I’ve always found the South = Sweet Tea idea curious since it wasn’t my experience.
I spent many a 1950s childhood summer visiting my Mississippi grandparents. Iced tea was certainly a daily staple, both at noontime dinner and evening supper, but if you wanted it sweet you did it yourself.
The same was true with my mother’s Texas and Louisiana family. Iced tea every day but adding sugar was your choice.
My dad enjoyed tea his entire life, and he did have a sweet tooth, but he never added anything to his tea other than lemon.
My wife and several ex girlfriends who were Texan cattle rancher and Arkansas cotton farmer raised respectively all make or made sweet tea very sweet
I like it like that
My maternal grandma who probably loved me more than anyone ever then or since made sweet sweet tea and stove top cast iron white cornbread and fried chicken imagine skillet on same old kenilworth stove top
My more uptown mom and paternal grandma made tea with sweet and low
Mother would make sweet tea on sundays pretty much only
My folks were wheat germ brewers yeast health nuts though dad ate stuff he liked too
He was athletic what today would be a triathlete or beyond...he needed calories