There's no need to head below the Mason-Dixon line to enjoy delicious sweet tea. McDonald's
has brought the drink nationwide to all of its locations. Here's everything you need to know
about McDonald's sweet tea. McDonald's sweet tea, according to the chain's website
is made with orange pico. Unless you are a tea aficionado, it is totally plausible that
you ordered the beverage expecting something that tasted like orangina. But then you took
one swig to realize it's just plain tea with sugar and ice. So what's the deal with orange
pico, then? Orange pico is a grade of black tea sourced from India and Sri Lanka. Tea is graded
depending on whether it includes broken leaves, buds, or the finest tips of the tea plant. Each
grade looks and tastes different. Broken leaves make for a stronger tea, tea buds give the tea a
golden hue, and so on. Orange pico is the basic one, consisting of whole tea leaves
Pico is Chinese for the downy hair found on the sides of young tea leaves
As explained in the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum website, Dutch traders bought this tea from Chinese merchants and gifted it to the House of Orange
the royal family of the Netherlands, calling it Orange Pico. Little did they know that the name
would stick and become a menu constant in one of the biggest fast food chains in the world
No matter how many ice cubes you add, McDonald's sweet tea can be shockingly sweet
Even if your taste buds don't complain, your arteries might have a different story to tell
yzing the nutritional data of a sweet summer drink can be a buzzkiller. But if you are a
McDonald's regular, it would be wise to acknowledge that when you knock back a large sweet tea
your sugar quota is done for the day. Here's why. A large sweet tea has 38 grams of sugar in it, according to McDonald's official website
That's more than the daily intake recommended by the American Heart Association
which states that men can have up to 37.5 grams, and women up to 25 grams of sugar per day
Anything above that increases your chances of attracting a grim set of diseases
such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and general heart issues. McDonald's uses a different type of sugar, though
Medium invert sugar, as it's called, is slightly sweeter and doesn't crystallize like normal sugar
However, Healthline notes that nutritionally speaking, they are all the same, sweet and dangerous
First of all, if you are on a diet and still find yourself at a McDonald's drive-thru
you'll probably just cheat and order the Chicken McNuggets. But if you are still mindful of the calories, order a sweet tea instead of a Coke to wash it down
One small sweet tea has 90 calories, which is much less than a Coke or Minute Maid orange
juice that packs 150 calories each. Of course, the ideal choice would have been water or Diet
Coke, but who are we kidding? The problem with beverages like sweet tea however is that it sometimes hard to stop with one cup And since refills are allowed you may go for a second without realizing that consuming too large sweet teas is the calorie
equivalent, or even more, of devouring a solid cheeseburger. Sugar-sweetened drinks like sweet
tea contribute about 37% of our total liquid calorie intake, according to a study in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. But the worst part is that drinking beverages scarcely
makes us feel guilty, and so there is no red signal from the body. As a result, most often
people don't balance the quantity of food they eat to compensate for the soda they drink
In August 2020, an ex-employee of McDonald's took to TikTok to spill some tea about potential
hazards regarding how the sweet tea is made inside the chain's kitchen. Those who are swilling a
large cup of it while watching this video might want to set it aside for just a second
And ex-employee Desi Joseph said that, at least at the McDonald's chain where she worked
the mop bucket was kept right next to the sweet tea bucket
Joseph added that the only thing differentiating the two was a tiny label on the tea container
Yeah, guys, they're stored on the floor next to the mop buckets at my location
Joseph told Insider, There was no way that somebody didn't mix that up one day
claim casts McDonald's in a bad light when it comes to the question of hygiene
but according to Insider, the chain declined to comment. Joseph followed her TikTok post on Sweet Tea Buckets with two more that featured
tweets and photos supporting her claim. Joseph's 30-video series on McDonald's secrets turned her
into a mini-celebrity, but even before her, ex-McDonald's employees have been discussing
these infamous sweet tea buckets on Reddit. As one Redditor wrote, Tea is brewed in two-gallon red and green buckets, which are then emptied into the tea
urns as needed. Brewing tea is all those containers are used for, but they do look
suspiciously like mop buckets. In what seems to be a bizarre and unexpected turn of events
a customer in South Carolina got his cup of sweet tea with a surprise ingredient — marijuana
Parrish Brown had ordered his tea with less ice and extra lemon at a McDonald's drive-thru
According to a report by the Island Packet, upon drinking his tea, Brown discovered several bags
of marijuana had been included with his beverage. Brown subsequently notified the cops, who confirmed
that it was indeed three bags of marijuana, and took it as evidence to further investigate the
incident. Responding to the incident, McDonald's told Fox News, "...our biggest priority is always the safety and well-being of our customers
We are fully operating with law enforcement on the validity of this claim.
In yet another sweet tea mishap, an Indianapolis police officer fell ill after drinking a mix of
McDonald's sweet and unsweet tea, as reported by ABC News. The tea, according to the report
contained a quote heavy degreaser that caused a severe burning sensation in his throat The situation is such that it could have been avoided it just doesn make any sense The chain owner said they were looking into the matter and taking the claim seriously
These are, however, two isolated incidents which suggest no trend, but drive home an important
point. If you smell something other than the fresh smell of lemon wedge and tea leaves in
your drink, take not a sip more. McDonald's sweet tea has played a big role in making what
was a quintessentially Southern drink into a nationwide phenomenon. The chain first started
offering the beverage in the Southern states in 2006, but after two years, made it a constant on
their menu throughout the country. McDonald's decision was instrumental in making sweet tea
a popular drink beyond the South, according to a report by market research and consulting firm
Technomic. The report states that iced tea's abundance on menus jumped 23.1% from 2010 to
2015. Prior to 2008, Sirius Eats reports sweet tea was not common in the non-southern states
If you wanted it in New York, you'd have to find a southern-themed restaurant
You gotta get your sweet tea fix, everyone. Sweet tea boosted McDonald's sales
Sweet tea brought sweet profits for Mickey D's. The timing of its launch couldn't have been better
It was 2008 when McDonald's splashed the billboards with $1 sweet tea ads nationwide
That was also the time when the country was grappling with a recession
Consumers were spending their money judiciously on food, going for options that offered more
for less. Spending a dollar on a 32-ounce drink seemed nominal for even those who were financially hard-pressed
Naturally, the company saw an increase in the sales of $1 sweet tea, as well as other items
from the dollar menu, the New York Times reported in 2008. Just in the first year since its introduction to the menu, a McDonald's corporate representative
told Knox News that the chain sold more than 1.5 billion cups of sweet tea
According to a McDonald's restaurant owner in Knoxville, Tennessee, sweet tea had become
so popular by 2009 that customers came in asking for about four to five sweet teas at
a time. Everyone wanted a sip of it, and McDonald's was loving it
In 2008, AdAge reported that McDonald's saw a boost of 3.5 percent of same-store sales
in the second quarter of the year because of the popular drink
Ralph Alvarez, the chain's then-president chief operating officer, noted sweet tea as
a major component in McDonald's turning around its $711 million loss from a year prior
Sweet tea was born as part of McDonald's dollar menu, priced at a crisp $1. The math was easy
A large tea for $1, please. However, if history tells us anything, it's that McDonald's has
a habit of constantly tweaking its dollar menu ever since it launched the concept in
2002 According to The New York Times Sweet Tea was part of the chain dollar menu promotions in 2008 along with specialty coffees and double cheeseburgers But it slid off the bracket in the years that followed and people just couldn accept the change In 2016 Brandia Lynn started
a petition on Change.org to bring the price of the beverage back to $1 from $1.19. Well
19 cents extra for a drink might seem like a measly amount, but Lynn had probably foreseen
that comment, for she wrote, a family of four that stops at McDonald's daily and orders four large sweet teas has
quite a yearly increase when paying for those four teas. Lynn added that it would amount to $277.40
a year. She also went on to say that the amount is a week's pay for some people
Get Menu & Prices mentions the price of one large sweet tea as $1.79
though prices differ based on location and franchise. Whatever the price is
Seems like a rip-off when you compare it with what it would cost you to make a cup at home
Only about 4 cents. All you need to make a refreshing sweet iced tea at home are some tea bags, sugar, water
lemon, and ice. However, before you set out to make the replica of McDonald's sweet tea, it would be wise
to familiarize yourself with the difference between sweetened and sweet iced tea
The former is when you add sugar to your cup of tea after it is brewed, and the latter refers
the tea made in the traditional Southern way, which is to add sugar while the tea is boiling hot
This might seem like a minuscule difference, but carries with it the baggage of a tradition
that Southerners are proud to call their own. The process is fairly simple, as laid out by
the many copycat recipes of Mickey D's Sweet Tea out there. Soak the tea bags in hot water for 15
minutes. Then pour the concentrate in sugar and mix well. Add lots of ice cubes and serve
Maybe squeeze in some lemon juice and add a pinch of baking soda. Baking soda helps reduce the
bitterness and cloudiness in tea. There is no one perfect tea brand. Some suggest Bigelow English
Tea Time, and some suggest Lipton Tea Bags. It doesn't matter, as long as you have sugared it up
well. A quick run through McDonald's website today shows exactly two options for tea lovers — sweet
and unsweet, but an expansive list of frappés, lattes, and macchiatos for those who favor the
coffee bean. The chain has, however, tried out experimenting with its tea repertoire in the past
launching strawberry and peach tea for a limited time during the summer of 2015
They went away with the season, leaving the only constant behind, the plain sugary tea
As mentioned in HuffPost, McDonald's had also introduced fruit tea fusion drinks
— such as Blackberry Raspberry Sweet Tea and Peachberry Sweet Tea — to dip its toe
in the iced tea war among fast food chains. Despite other chains, such as Jack in the Box
Dunkin' Donuts, and Starbucks, boasting a vast selection in the iced tea department
McDonald's has seemed to be a tad docile in ramping up its own