In the early 1900s, sweet tea was an item of luxury used an as exhibition of wealth due to the expensive nature of tea, ice, and sugar.[1][2] Ice was possibly the most valued of the ingredients since it had to be shipped from afar at a time when access to cool drinking water was already a relative luxury.[2] In modern times it can be made in large quantities quickly and inexpensively.[2]

The oldest known recipe for sweet ice tea was published in 1879 in a community cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree, who was born in Texas.[1] The recipe called for green tea since most sweet tea consumed during this period was green tea.[1][2] However, during World War II, the major sources of green tea were cut off from the United States (due to anti-Japanese sentiment at the time), leaving them with tea almost exclusively from British-controlled India which produced black tea. Americans came out of the war drinking predominantly black tea.[9] Sweet tea was once consumed as a punch mixed with hard liquour with flavorings of mint and cream,[2] with mint julep being a close version of the punch drink with its similar ingredients.[5]

In 2003, supposedly as an April Fool's joke, the Georgia House introduced a bill making it a "...misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature" to sell iced tea in a restaurant that did not also offer sweet iced tea on the menu.[5][10] The bill never went to a vote