But sugar dissolves in cold water. It just takes a bit longer. This is 9th grade chemistry. At 20°C 203.9g sugar are soluble per 100ml of water.
[Edit: Sorry, for the Americans here: At 68°F, 1 cup of sugar is soluble in 21/50 cups of water.]
Wikipedia (de): Zucker cites Hans-Albert Kurzhals: Lexikon Lebensmitteltechnik. Volume 2: L – Z. Behr, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-86022-973-7, p. 723.
And most of all, solubility being a function of the temperature, if you lower it the excess sugar will leave the solution and cristallize.
Have you seen how much sugar those hicks put into their tea though? It’s gotta be hot because they put coca cola grade amounts of sugar, to the point where it wont dissolve in the water anymore. Sweet tea contains 36-38 grams of sugar per 16 oz. That’s a fucking soft drink.
16 oz (454ml) can dissolve some 900 grams of sugar, far in excess of 38 grams. Sugar is ridiculously soluble in water.
example: you don’t make a pitcher of kool-aid with hot water.
however, adding sugar to the hot tea does work better than adding it after it’s already chilled.
How? Wouldn’t the excess sugar just come out of solution when the tea cools down again?
It dissolves quickly when the solution is warm. You would need to add a ridiculous amount for it to be saturated at room temp or slightly below.
“ice cold” water can hold about 170 grams of sugar in 100 grams of water
They’re not super saturating it. They’re putting an amount of sugar in the tea that can dissolve at room temperature, it just takes a long time to do so.
