Sweet tea and herbal teas have become staples in many homes, but when your tea is too rich in flavor it can make even the sweetest tooth cringe. If finding the right balance between tea and sweetness has become a delicate process for you, it’s time to experiment with some new options. Luckily, there are creative (and healthy) ways to balance out your sweet tea.
You can balance overly sweetened tea by adding fruits like lemon, orange, or pineapple. You can also add refreshing herbs such as spearmint and peppermint, or spices like cinnamon and cloves. Other additions such as pure cacao powder, vanilla, creamer, or even a splash of bourbon can transform overly sweet tea into something entirely new.
It’s probably not often that any of us truly over-sweeten our tea. In fact, I don’t often sweeten most of my teas at all. However, there’s a first time for everything and if you’ve ever come away with a tea that’s just a little too sweet (or even if you just want to get a little creative with your current teas), there are some amazing additions you can consider.
Let’s cover 5 tips for transforming your overly-sweet tea into something you love.
Tip #1: Don’t Add as Much Sugar
Consider this your “Thank you, Captain Obvious” tip for the day: the simplest way to make tea less sweet is by not making it that way. If you find that the tea you make is too sugary, start by limiting the amount of sugar you use. Keep cutting it down until you find the perfect taste for your liking.
For example, if, for a gallon of southern sweet tea, you’re using the average one and ¼ cups of sugar and you find it to be too sweet, lessen the amount of sugar by ¼ cup until you reach your preference. For herbal tea, cut down on the sugar you’re using by a half teaspoon (or however much you use per cup).
Another great way to keep your tea sweet without adding an abundance of sugar is by adding a pinch of baking soda to your glass. This works exceptionally well in traditional southern black sweet tea. Baking soda works to neutralize the bitter taste of black teas, thus allowing less sugar to taste like more.
Tip #2: Dilute the Sugar with More Water or Black Tea
If you’ve found that you’ve added too much sugar to your tea, another simple way to cut down on the sweetness is by adding more water or sugarless black tea to the mix.
Some ways to dilute your tea include:
- If you don’t like a strong tea taste, you should merely add more plain water to the tea pitcher. This will lessen both the sweet taste of the sugar and the bitter taste of black tea.
- Add handfuls of ice to your tea pitcher to dilute it. As the ice melts, it will cool down the tea so that you can have a cold beverage, while also weakening the overpowering sweetness.
- If you prefer a bitterness to your tea, you could also brew a few more cups of black tea and mix it in the pitcher. This will help to lessen the sugary taste while also giving you a stronger tea.
- You can add sugarless black tea to your naturally sweet herbal teas to introduce a more neutral flavor and soften the sweet notes. Be careful not to steep black tea too long, or it may become too bitter and create an unbalance of flavors.
Tip #3: Add Acidic or Bitter Fruits and Herbs to the Tea
Placing acidic or bitter fruits and herbs in sweetened tea will help to lessen the sweetness and break down the sugar molecules.
The following are the best fruits and herbs to use in tea that is too sweet:
Lemons
Lemons are most commonly used to balance out sweet and savory tastes in tea. Adding a few slices of lemon to your drink or pitcher will help to remove a bit of the sweetness from the sugar, thanks to its high acidic properties that break down sugar. You can either place the slices directly in the tea after cutting them, or for a more sour drink, squeeze as much juice from the lemons as possible and place the peel inside the tea for increased infusion.
Oranges
A summer favorite, oranges add a splash of tropical flavor to sweet tea. Like lemons, the acid in oranges will help to remove sweetness from tea and give you a burst of flavors. To increase the potency of oranges, use a juicer to juice the orange into the pitcher or use a spoon to smash the orange at the bottom of the glass. This will encourage the orange flavor to move throughout the tea, rather than just remaining at the top of the beverage.
Pineapples
Pineapples are low in calories and sugar, but add a healthy profile to any tea. Pineapples also contain trace amounts of vitamins A and K, phosphorus, zinc and calcium. They are especially rich in vitamin C and manganese, providing 131% and 76% of the daily recommendations, respectively. They also boost your immune system and can help you recover more quickly after an injury. As with lemons and oranges, you can squeeze the pineapple juice into the tea or smash the pineapple at the bottom of your teacup.
Mint
Fresh and potent, fresh mint leaves are an exceptional addition to tea to reduce the sweetness. The chilling effects and strong smell and taste of the oil found on mint leaves help to mask the taste of sugar and bring a more refreshing taste in its place. Crushing the mint leaves between your fingers and adding it to your tea pitcher or at the bottom of your glass will help to release the flavors and spread them throughout the drink.
Mixed Berries
Sour-sweet berries such as blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries are great for spicing up your sweet tea, while also masking any overwhelming hints of cane sugar. Smash the mixed berries at the bottom of your glass for extreme flavor or allow them to float in your tea for a lighter taste.
Cranberries
Cranberries are a fruit that you either love or hate. No matter your opinion of their taste, one truth remains: cranberries can take the sweetness out of practically anything. If your tea is too sweet, consider adding crushed, fresh cranberries, or a splash of cranberry juice to reduce the sweetness.
“The leaves in tea bags are edible and safe, although they may not be of the highest quality.”
TEA CROSSING
Tip #4: Add Holiday Spices and Flavors
If the tropical, bright summer flavors aren’t to your tastes, there are also a variety of holiday, fall, and winter spices that can make your tea less sweet and more flavorful!
Some of the most popular holiday flavors to add to sweet tea are:
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a naturally savory spice that is often paired with sugar in drinks and desserts. Since your tea is already sweet, adding a cinnamon stick or two to your glass will put you in the holiday spirit and fill your senses with warmness. By adding another flavor into your tea, you’ll be diminishing the amount of pure sugar you taste.
Ginger or Ginger Ale
Ginger or a splash of ginger ale will add a sharp taste to your overly sweet tea. For a bubbly beverage, ginger ale is recommended. For a stronger ginger taste, grate ginger root flakes into your tea and push them to the bottom with a spoon.
Vanilla
Adding a splash of vanilla in your sweet tea with cinnamon will give you a flavor unlike any other. Natural vanilla isn’t so much sweet as it is bitter, making it a perfect match for your tooth-achingly sweet tea. As an alternative to pure vanilla extract, you could pour in a dash of vanilla creamer into your glass.
Clove
Clove is a holiday flavor staple that will add a kick of spice to your sweetened tea and mesh well with flavors such as citrus, cinnamon, vanilla, and ginger. Crushing the clove will intensify the flavor.
Milk or Cream
Hot black tea with milk or cream is a delicacy for the English breakfast lovers. If your morning hot tea is too sweet, consider adding an unsweetened creamer or a splash of milk to create a silky, smooth texture and neutralized flavor. Creamers with caramel or vanilla flavors can add an even wider range of tastes and smells to your hot tea.
Holiday Spice Bourbon (or Other Alcoholic Beverages)
Though it may seem like an odd addition to your nightly hot tea, cinnamon or spicy bourbon drizzled into your cup will help to lessen any overpowering sweet taste and settle you before bed. It may also help with any seasonal issues like colds, stuffy noses, and sore throats.
Apple Juice
Apple juice with hot tea and a cinnamon stick is the ideal way to remove any sugary sweetness and put you in the wintery mood. It’s also a great way to add more vitamins to your tea!
Tip #5: Use Natural, Organic Sweeteners
Before it’s too late and your tea is unbearably sweet, consider these natural substitutes for cane sugar:
Peaches
Peaches will add a pleasant taste to your tea, without the overpowering sweetness of cane sugar. Though peaches aren’t a great option to use if your tea is already too sweet, they are an excellent choice for substituting cane sugar with a more tolerable sweetener. The natural sugar in peaches will soften the bitterness of tea, without making it overly sweet.
As with any fruit, you can either place a few slices of fresh peach in the glass or pitcher or, for a stronger taste of peach, juice the peach into the tea and then add the peel.
Organic Stevia or Monk Fruit
Stevia is an all-natural sweetener and an increasingly-popular replacement for cane sugar in a variety of beverages and dishes alike. It comes from the leaves of the South American Stevia plant and, when dried, turns into a fine, white, sweet powder. Monk fruit is made from a small, green melon native to China. It is considered to be a very sweet and safe alternative, and may even help with inflammation. Organic stevia is a pure and safe alternative to artificial sweeteners and unhealthy amounts of cane sugar commonly found in sweet tea.
Both options are also great for dissolving in hot tea and tea that’s already cold, unlike white or organic cane sugar, which takes ages to dissolve in cold, unsweetened tea (or just settles at the bottom of the glass).
Pure, Organic Honey
Honey has been used as a sweetener and health-aid around the world for centuries and continues to be a favorite among tea-enthusiasts everywhere. It has a speculated gold mine of health benefits, such as antibacterial properties, and it tastes good, too!
Place a spoonful or two of local honey into your tea glass for a natural sweetness that’s hard to beat. It’s best to put honey in your tea when it’s still hot, rather than when it’s cooled down or has sat in the refrigerator. Warm or hot tea will help dissolve the honey better and produce more flavor.
Pineapple
Another plug for pineapple! A two-in-one fruit, a pineapple’s acidic content will help to reduce the processed sugary taste of sweetened tea, while also adding a tropical sweetness to your refreshment. Pineapple pairs nicely in sweet tea with other tropical fruits such as mango. Running the pineapple and mango through with a skewer and then placing it in the tea will help to release the flavor (and then you can effortlessly eat the fruit after your beverage is gone!)
Organic Agave
A similar sweetener to Stevia, Agave, or Agave Syrup, comes from the desert Agave plant native to Mexico and the southern United States. Agave is used as a natural sweetener and alternative to cane sugar and is derived from the sap of the plant. It’s an excellent sweetener for those that have diabetes, due to its low glycemic index.
When shopping for an agave sweetener, it’s best to look for all-natural and organic products, as many agave products on the market contain high fructose corn syrup and other additives that make it more unhealthy than it would be in its natural state.
Coconut Sugar
Less sweet than cane sugar and lower on the glycemic index, coconut sugar is an option worth considering if your tea is often too sweet. Made from the sap of the flower of the coconut palm tree, a dash of this sugar will sweeten your tea without offending your tastebuds. As with all sugar alternatives, you’ll want to find an organic or all-natural coconut sugar option to avoid any unhealthy additives.
What to Look for in Naturally Sweet Herbal Teas
When it comes to finding naturally sweet teas, it helps to know which ingredients to look for. Many teas combine various ingredients and unique mixes of additional teas, herbs, and spices to create custom and creative experience.
The following are some ingredients commonly found in the best-tasting tea combinations:
Rooibos Tea
Rooibos is a naturally sweet shrub found in Africa and is often used in herbal teas to sweeten them up and balance out any bitter tastes that might be present in the blend. It’s often paired with cinnamon and other sweet flavors to give you a rich, natural beverage.
White Tea
White tea has less of a bitter taste than more mature plants because they’re processed before maturity and aren’t given time to produce much of a bitter flavor. A white tea blend will be less overpowering, smoother, and sweeter, especially when combined with floral ingredients or spices like cinnamon and clove.
Florals
Sweet-smelling, dried flowers such as honeysuckle, rose, lavender, jasmine, and orange flower can add a sweeter taste to herbal teas.
- Honeysuckle is the sweetest, due to its abundance of nectar beloved by bees, hummingbirds, and children everywhere and blends well with both green and white teas.
- Rose is often paired with apple, cinnamon, and vanilla notes to create a sweetened taste and lovely aroma.
- Lavender and jasmine are primarily used in nighttime teas because of their calming effects.
- Orange flower brings a citrusy, summery feel to teas and pairs well with tropical fruits and juices.
Cinnamon and Vanilla
These two spices are very commonly used together in sweet herbal teas. They provide a warm, spicy-sweet taste that is perfect for chilly days and sleepless evenings. Finding these two ingredients in your herbal tea all but guarantees natural sweetness.
Licorice
The licorice root is naturally very sweet and commonly used in sweet herbal teas. It’s perfect for whenever you have a sweet tooth and want to avoid cane sugar or artificial sugars and has a delightful taste, especially when combined with holiday spices like cinnamon, vanilla, citrus notes, or florals.
What to Look for if You Prefer Bitter Teas
While some natural ingredients make for a delicious herbal without sugar, other ingredients make them more bitter…which is a positive for some tea drinkers!
Look for the following if you enjoy bitter teas:
Green Tea
While not all varieties of green tea are unbearably bitter, most green tea has a bitterness to it. The longer you brew green tea, the more bitter it becomes. If you enjoy a bitter tea, but still want the slightest hint of sweetness, opt for a green tea and floral blend to give you a naturally sweet taste.
Bitter Herbs
Bitter herbs such as wormwood, dandelion, and milk thistle may not be the ideal ingredients for the naturally sweet tea lover, but they’re perfect for the bitter tea drinker. If you insist on getting your daily dose of bitter herbs, but can’t stand too much bitterness, try to find a bitter herb tea blend that includes naturally sweet ingredients such as apple (and other sweet fruits) or florals.
Absolutely No Additives
Sad but true, many herbal teas on the market today contain additives and artificial sweeteners to lessen the bitterness of the herb blend. It’s always best to purchase high-quality organic teas and check the ingredients label before your purchase.
“The leaves in tea bags are edible and safe, although they may not be of the highest quality.”
TEA CROSSING
How to Steep the Perfect Tea
As a general rule of thumb, the longer you steep your tea, the more bitter it becomes. If you prefer a bitter taste, whether in your southern sweet black tea or your herbal teas, steep the tea for a few minutes longer than the recommended steeping time.
The most common teas can be broken down into herbal teas, black teas, white teas, red teas, and green teas.
For Herbal and Black Teas:
- Steep herbal and black teas for 4 or 5 minutes for a neutral flavor or 5+ minutes for a more robust taste
- Heat at a full boil (around 200 degrees Fahrenheit).
For White and Green Teas:
- Steep both white and green teas for approximately 3 or 4 minutes. If you prefer a bitter taste, steep for around 6 minutes.
- Heat at near-boil (around 180 degrees Fahrenheit).
For Red Teas:
- Steep your red teas for about 5 to 7 minutes for a typical taste. For a more bitter taste, steep longer (about 10 minutes).
- Heat at a near-boil (around 180 degrees Fahrenheit).
A mistake (or deliberate choice) we’ve all probably made at some point is steeping our tea for too long. If you like a strong tea, simply add more tea leaves or tea bags. Steeping for too long doesn’t result in a stronger tea, but it does result in a more bitter tea.
The resulting bitterness might then motivate you to add sweetener.
How to Prepare Loose Leaf Teas
Loose leaf teas are often a higher-quality and better-tasting, healthier option. Though the amount of time it takes to brew loose leaf teas doesn’t vary from teas neatly packaged, it can get a bit messier and requires a good infuser.
Here are two great options:
- Tea Infuser: A tea infuser goes either directly in the mug or the kettle so that the loose leaves aren’t a pain to remove from the tea. You simply heat water to the appropriate temperature, fill your mug, and then insert the tea-filled infuser and allow it to steep. Our favorite is the Yoassi Extra Fine 18/8 Stainless Steel Tea Infuser. It fits most standard cup sizes, contains no harmful chemicals that could seep into your drink, and is made with ultra-fine mesh to prevent small leaves from getting into your cup.
- Teapot with Removable Infuser: To make loose leaf brewing even easier, a teapot with an attached infuser may be just what you’re looking for. The Hiware Teapot with Removable Infuser is our favorite option. It’s stove-safe, works like a dream, and is transparent so that you can see the progress of your tea.
5 Teas That Taste Great Without Sugar
If your goal is to avoid sugar or sugar alternatives altogether, these naturally sweet teas will satisfy your sweet tooth without the adverse effects of sugar you don’t control:
Tazo’s Organic Baked Cinnamon Apple Tea
Made with organic African rooibos, cinnamon, apple, and chamomile tea, Tazo’s Baked Cinnamon Apple Tea is a treat without being too sweet. It tastes great on its own without any added sweeteners and has a soothing aroma and flavor. The organic ingredients and lack of artificial additives are a big plus with this one, too!
What I Like:
- Strong notes of cinnamon and apple
- Naturally sweet — doesn’t need added sugar
- Made with organic ingredients
- Low caffeine, making it a good option for evening sips
Tazo’s Organic Black Tea Peach Cobbler
Perfect for those who aren’t morning people and loaded with caffeine, Tazo’s Peach Cobbler Black Tea is super sweet and delectable right out of the kettle. It’s made with the finest organic ingredients, including a blend of black teas, hints of peach, apple, and cinnamon for a sea of flavor.
What I Like:
- High in caffeine content, an excellent pick-me-up for mornings and non-coffee drinkers
- Delicious notes of peach, cinnamon, and apple
- Made with organic ingredients
- Pleasantly sweet, but not overbearing
Allegro Tea’s Rose Tulsi
Naturally sweet-smelling and tasting, rose herbal teas are delectable and rich. Allegro’s Rose Tulsi Tea is made with organic and natural flavors, including organic rose, vanilla, and chamomile tea, to give you a soothing beverage any time of the day — without the need of extra sweetener.
What I Like:
- Made with organic ingredients
- Rose is naturally sweet
- Vanilla and chamomile add to the sweetness of this herbal tea
- Great for morning or evening use
Yogi Tea’s Cinnamon Vanilla
Touted for its skin-glowing properties and spicy-sweet taste, Yogi’s Cinnamon Vanilla herbal tea is a great tasting beverage you won’t want to miss. With strong notes of cinnamon and vanilla, your senses will be warmed as you taste the sweetness of rooibos plant and coconut. This tea is ideal for the evening to help lull you to sleep because it is caffeine-free.
What I Like:
- Sweet and warming
- Soothing aroma
- Benefits the skin
- Strong tastes and scents of cinnamon and vanilla
- Contains sweet rooibos
Yogi Tea’s Soothing Caramel
Who doesn’t like the sweet, savory taste of caramel? This soothing caramel herbal tea is delicious and contains organic ingredients for a healthy evening drink. Made with sweet African rooibos, vanilla, ginger, and caramel notes, this tea is practically like drinking a dessert. It’s best when enjoyed in the evening to support better sleep and fills the senses with warmth.
What I Like:
- Contains multiple naturally sweet ingredients such as natural vanilla flavors, cinnamon, rooibos, and caramel
- Helps support better sleep
- Made with organic ingredients
From acidic fruits and herbs to holiday spices and even a splash of bourbon, making tea less sweet isn’t as difficult as you might imagine.
Remember, also, that there are a plethora of natural sweeteners to replace cane sugar and that dilution and flavor infusion are often the best ways to go for those who need a quick solution.