Southern Strawberry Sweet Tea recipe is just what you need on a hot day. It uses easy ingredients and fresh strawberries to create an amazing sweet drink!
In a medium saucepan add 2 cups water, 1 cup sugar, and sliced strawberries. Cook over medium-high and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and let simmer for 30 minutes, or until strawberries are soft and the liquid is a deep red color.
Strain the strawberries using a mesh strainer into your pitcher. Press down on the strawberries gently, but make sure to not press too hard. You don’t want any strawberry chunks in your sweet tea.
While the strawberry simple syrup is cooling in the pitcher add 3 cups of hot water to a large bowl. Place 3 family sized tea bags into the hot water and let steep for 5 minutes. Remove tea bags from the bowl and throw away.
Add 1 cup of sugar into the bowl with the tea and stir well.
Dump the sweet tea from the bowl to the pitcher.
Add 8 cups cold water to the pitcher and stir well.
Add the juice from 1 large lemon to your sweet tea and mix well.
Cover the pitcher and refrigerate 2-3 hours, or until very cold. Serve over ice and enjoy!
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Notes
For the most intense strawberry flavor, this recipe works best with very ripe strawberries. This recipe makes quite a lot of tea, so you’ll need either a very large pitcher or two medium-sized ones. You can adjust the number of tea bags to vary the strength of your tea. For stronger tea, add an extra tea bag and steep for an extra five minutes. For a lighter-colored tea, use only two tea bags and add extra water.