Should You Put Baking Soda in Tea or Not? Is It a Myth?

Sweet tea should be simple: just water, ice, tea bags, sugar, and maybe a squeeze of lemon or lime. Boil the water, brew the tea, stir in the sugar, and pour it over ice. But as with many simple recipes, especially in Southern cooking, there are lots of little tweaks that can elevate a drink from just okay to amazing. One trick? Adding a pinch of baking soda to your sweet tea.

Sounds weird? Pointless? Or maybe genius? It’s all about the science and your brewing technique.

We usually think these tips are kind of useless; after all, many of us grew up enjoying sweet tea with no special tricks, and it turned out just fine. But there are some solid theories about why baking soda might enhance iced tea, so we dug a little deeper to see if they hold up.

What is Baking Soda?

Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is a white crystalline compound commonly used in baking as a leavening agent. When combined with an acid, it reacts to produce carbon dioxide gas, which helps dough rise and take on a light, airy texture. Beyond baking, baking soda has a myriad of uses around the house, including as a cleaning agent due to its mild abrasiveness and ability to neutralize odors. It is also used in some household remedies, like relieving heartburn or insect bites, because of its alkaline nature. In the context of sweet tea, a small amount can be added to neutralize tannins that cause cloudiness and bitterness, potentially resulting in a clearer, smoother drink.

Does Baking Soda Reduces Bitterness and Astringency in black tea?

The idea is that baking soda reacts with bitter caffeine and astringent tannins in the tea to create a smoother flavor. Some home brewers have reported success using baking soda to improve oversteeped tea, and plenty of tea lovers on various internet forums swear by it for their sweet tea.

But here’s the catch: this theory assumes bitterness and astringency are the same as acidity, which baking soda can neutralize. However, it isn’t the same thing. Bitterness and astringency in tea come from compounds called polyphenols, not acids. So while baking soda might make your tea taste less bitter and astringent, it’s because of the chemical reaction between the baking soda and these compounds, not because of a change in acidity levels. Bitterness and astringency aren’t signs of acidity. Moreover, black tea is only mildly acidic. Baking soda probably does bind some tannic compounds, reducing astringency, similar to adding milk to hot tea. And it’s actually super easy to make non-bitter sweet tea in the first place; just don’t over-steep it!

Many sweet tea recipes suggest hot-steeping tea bags (or even boiling them) for up to 15 minutes. This can result in a tea that tastes like you’ve extracted every bitter and astringent compound, leaving a sludge you can’t drink. (This is why Southerners often add a lot of sugar to their tea; it masks the bitterness.) The simple fix is to steep for less time. Just give a tea bags a quick 5-minute steep and then take them out. You’ll still get plenty of tea flavour without needing to compensate with extra sugar or other ingredients.

Does Baking Soda Help Avoid Cloudy Tea?

This one’s a bit tricky, but let’s clear something up first: freshly brewed tea that’s cloudy doesn’t mean it tastes bad or was made poorly. Cloudy sweet tea tastes just as good. If you’re at a restaurant, though, cloudy tea might mean it’s old and could taste musty. When it comes to homemade tea, cloudiness is just about looks.

Cloudiness comes from tannins dissolving in hot tea water. If you chill the tea too quickly, they can fall out of suspension and, as Cook’s Illustrated points out, bind with caffeine to make the tea look cloudy. The hotter the brewing water, the more tannins and caffeine get extracted, so tea that’s boiled and then chilled fast will be the cloudiest. Cold-brew and sun tea pull out fewer of these compounds, so they’re usually clearer.

Adding baking soda might bind some of those tannins, stopping them from clouding up the tea when chilled. It’s an interesting trick, but like with bitterness, cloudiness can be dealt with easily without extra ingredients: just steep the tea in hot water (don’t boil it) and let it cool gradually.

We usually heat up half the water we need to brew the tea and pour it over the tea bags. Once we’ve taken the bags out, we add the rest of the water, which is at a cool room temperature. This starts cooling the tea, but not so fast that it gets cloudy. Once it’s cool, we stick it in the fridge to chill completely. we only add ice when serving for a crystal-clear glass every time.