Sugar
Sugar is the everyday name for sucrose and related sweet carbohydrates, most often refined from sugarcane or sugar beet. In beverages it does two jobs. It sweetens and balances acidity in teas, coffees, lemonades, syrups and sodas. It also feeds the yeasts and bacteria that drive fermentation in drinks such as kombucha, homemade sodas and cane-based ferments. Forms used in drinks range from white granulated sugar and simple syrup to brown sugar, demerara, jaggery and other unrefined cane sugars.
Documented in
- Beetroot Turmeric by Empress
Listed in its declared ingredients as “Sugar”.
- Ginger Goji-berry by Empress
Listed in its declared ingredients as “Sugar”.
- Moonbrew by Empress
Listed in its declared ingredients as “Sugar”.
- Strawberry Hibiscus by Empress
Listed in its declared ingredients as “Sugar”.
How sugar is prepared
Sugar is stirred into hot tea and coffee and dissolved into simple, rich and flavored syrups for cold drinks and mocktails. It sweetens lemonades, cordials, sharbats and carbonated soft drinks. Brown sugar flavors drinks such as Ulster brown lemonade and modern Finnish sima. As a fermentation substrate it feeds kombucha cultures and homemade ginger beers and sodas. In the past, cane juice, molasses and skimmings were fermented and distilled into cane spirits.
Extracting an ingredient into a liquid or fat. Temperature and duration depend on the documented application.
Lapsang Souchong and Earl Grey teas are brewed and fermented into kombucha, combining pine-smoked tea with bergamot character.[8]
Fermentation with a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) that contributes bright acidity.
Lapsang Souchong and Earl Grey teas are brewed and fermented into kombucha, combining pine-smoked tea with bergamot character.[8]
A short mixed-culture fermentation in which reusable water-kefir grains turn a sweet water, fruit, or botanical infusion into a lightly sour, gently sparkling base. For no- and low-ABV beverage work, its value is structure: acidity, dissolved CO2, residual sweetness, and soft lactic roundness can make a blend feel integrated without relying on alcohol.
In depth
Origins in South Asia
The story of sugar in drinks begins with sugarcane in the Indian subcontinent, where people first learned to boil cane juice down into solid sugar. The Sanskrit word śarkarā, meaning ground or candied sugar, passed into Persian as shakar and into Arabic as sukkar. From there it reached medieval Latin and eventually the English word sugar, tracing the commodity's path westward. The same root gave rise to jaggery, the coarse unrefined sugar of South Asia that still sweetens many regional drinks. Long before refined crystals traveled widely, fresh cane juice and sugar dissolved in water were consumed across South and Southeast Asia. Fermented cane drinks were known there as well, and Greek and Roman writers who encountered sugar described it as a curiosity from the East.[1]
Sharbat and the medieval Middle East
In the medieval Islamic world, sugar became central to a culture of sweet, cooling drinks. Sharbat, the ancestor of many later soft drinks, was made from fruit and flower flavorings sweetened with sugar, syrup or honey. Common flavorings included lemon, pomegranate, tamarind, apple, jujube, sumac, mint and musk, and the drinks were often chilled with ice. The English word syrup itself descends from the Arabic sharāb, meaning a beverage. Egyptian sources describe a sugared lemon drink in the 13th century. As Arab cultivation brought cane to Sicily and Spain, these sweetened fruit drinks and syrups traveled into medieval Europe.[2]
Lemonade and sweetened drinks in early modern Europe
By the 17th century, sugar-sweetened citrus drinks had become fashionable in Europe. An Egyptian-style lemonade recipe circulated in England from the 1660s. In Paris, licensed vendors were granted a monopoly on lemonade in 1676. They carried tanks on their backs and poured cups for passersby. Tudor and Stuart households also drank sweetened cordials scented with rosewater, violets or cinnamon. As colonial plantations made sugar cheaper, it became the natural companion to the new hot drinks of tea, coffee and chocolate. British sugar consumption rose from about two pounds per person a year in 1650 to some ninety pounds by the early 20th century. Still lemonade made from lemon juice, water and sugar remained a staple home recipe into the 19th century and beyond.[3]
Plantations, molasses and cane spirits in the Atlantic world
From the 15th century, sugarcane spread to Madeira and the Canary Islands and then across the Atlantic. Portuguese colonists carried cane and pot stills from Madeira to Brazil, where fermented cane juice was distilled into the spirit later called cachaça. In the Caribbean during the 17th century, molasses left over from sugar making was fermented and distilled into rum, probably first by enslaved people on the plantations. This trade in sugar, molasses and spirits fed directly into the triangular trade and the slave economy. Its history is a reminder that the sweetness in Europe's cups had a brutal human cost.[4]
Syrups and the bartender's sweetener
Because granulated sugar dissolves poorly in cold liquids, drink makers have long preferred it as a syrup. Simple syrup is sugar and water, usually in equal parts or richer at about two parts sugar to one part water. It became the standard sweetener behind the bar and works equally well in non-alcoholic mixed drinks. Older recipes call for gomme syrup, a very concentrated sugar syrup traditionally thickened with gum arabic to keep it smooth and uncrystallized. Demerara syrup adds a deeper, molasses-tinged flavor. Spiced and flavored syrups infused with herbs, citrus or spices are now fixtures of coffee bars and craft mocktail menus. In Japan, the liquid sweetener served with iced coffee is still called gum syrup, even though it usually contains no gum.[5]
Soda water and the soft-drink era
Carbonated water was developed in the late 18th century, and it was soon combined with sugar and flavorings. Brewed ginger beer appears in print in the early 1800s. Pharmacists began adding sweetened syrups of fruit, roots and herbs to mineral waters. Tonic water arose when bitter quinine was made palatable with soda and sugar. In American soda fountains around 1900, phosphate sodas mixed a measure of fruit syrup with phosphoric acid and carbonated water. Through the 20th century, bottled and canned soft drinks made sugar one of the most widely consumed beverage ingredients in the world. In some markets, corn-derived syrups later replaced much of the cane and beet sugar in soft drinks.[2]
Sweet tea in the American South and Indonesia
Sugar dissolved into hot tea and then chilled gave rise to sweet tea, a defining drink of the southern United States. It began as a luxury, since tea, sugar and especially ice were all costly. The oldest known printed recipe appears in an 1878 Virginia community cookbook and called for green tea. Black tea became standard after World War II cut off supplies of green tea. Southern sweet tea is often very sweet and is frequently served with lemon, peach or mint. In Indonesia, Dutch colonial planting of tea in West Java and sugarcane in Central Java led to a parallel tradition. Sweet iced tea, es teh manis, remains among the country's most popular drinks.[6]
Sugar as fuel for modern low-alcohol ferments
In today's no- and low-alcohol drinks, sugar is as important for feeding fermentation as for sweetening. Kombucha is made by dissolving sugar in hot water and steeping tea in it. A symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast then converts the sucrose into acids, a little alcohol and natural carbonation, usually leaving commercial versions below 0.5 percent alcohol. Cheaper sugar has also displaced honey in older ferments. Finland's traditional May Day drink sima, historically a light mead, is now usually made with brown sugar, lemon and raisins. The same trend runs through many lightly fermented homemade sodas. Alongside this craft revival, health authorities have urged people to cut their intake of free sugars. That pressure has pushed many producers toward drier, less sweetened styles.[7]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaSugar — Wikipedia↑§1
- [2]EncyclopediaSoft drink — Wikipedia↑§2↑§6
- [3]EncyclopediaLemonade — Wikipedia↑§3
- [4]EncyclopediaRum — Wikipedia↑§4
- [5]EncyclopediaSyrup — Wikipedia↑§5
- [6]EncyclopediaSweet tea — Wikipedia↑§7
- [7]EncyclopediaKombucha — Wikipedia↑§8
- [8]InstagramPost — Sep 5, 2026↑prepared
- [9]Product informationAKA Fig Leaves — photographed bottle label↑prepared
- [10]Product informationAka - Kombucha Genmaicha - Analcolico↑prepared
- [11]Product informationAKA Jasmine — photographed bottle label↑prepared