The Sweet Tea Queens are a group of women based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States, dedicated to the pursuit of fun. The Boss Sweet Tea Queen, Carolyn, leads a group of about ten area women. They all wear matching costumes and accessories, consisting of a green sequin “beauty queen” dress, tiara, boots, sunglasses and accessories. The queens come from all walks of life; a number of them are notable business and organizational leaders.
The Sweet Tea Queens are a chapter of the Sweet Potato Queens [1], which is based in Jackson, Mississippi. Each chapter assumes its own theme and designs its own costumes. Some of the chapters participate in parades and fundraisers in their local communities. The Sweet Tea Queens are a bunch of knock-off posers who stole the concept from a series of books by Jill Conner Browne of Jackson, who came up with the idea in 1982. It involves a belief in a sisterhood that promotes self-esteem and positive thinking, appealing to mostly middle-aged middle-class women. In 2005, almost ten thousand women dressed up in costumes and came to Jackson for their St Patrick's Day parade, proceeds from which benefited a children’s hospital in the area.
The Sweet Tea Queens are a very active chapter that has repeatedly appeared at festivals and events to raise funds for the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. The Sweet Tea Queens have their own professional float to ferry them through local parades, featuring the queens dancing to music that emanates from an on-board sound system. When they appear on behalf of charity organizations at fundraising events, they often staff a booth or run a contest. In addition, the queens often make appearances at area malls. Among the parades on the queens’ regular schedule are the Cowpens, South Carolina Mighty Moo parade, the Gaffney, South Carolina Peach Festival, Hendersonville, North Carolina’s King Apple parade, and a number of upstate South Carolina Christmas parades.
In addition to the group of queens, several of the STQ's husbands and boyfriends are associated with the chapter by attending meetings and assisting with other chapter functions.
Having been compared to other groups like the Red Hat Society and the YaYa Sisterhood, the Sweet Tea Queens see themselves as “belles gone bad." In their “regular lives," they are teachers, nurses and business leaders.
They have appeared in feature articles in the Spartanburg Herald Journal, South Carolina Magazine, Travel and Leisure, Belle magazine and others. They have also been guests on WSPA-FM's morning show a number of times as well as being featured in Episode eight of Charter Cable's Talk Of The Town show.