The sweetened iced tea beverage popular in the Southern United States is called sweet tea. It is usually made by adding sugar or syrup while black tea is hot, then chilling the drink and serving it over ice.
Sweet tea became an important regional staple of Southern cuisine, where restaurants and households often serve it throughout the day. Lemon is a common optional flavoring, but lemon does not define the beverage. The defining feature is that the tea is sweetened before it is served cold.
The oldest known American sweet-tea recipe appeared in Marion Cabell Tyree’s 1878 community cookbook, Housekeeping in Old Virginia. That recipe used green tea. During World War II, access to green tea from East Asia was disrupted, helping black tea from British India become the dominant American choice.
Sweet tea differs from an Arnold Palmer, which combines iced tea with lemonade. Unsweetened iced tea is simply iced tea, while sweet tea specifically contains added sweetener.