It really is. I was raised in South Carolina and drank sweet tea regularly as a child. In my college years, I had easy access to as much as I wanted and gained around 50 pounds. One summer, I realized how much better I felt drinking less of it and swore it off. By swapping sweet tea for water, I lost all that weight and have kept it off for 20 years.
Nowadays, I’ve gained an appreciation for unsweetened iced tea. The initial sip is always a shock when restaurants accidentally serve me sweet tea.
We got Union as hell on this post, didn’t we. Every time I come back it has more comments.
I’m still mad as fuck that I can’t get my precious Lipton Instant Tea at Walmart, because I really was raised in a trailer park, so maybe that’s why I had to delete my own giant shitty comment about this.
Yeah, and if you saturate hot tea, won’'t the sugar simply materialize back as the tea gets colder? Seems to me that nothing about this has to do with saturation.
No, I can assure you sugar does not re-crystalize after being mixed in hot tea. It is super interesting how differently people view this subject just based on where they grew up.
That is only because it’s not saturated. If you added an ungodly amount of sucrose (and I like it ridiculously sweet but this would be undrinkable), it would recrystalise when chilled. That’s why there’s a controversy here. A saturated solution would recrystallise, but people are pointing out that tea obviously doesn’t do that. That’s simply because no one drinks it saturated. It’s hard to stir in while cold because the rate of dissolution varies as temperature. That’s why there’s some confusing as to thinking it’s about the saturation point. It’s actually below it in both cases (hot and cold). To learn more about that mechanism, read about how reaction rate is affected by temperature.
You’re right with normal tea, but normal tea is never saturated. If you added another pound or so of sugar while hot, then let it cool, it would absolutely recrystalise (barring supersaturation). But you’re right, that’s not a factor in normal tea. It’s about the rate of dissolution (which also depends on temperature), not saturation point.
Yes. Not sure what the other person is on about. Hot water can have more sugar dissolved in it. When it cools it crystalizes but only if the saturation level is higher than what the water can hold. It’s how rock candy is made. This is like basic chemistry.
And here I was happy to learn something new on social media contradicting my previous knowledge lol. But yeah, I definitely intend on having a basic chemistry refresher video now!
Hot water dissolves it much quicker, giving the illusion that it dissolved more. It’s not actually saturated when you’re trying to stir it into cold tea, it just dissolves extremely slowly. If you were to saturate it while hot (which would take an insane amount of sugar), then yes, it would recrystalise. But in pracrice, you need to dissolve it while hot because the more energetic molecular motion in the solution dissolves the sugar faster, since the heat is causing more effective collisions. Saturation point and the change thereof is, contrary to the proposal above, not a factor here, since everything is happening well below that point even with the sweetest teas commercially available.
It’s not about achieving saturation, it’s about how quickly it dissolves. The sugar packets would absolutely dissolve, if you stir vigorously for half an hour… Rate of dissolving varies as temperature. 9th grade chemistry…
Water can dissolve a ridiculous amount of sugar even at room temp. For an average 12 oz glass of tea, the most sugar that could dissolve is a whopping 700 grams. One packet of sugar is about 5 grams. At the saturation point it would be basically syrup thickness, too.
No, even with the 2 cups of sugar per gallon it seems to make sweetend tea it still isn’t super saturating the mixture. It might make it take longer to dissolve but it’s not because the tea is fully saturated. They could put 4 cute per gallon and it still wouldn’t be fully saturated, even when cold.
This is correct, it’s sad to see that you’re getting downvoted for pointing that out. People aren’t seeing that It’s about how rate of dissolution is affected by temperature, not saturation point. Even in the south it isn’t supersaturated (although it does get very close to saturation when chilled with some brands). More would still dissolve when cold, just very, very slowly (‘vigorously stirring overnight’ slowly…)
Not quite. It gets close to saturation with some of the sweetest brands, but typically no. See below comment for where this confusion is coming from. Remember that rate of dissolution varies as temperature…
They aren’t from where I’m from. They are all stupid, racist, idiots, bad. OK man. I’m sure you’re the only one with the right perspective on the world.
Looks to like the South might not hold a monopoly on stupidity, but they sure as fuck are disproportionately well represented on all the worst lists one can think of. That’s not opinion. That’s fact.
Ya I’m calling bullshit on some of this. Plus, do you really need to put others, and even places you’re not from, to make yourself feel better? That’s extremely smart, healthy, doesn’t lump groups of people into one, and definitely not a dangerous mentality to have. You’re doing great buddy.
Great job assuming I live in the south. I really don’t care. Doesn’t matter where you live, there are idiots everywhere. You guys are proving me right.
I am not even referring to that. Sweet tea was never a southern thing, they just claimed it as theirs for no good reason. My grandmother makes her own, her grandmother made her own and they only ever lived in the North. I been to friends houses where their parents made it. This was in PA and NJ. I personally hate tea so I would get offered it and turn it down all the time.
You couldn’t make it the disgusting super saturated diabetes juice like they do in the south without heating it though. Mr ‘Im not racist but…’ is actually right about that.
Saturated at 100℃ is 490gms per 100mls or about 40 pounds per gallon. Most recipes call for 1 pound (2 cups) per gallon. A lot of people will double or triple that, but for it to be supersaturated at 0℃ you would still need about 15 pounds, so even taking it from boiling to iced, most people won’t be supersaturating it.
Sweet tea usually has 2 cups (400 grams) of sugar per gallon (some “real southerners” use more… a lot more)- so a 16 ounce glass (11 ounces of liquid, accounting for ice) will have (at least) 34.37 grams of sugar (about the same as a coke). A sugar packet has 2-4 grams of sugar. So, if you get the small ones, you’d need to sit there an open and pour about 17 packets of sugar.
They will dissolve. The saturation limit for sugar in 0℃ water is 180 grams per 100ml. There are 29.57ml per ounce, so 325.27ml in 11oz. 180gm * 3.2527= 585.486gm. So, you can dissolve 585.486 grams of sugar (or 292 sugar packets) in 11 ounces of 0℃ water.
You could do more if it were boiling- 490g of sugar can dissolve in 100ml of boiling water, so 490 * 3.2527 = 1593.823 grams or 796 sugar packets in 11 oz of water, but honestly, that seems excessive, even for the south.
In Arkansas, the standard is a cup and a half per gallon unless you’re at a restaurant with a majority of black employees. Then it’s two cups per gallon. I agree with the op on adding sugar to cold unsweetened tea. Fucking Yankee heathens.
Or, you know, don’t add sugar at all. Iced tea doesn’t need it.
When you stop guzzling that sort of syrupy sludge drinks start becoming refreshing. They quench your thirst instead of making you want to grab some pork rinds and a side of insulin.