacy waitresses …
Thanks to all who’ve suggested half ‘n’ half. We have a local BBQ joint run by South Carolinians that does both iterations, so I’ll try that.
I’m surprised 91% of dopers drink Ice Tea.
I couldn’t vote because I order unsweetened tea and add maybe a half packet of sweetener to it. I can’t stand overly sweet tea.
Strictly speaking I drink “iced tea” but that wasn’t an option in the poll.
I like a little tea with my sugar. I usually don’t like chain restaurant sweet tea (not sweet enough and/or tastes like instant tea), but will almost always order a sweet tea from a mom and pop place. I was raised on my mother’s sweet tea and have no idea how much sugar she adds, but it’s a lot.
I’m from Tennessee.
Never like iced or hot tea sweet; I want to taste tea and not sugar.
(But I also drink my coffee black and unsweetened as well.)