As a data point, every time I’ve ever ordered iced tea in Canada it’s been sweet. I didn’t even know unsweetened existed until I ordered a glass in California once. The first sip had me all perplexed, but I loved it: especially with a lemon slice squeezed in it. Or is that barbaric?
Holy shit! That’s like eight or nine teaspoons per glass!
And that’s after I tapered off a bit. I used to be 2 cups.
No, that’s kind of weak for good sweet tea. Sweet tea is meant to be strong enough to take the paint off a car door, to balance the sweetness and counteract the dilution of melting ice. I make mine more like Oakminster, except I boil my teabags in a smaller amount of water rather than farting around with a tea maker.
THing is, you guys keep describing Sweet Tea as one thing, but what you get at any restaraunt that uses the term isn’t that. I’ve never heard of a sweet tea that was sweeter than a soda/pop/coke. And, in restaurants, it’s always rather weak–the same light brown color of the unsweet tea.
We have had Sweet Tea, sweetened during brewing, in my house forever (we buy it in 96 gallon packs), and it is very dark, but to call it a syrup? Syrup is a lot thicker than that. IF that’s the consistency that y’all have been using for syrup, I feel really, really sorry for you.
Finally, the fact that all those little packets of sweetener are so sweet to me indicates that they are trying to mimic the sweetness of what you guys call sweet tea. But, again, seeing as every other drink is nearly as sweet, I don’t understand your objection.
I know that this has been asserted and confirmed in this thread but I’m still having a hard time believing that it really happens.
If you want a sprite, why not just ask for a sprite? Why bother asking for a coke if you know the waiter is going to come back with the “what kind” question?
That would be equivalent to one of us yanks asking for a soda. We would never do that because we know the water needs to know what kind of soda. And we know this without the waiter having to ask us.
I have to wonder what this conversation sounds like if what you want is, in fact, a coke.
“do you want a coke?”
“sure!”
“okay, what kind?”
“a coke”
“yeah but what kind?”
“uh, a coke. You know, a coke?”
“ok but what kind of coke?”
That could go on all day.
In Pennsylvania it’s “all you’un’s’ll”.
There’s actually a seamless transition between the generic coke and the specific Coke. You’d ask, “Do you want a coke?” and the person would respond, “Sure, Coke is good” or “Sure, I’ll have a Sprite.”
We use “coke” in the same way you use “soda”. If I get up to go to the vending machine, then I’ll tell the person I’m with that I’m going to get a coke, instead of saying that I’m going to get a soda, or a pop. But I would give a waiter a specific drink order.
“Want a coke?”
“Sure.”
“What kind?”
“Co’cola is good.”
“OK.”
Although most would just say “Gimme an RC an’ a Moon Pie.” 
Actually, a perfectly legitimate response/clarification would be “Co’-cola.”
ETA: Or what silenus just said.
I’m a South Carolina native, and I always actually called the soft drink by its proper name, FWIW.
+1 And I’ve never personally heard “coke” used generically for soft drink.
Fine, but why not just ask for that up-front and eliminate the song and dance?
Because it’s the word a lot of people here mean to use soda, and don’t necessarily know what they want when asked?
For a specific example, I often ask for “diet” with no clarification, and then say yes whenever the waiter asks if Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi is okay because I just don’t care which I get, and I don’t necessarily know what kind of soda they might stock. I’ll also tell my mom to pick up some soda when she’s going out, and we do the same “song and dance” when she asks me “what kind?”.
And to move away from drinks, I bet you’ve asked “What?” when someone asked you a question, then answered them before they repeated themselves because you’ve needed a second to think, or were still processing what you just heard.
Oh, and I have to tell the embarrassing story on myself of how late last night, knowing I was out of tea and would need some to bring to work with me today, I made a gallon of tea at midnight, let it sit a bit to cool off, then put it in the pitcher and into the refrigerator … all the while completely forgetting to sweeten it at all.
I now have a gallon of bitter disappointment in my fridge that I’ll have to pour out and start from scratch with before dinner tonight.
I thought Splenda would dissolve in cold liquid. It’s not much like sugar.
I haven’t had much luck with it doing so, and wasn’t willing to risk 1-1/4 cups of it to try. 
It’s the exact same thing as this conversation:
“Do you want a soda?”
“Sure”
“What kind?”
“Oh, a Co’cola”
It’s just that “coke” is used as the generic instead of “soda.,” thusly:
“Do you want a coke?”
“Sure”
“What kind?”
“Oh, a Co’cola”
Neither version is a “song and dance.”
Yes. Y’all’ll was a normal part of my vocabulary growing up, but I was eventually broken of that habit by northern mockery. Frankly it still sounds perfectly reasonable to me, once you’ve accepted the y’all.
Couldn’t you just heat up a cup or two of the tea and dissolve the Splenda in that and mix it in?