Sweet tea in the South is not just another drink. It's a family tradition, a rite of passage, and to some extent, a way of life. Ivy Odom, the senior lifestyle editor at Southern Living, can attest, noting she began drinking sweet tea almost as early as she started having milk. The Southern transition, she states, is from milk directly to sweet tea.

Odom offers an insider's perspective into Southern cuisine, featuring sweet tea, in her soon-to-be-released book, My Southern Kitchen, due out on October 7. The book is sprinkled with colorful anecdotes, meal planning inspiration, and over 100 recipes shaped by her south Georgia roots and food-focused travels. Among these recipes, one uncovers a range of secret and not-so-secret ingredients that can elevate both timeless and modern recipes, and of course, secret hack for the perfect sweet tea.

For most people, sweet tea is just a straightforward mix of strong black tea sweetened with sugar or simple syrup, served with ice. Nonetheless, there's another standard pantry addition that many sweet tea connoisseurs swear by: baking soda.

This unexpected ingredient was serendipitously discovered by Odom during her work on a set of Southern Living TikTok videos featuring staple dishes like biscuits and fried chicken. She was taken aback when she noticed the list of ingredients for Southern Living's signature sweet tea recipe included baking soda, besides the usual tea bags, sugar, and ice. However, a taste test made it all clear: all her life, she had been unknowingly consuming sweet tea with baking soda. This revelation came to her while reminiscing about the stellar sweet tea her uncle's mother-in-law used to serve every Thanksgiving which, unsurprisingly, included baking soda.

Adding baking soda to the brew has a two-pronged effect. According to Odom, tea contains tannins, bitter and astringent compounds, and baking soda is believed to neutralize these, yielding a mellower blend. Presumably, the practice began as a remedy for over-brewed tea when home cooks inadvertently left their tea bags in the water for too long. However, this trick also results in a smoother, gentler flavor in properly steeped tea.

Baking soda's sweet tea fans also contend that it aids in clarifying the brew, producing a more visually attractive drink. If the tea cools down too rapidly, the tannins can make it appear cloudy, which baking soda helps reduce.

Odom vouches for the transformative effects of baking soda on iced tea, based on her tests for her book. She conducted numerous blind taste tests comparing tea batches with and without baking soda. She noted, “I’ve done multiple side-by-side blind taste tests with and without baking soda, and nine times out of 10, people pick the baking soda tea, they don’t know why they like it better, but they almost always do.”