15 Fast Food Sweet Teas Ranked From Worst To First

You might be surprised to learn that sweet tea has some not-so-Southern origins. In fact, tea was being served cold and sweet as early as the late 1800s and was enjoyed by folks from the South and Midwest all the way to the West and East coasts. Somewhere along the way, however, the beverage became known as the house wine of the South, and if you didn't live in a Southern state you had to travel to get good sweet tea. Fast food chains changed all that, though, making the sugary, tannic drink available all over the country... but that doesn't mean they're all good. To help you find the best sweet tea at fast food restaurants, I tasted and ranked 15 of them.

I set out to determine which chain powerhouse serves the tea that a born and bred Southern Appalachian (that's me, by the way) actually wants to drink. After sampling 15 fast food sweet teas and judging them based on sweetness, strength of the tea flavor, and bang for your buck, here's how they all shook out when ranked worst to first. 

Unlike some fast food chains, Chipotle only offers its freshly-brewed sweet iced tea in some regions (we're looking at you, the American South). Still, we can't imagine many southerners are willingly buying the iced sweet tea more than once. The tea was weakly brewed and not very sweet when I tried it. It was almost startling upon first sip (the word "eww" left my mouth out loud before I could even stop it). Despite being weakly brewed, it was also very tannic, giving the drink an unpleasant mouth-drying effect when I was seeking something to quench my thirst. Even more frustrating, I had to go to two separate Chipotle locations in my city before finding one with sweet tea at all. 

Chipotle's size small is technically a "regular" (the only two sizes are regular and large), holds 22 ounces, and costs $3.10 before tax in my market, making it expensive. That expense paired with its lackluster flavor (to say the least) lands it squarely at the bottom of my ranking. 

Burger King has been in the sweet tea game for a long time, but you might not know it based on its ranking on this list. A small sweet tea at Burger King is $1.99, but you're better off saving your money. When I tried it, the tea was very bitter and almost had a sour flavor. It wasn't very sweet up front, but as I took a few sips it got marginally better, almost as if the sugar helped eventually mask the off-putting flavor.  

According to Burger King, the sweet tea is brewed fresh daily, but the strange sour and bitter flavor suggests that the tea I received may have been sitting for a long time (after working in restaurants, I can assure you that sweet tea does sour after a while). Either that or it's possible the urn it was made in hadn't been thoroughly cleaned. As gross as that sounds, that's the best-case scenario because if BK sweet tea always tastes like the one I had, no one should be drinking it.

All that Hardee's says about its sweet tea is that it's "refreshingly sweet" and "sure to brighten your day!" The chain must assume all that's needed for a bright day is a boatload of sugar and very little tea. Hardee's sweet iced tea tasted like sugar water. It was very sweet and there was little actual tea flavor. I couldn't manage more than just a couple of sips before setting it aside. It's a shame, too, because a small sweet iced tea at Hardee's is 20 ounces and costs $2.29 before tax, making it one of the more affordable options. 

Since I don't live in one of the two states with both a Hardee's and Carl's Jr., I can't necessarily speak for the latter. However, the similarities between the food and beverage offerings at the sibling fast food chains means I won't be rushing to grab a sweet iced tea at a Carl's Jr. even if I have the opportunity.

If Culver's website didn't assert that the chain serves fresh brewed sweet iced tea, I might assume that it uses a vaguely tea-flavored syrup for its sweet tea, similar to the syrups used in fountain drink machines. The chain's tea goes beyond simply sweet and crosses squarely into overly sweet territory. There was a tiny bit more tea flavor than Hardee's offered, but still not enough to differentiate it from tea-flavored sugar water. 

I could almost imagine the flavor profile as something you'd add to a sweet tea-flavored ice cream or one of Culver's iconic frozen custards (does that exist or did I just invent something amazing?), but on its own, it doesn't scream fresh-brewed Southern sweet tea. Given that the chain is Midwestern rather than Southern, I suppose that makes sense. It's just disappointing as far as sweet iced tea goes. At $2.39 for a small (and it's among the smaller cups of the bunch), there's no real reason to go to Culver's for your sweet tea fix.

Like Chipotle, Zaxby's small fountain drink is on the larger size, coming in at 20 ounces. For that amount of sweet tea, I paid $2.99 before tax. While that's not too expensive, Zaxby's sweet iced tea was uninspiring. In fact, it was boring — very weak and without much flavor. It's the very definition of nondescript, but I'll try.

What keeps Zaxby's offering out of the very bottom of this sweet iced tea ranking is that what little tea flavor was present was balanced with sweetness. While some fast food sweet teas that were weakly brewed were overwhelmingly sweet as a result, Zaxby's sweet tea was simply fine; it just wasn't anything to write home about. If you're just beginning to dip your toe into sweet iced tea, this is an option that I'd consider relatively safe. Just don't expect it to wow you upon first sip (or second, or third).

Bojangles is another fast food joint that doesn't carry small sizes, but employees don't tell you that at the drive-thru speaker. When ordering a small sweet tea, you actually get a "regular" for $2.49, and it's a really sizeable cup of tea (outpaced only by Popeye's). That is great news for folks who love super sweet tea because this one is probably the sweetest of the bunch. The comparison I used when describing it to loved ones was cotton candy flavored with black tea. 

Despite being incredibly sweet, however, the tea was also strong, lending some credence to the chain's assertion "steeped like we mean it." This made it surprisingly easy to drink and thirst quenching, keeping it out of the very bottom tier of our ranking. Paired with something extra savory like one of the chain's famously delicious biscuits, the sweetness of the tea would be tempered and even welcome. On its own, however, it just isn't my favorite.

As we move into the middle of the sweet iced tea pack, the pros and cons of each variety are pretty equal. The teas in this range are reliably pretty okay. If I was on a road trip and desperately hankering for sweet tea, any of them would work just fine. Wendy's sweet tea can be described in all of those ways and comes in at No. 9 on our list. 

While the tea is pretty sweet, it's also decently strong. That said, while some of the teas had distinctive flavors of the actual tea leaves, Wendy's was pretty forgettable without any discernable tasting notes you might expect from high-quality tea leaves. The chain doesn't list the volume for its American cup sizes on its website, but many customers in recent years have suggested that they have shrunk. Still, the small I ordered was among the larger-sized cups I received, making Wendy's sweet iced tea a decently good buy at just $2.19.

The first thing I tasted when sampling Captain D's sweet tea was the tannins of the tea itself, along with a distinctive black tea flavor. While the tea was strongly brewed and the first sip was very promising, unfortunately, all of that wonderful tea flavor was lost to sugar pretty quickly. That said, being overly sweet is a bit of a hallmark of fast food sweet tea, it seems, so the strong brew and flavor of the tea itself were a nice surprise, even if they were short-lived. 

A Captain D's small sweet tea is 20 ounces and costs $2.59 in my market, but if it turns out to be one of your favorite choices you can get a whole gallon of the stuff for $5.99. That's clearly the better buy, but there's no way I could have drank that much of the super sweet tea, even shared among family and friends.

McDonald's was one of the first chains to take sweet iced tea nationwide. Unlike some fast food restaurants that only offer sweet tea in Southern states, McDonald's started offering it all across the US in 2008. After all that time, McDonald's sweet tea is a very middle-of-the-road, known quantity. It's an incredibly drinkable tea: quite sweet but balanced with actual tea flavor. Sure, it might make a Northerner's teeth hurt (just ask my Massachusetts-born husband), but as far as fast food sweet teas go, it's a solid choice. 

Like Captain D's and some of the other choices, the tea flavor does get a bit lost after a few sips due to all of the sweetness. According to some former employees, the tea has a pound of sugar per gallon. Put in weight, that sounds a bit alarming, but a pound of sugar is about 2 cups. McDonald's small drinks are 16 ounces so you're looking at about 1/4 cup (or about 4 tablespoons) of sugar in that size sweet tea. Okay, I admit that's a sizeable amount of sugar, but it's still pretty delicious and you know what you're getting with McD's.

Chick-fil-A is one of those fast food chains that thinks very highly of itself and its sweet tea, offering a whole gallon of the stuff if you're so inclined. I, however, am not so inclined. Chick-fil-A's sweet iced tea was sweet but didn't have much in the way of tea flavor. I couldn't discern any of the earthy or malty flavors you would expect from black tea, despite the fact that the chain sources its proprietary blend from an English tea company. That said, the sweetness still felt mostly balanced; it certainly didn't taste like sugar water.

What keeps Chick-fil-A in the middle of the pack and not in the bottom is its smaller-than-average ice. Those ice nuggets, as they're sometimes called, keep the chain's drinks frosty cold without being watered down. This probably has something to do with some law of physics I never got around to studying, but either way, it's pretty delicious. At $1.89 for a small, it's pretty affordable, too. 

Growing up, I never had fried chicken without sweet tea, so it's not too surprising that KFC's sweet iced tea is a delicious option. It's balanced yet very sweet, strongly brewed, and the perfect accompaniment to rich fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. The real head-scratcher is that when I ordered the tea at the drive-thru, there was no ice to speak of. The tea didn't taste old or watered down, so it's not like it had been sitting around in the cup from a previous order and just given to me out of convenience. Instead, it tasted as if the tea had been very recently brewed and quickly melted the ice in the cup (particularly given the presence of a few cold spots in the beverage). 

Because every other chain only got one shot at representing its sweet iced tea, I didn't go back to get a cup with more ice, so you'll just have to try it yourself and see where the tea lands. A small sweet tea at KFC is 12 ounces and in my market costs $1.89. With a solid amount of ice, it probably would have ranked higher.

Arby's slogan may be, "We have the meats," but it turns out it also has a pretty decent cup of iced sweet tea, too. While I couldn't taste the distinctive flavor of the tea leaves like I was able to with some chains (and I'm starting to suspect it may be the difference between chains that use a blend of orange pekoe and cut black tea versus just black tea), it was still pretty strongly brewed, which was nice. It's certainly on the sweeter side, but really nicely balanced. 

I took several sips and each one was quite good with none of the issues I had with some other chains of losing the flavor of the tea to the sweetness. That said, there was just something about it that I couldn't pinpoint. That je ne sais quoi kept the tea out of my top three, landing it at No. 4 in this ranking. A small sweet tea at Arby's is $2.39 and is pretty sizeable, so if you find yourself at the chain you can rest assured the sweet tea is a pretty good buy.

Coming in at a somewhat surprising No. 3 in this ranking, Taco Bell's small sweet tea is $2.59 before tax and is on the smaller side compared to some other chains. Still, the relatively expensive sweet tea is surprisingly worth it. Admittedly, it was on the incredibly sweet side, but unlike Bojangles and a few others, it didn't taste cloying or like cotton candy. The first sip was refreshing (earning an "mmm" right out of the gate), but on its own, it's a little too sweet to have more than a few sips. 

Pair it with one of the top-ranked Taco Bell menu items like Doritos Locos Tacos or a Crunchwrap Supreme and you've got yourself a well-rounded, if high-calorie, snack or meal. You can even skip the Cinnamon Twists or Cinnabon Delights because the tea is enough like a dessert to satisfy just about any sweet tooth. 

While there is a staggering number of drink combinations available at Sonic, don't sleep on the chain's sweet iced tea. It's sweet, strong, and not too tannic. Right away, you can taste the tea itself, and I don't just mean some vague bitterness. The flavor of the tea leaves, both earthy and somewhat floral, comes through. Like Chick-fil-A, the small ice that Sonic has become renowned for keeps the tea cold without watering it down, making for a refreshing sip that's nearly unmatched.

A small sweet tea at Sonic is $1.79, but it's one of the few fast food restaurants where a small is really small, and a good part of the cup's space is occupied by the chain's iconic tiny ice (this is why we can't have nice things). That's the main reason this sweet tea came in at No. 2 in this ranking instead of No. 1. That said, you really can't go wrong with a Sonic sweet iced tea, plus you'll get the pleasure of crunching on the chain's perfectly sized ice cubes. 

It comes as no surprise to this Southerner that the sweet tea that reigns supreme comes from a Southern fast food joint known for chicken. Popeye's sweet tea is both strong and sweet with a definitive tea flavor and a good amount of sugar. No one flavor overpowers anything else, but it's clear that you're drinking real, fresh brewed sweet tea. According to the company, the drink is a blend of black and orange pekoe tea and is technically called "Cane Sweeeet Iced Tea." 

If those extra letters didn't give it away, the tea is definitely on the sweeter side, but it's incredibly refreshing. So refreshing, in fact, that I drank the entire whopping cup that I received when I ordered a small (another chain that seemingly starts its sizes at medium or "regular"). It's no secret that Popeye's serves huge drinks, but that didn't stop us from drinking the whole thing. At just $2.79 for all that delicious tea, it's basically sweet tea heaven.

As a born and bred Southern Appalachian and lifelong sweet tea drinker, I have some pretty strong opinions about what makes good sweet tea. To put it simply: It should be strong and it should be sweet, but balance between the two is key — just like my Momma made it. When judging fast food sweet tea, in particular, I was also concerned with bang for my buck. 

To help determine where each fast food sweet tea ranked according to these guidelines, I ordered a small sweet tea at each restaurant and judged it based on the flavor of the tea itself, the strength of the brew, the sweetness of the drink, and the price before taxes. I only tasted freshly brewed sweet iced tea (rather than tea from fountain machines, which can be super gross) and tried to obtain the different brands of tea around the same time of day to account for differences in restaurant busyness and therefore tea freshness.