The Specific Black Tea You Need To Recreate McDonald's Sweet Tea

Nothing pairs with salty foods like a sweet, refreshing bevy to wash 'em down. Whether you pair it with a 20-piece McNuggets order or a deluxe bacon and egg biscuit (the sandwich that clinched first-place in our definitive ranking of McDonald's food items), McDonald's sweet tea is the bright but balanced sipper fast-foodies crave. Happily, it's simple to whip up a fairly accurate dupe at home with the help of one specific ingredient.

As its name suggests, sweet tea is a straightforward combination of tea leaves, sugar, and water. According to the McDonald's website, "McDonald's Sweet Tea recipe features a briskly refreshing blend of orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea, sweetened to perfection." So, to nail the flavor that fans expect, it's got to be orange pekoe tea. But orange pekoe doesn't describe the flavor or color of the tea, it's actually a grade designation for the quality of black tea leaves.

The tea grading system indicates the leaf size, bloom, aroma, and taste of a finished steeped tea. Rankings range from standard orange pekoe to flowery orange pekoe, golden flowery orange pekoe, tippy golden flowery orange pekoe, and finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe. Even though the standard orange pekoe ranking is the lowest, a tea has to be of high quality to appear on this scale at all. Any loose leaf black tea can be orange pekoe, but the term indicates that the tea primarily consists of whole dried leaves, not broken dust or fragmented dried pieces, indicating less processing.

It's worth noting that black teas from India and Sri Lanka are typically described using the orange pekoe grading system; teas from China are less commonly described by this term. So, to best replicate McDonald's sweet tea at home, opting for a high-grade black tea from India or Sri Lanka seems to be the best fit. This Vahdam lopchu golden orange pekoe unblended darjeeling black loose leaf tea would make a flavorful, mild option. Or, for a slightly bolder black tea taste, opt for ceylon over darjeeling, like this less expensive pure ceylon orange pekoe loose leaf black tea by Zarrin.

Beyond the tea leaves, the other main ingredient in McDonald's sweet tea is sugar, and according to the chain's website, it's an ingredient that shouldn't be skimped on for a convincing dupe. There are 24 grams of sugar (that's nearly 5 teaspoons!) in a small sized beverage, 29 grams in a medium, and 40 grams in a large. It's sweet, to be sure, but not wildly far off from the sugar concentration per-serving of Coca-Cola, which is 35 grams for a similar amount of liquid to the small cup of tea. As one apparent employee notes in a Reddit thread, McDonald's sweetens its iced tea with medium invert sugar (aka simple syrup) rather than regular granulated sugar, aiding more homogenous mixing. If you're thristy for more inspo, we have a few scientically-backed tips for brewing that sweetened orange pekoe tea to perfection, by the way.