Real Sweet Tea! Trim Healthy Mama Style

The thing I missed MOST when I changed my diet was the sweet beverages that I have always enjoyed with my meals.   I bemoaned my precious BARQ's root beer and couldn't believe that I would ever see my wonderful "sweet tea" on a regular basis again!

Then, I came across a post from a wonderful, trim healthy mama who empowered me to stick with the plan and eventually helped to convince my husband that this diet was worth a shot, because we could have our sweet tea!   Thank you Miss Gwen, bless your heart!   

When I say we do sweet tea I mean, I get asked to bring my sweet tea to potlucks and the people at my church learn which container I bring and sometimes have been known to stand there with their cup of ice till my container gets there.  I'm not saying that to brag,  I am just trying to tell you what a serious issue this is to me and why you should trust me that when I say I can still make sweet tea that people request even though it is made with stevia, I speak with authority.   

So here is the official post from Gwen's Nest that I originally used to learn how to take my own concentrate recipe and convert it to THM by subbing in the stevia that would give it the sweetness that we were used to enjoying.

http://www.gwens-nest.com/family-favorite-recipes/sweet-ice-tea-sugar-free/   (For my newbie friends and family...This is a good site for  trim healthy mama recipes anyway so if you're a new THM you'll be glad that you visited.)

I have developed a few trouble shooting ideas in your pursuit of the "perfect" stevia sweetened tea!
It should taste as sweet as perfectly sweet tea (this will work 85% of the time, but if I've let the tea steep for too long or for whatever the reason I am sweetening stronger tea than usual I do have a trouble shooting procedure and here it is.)

** If it is almost sweet enough but not quite you have two options...

Option 1. You can add another scoop of Kal organic powdered stevia or THM stevia(it may be that you did not measure carefully enough and the scoops were not quite level?)--I've had that happen and that is why I ask.

Option 2.  Add a teaspoon of SweetBlend or Truvia ...if you're still not quite there add a 1/2 teaspoon more and pretty quick the sweet concoction should fall in line with your plans for it.

Option 3. Check to make sure you used a good quality tea I like  Luzianne tea (available at Vitacost if you don't live where it is sold.)

As it happened on this morning the jar pictured on top all filled with ice and looking yummy  was
actually a little blah at first...I realized that I had let the tea steep for about an hour and it had gotten
stronger than usual!  No problem, I just added 1 more scoop of stevia and 1/2 of a fresh lemon and let my Dr. Pepper drinking son taste it...he declared it to be perfect and downed a whole glass of it.
(Moral of that story; be careful who you ask for help when you're in distress...I had to go make more to finish taking my pictures!  But really it was NO problem cause I had 3 more batches stashed away as concentrate).

** And as my above story illustrates, if at any time you find that you've gotten it a little too sweet just squeeze 1/2 - to 1 fresh lemon into the quart jar and it will take care of that problem for you.

I had the worst time with these pictures until I realized that my placement was all wrong, the minute I stepped out onto my back porch everything came into "focus" and (though I still struggle with photography) I realized my problem was solved for now.  So here you have it --ta da-- sweet tea in it's natural habitat!