Nostalgia on ice: Cold, sugary tea is a sweet Southern tradition

wilmington star ^ | 13 June 2007 | Lisa Singhania

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More than 140 years after the Civil War ended, a Mason-Dixon line of sorts still persists when it comes to iced tea.

Order an iced tea at a restaurant in the Deep South or Texas, and the frosty beverage set before you likely will be a world away from what you’d be served in New York or Chicago.

Sweet tea, as Southerners call their iced tea, is named for its two key ingredients – tea and lots of sugar. There’s no such thing as an unsweetened sweet tea. And unlike its summer-loving Northern counterpart, sweet tea is consumed year-round.

“About 85 percent of tea consumed in the U.S. is iced. And no one in the world except for us drinks sweet tea, and no one in the U.S. sweetens their tea as much as they do in Southeast,” says Peter Goggi, president of Lipton’s Royal Estates Tea Co.

Sweet tea is something people either love or hate. And often that relationship is determined by geography.

“It’s just very, very sweet. Most people who try it in the North don’t like it,” says Linda Stradley, food historian and founder of food history Web site www.whatscookingamerica.net. “The first time I tried it, I didn’t like it. But then I got addicted to it.”

Why the emphasis on sweet in the South? Stradley speculates sweet tea may have started as a sugar-and-tea punch.

Another theory is that sweet tea may have just been a cheap and convenient stand-in for wine and other alcoholic beverages, which historically were less available and frowned upon in the South.

“Sweet tea has always been a substitute beverage for what wine was doing in other regions,” says Scott Jones, executive food editor at Southern Living magazine.

“The tannins from the tea cleanse your palate, there’s sweetness from the sugar and then the acidity from the lemon,” he says. “It goes well with a lot of food.”

Nonetheless, there is nothing delicate or ethereal about sweet tea.

In addition to the loads of sugar, sweet tea is characterized by an extremely strong tea taste. Sweet tea usually is brewed hot, with tea bags squeezed to get every last bit of flavor.

Sugar then is mixed in while the tea is hot to maximize the amount that dissolves. Water then is added to dilute some of the potency and increase the volume, then the tea is refrigerated to chill.

“Everything they tell you not to do with tea today is pretty much how sweet tea is made,” says Jones, referring to the lower water temperature and more nuanced approach most hot tea drinkers use. “My mom would boil the tea bags in the water, and then squeeze the living daylights out of them.”

It turns out, though, that sweet tea’s role in Southern cuisine is evolving. Twenty years ago, it was hard to walk into a restaurant in the Southeast and find anything but sweet tea.

But increased health consciousness as well as the growth of chain restaurants that cater to a national audience means unsweetened tea is becoming increasingly popular.

“A lot of these old-school men and women who were weaned on sweet tea you now see them drinking unsweetened iced tea with a lot of pink and blue packets,” Jones says. “There’s been an explosion of diabetes in the South, and the doctors are saying you have to cut the sweet tea out.”

But, it’s hard to undo generations of loyal drinkers. Sweet tea tends to be more about memories than health trends or precise recipes. No one, it seems, can quite make sweet tea as well as your mom or grandmother did.

“I make it how my mother made it, with regular tea bags, sugar and boiling water. There’s no new-age tea making kit or anything like that,” says Whitney Sloane Sauls, 27, of Ocean Isle Beach. “It’s just so refreshing and it brings back good memories of childhood and of growing up.”

Sweet tea recipes
While many iced teas are made by steeping tea leaves in cool or sun-warmed water, the authentic sweet teas of the South are made by brewing black tea in boiling water. The recipe for blackberry iced tea uses pinch of baking soda to preserve the vibrant colors of the berries in the tea.

Southern sweet tea
Makes 1 gallon

12 bags black tea

6 cups boiling water, plus additional cold water

1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar

Ice

Lemon wedges or fresh mint sprigs (optional)

Place the tea bags in a large heat-proof 1-gallon pitcher. Add the boiling water and steep for 5 minutes. Spoon out the tea bags and squeeze them into the tea, then discard the tea bags. Stir in 1 cup sugar. Add enough cold water to fill the pitcher. Taste and adjust with remaining sugar as desired.

To serve, pour into ice-filled glasses, then garnish with lemon wedges or fresh mint.

Recipe adapted from Southern Living magazine

Blackberry tea
3 cups fresh or frozen blackberries (if frozen, thaw before using), plus additional fresh as garnish

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint, plus additional sprigs as garnish

Pinch of baking soda

6 bags black tea

4 cups boiling water

2 1/2 cups cold water

Ice

In a large pitcher, combine the blackberries and sugar. Use a wooden spoon to crush the berries and mix them with the sugar. Add the chopped mint and baking soda. Set aside.

Place the tea in a large heat-proof measuring cup. Add the boiling water and steep for 3 minutes. Spoon out the tea bags and squeeze them into the tea, then discard the tea bags.

Pour the tea into the blackberry mixture. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Pour the tea through a mesh strainer and discard solids. Return the tea to the pitcher.

Add cold water and stir well to dissolve sugar. Cover and chill until ready to serve.

To serve, pour into glasses filled with ice. Garnish with fresh mint and fresh blackberries on short wooden skewers. Makes about 7 1/2 cups.

Recipe adapted from ‘Southern Living’ magazine.

[Tokra]

Don’t make him struggle with metaphorical names more than he already seems to do. :)

I am struggling to understand your comment. I do know what a metaphor is, but I don't know what your comment means.

[ßuddaßudd]

Sweet Tea and Boild Peanuts !!!!! will keep you going all day long....

[Tokra]

Heresy! Chicken fried steak is food of the gods. You must have had a bad one.

A good steak tossed on the grill for about 20 seconds is what I call food of the gods.

Any steak cooked to shoe-leather is a bad one.

[cyclotic]

I had just gotten into a small town in Alabama. 3 co-workers and I were at dinner in this small local steakhouse. I asked the wiatress if they had sweet tea. There was a collective intake of breat by the other diners. Forks dropped on to plates with a clang as the waitress said “wail, of course we dooo.” Translated she said “You stupid yankee, we got nothing but sweet tea down here.”

For the record, I love sweet tea and try to support establishments in the north that serve it.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We're getting some very nice green beans from this market too. Last week I made a monster batch which contained:
6 pounds of green beans (ends snapped).
4 nice chopped Vidalia onions.
1 small Hormel ham cut into cubes.
15 little red new potatoes, sliced into quarters.
Good stuff !

[JamesP81]

Um..um..um. Now, THAT’S a culinary art. My mother's homemade chocolate pie each and every Christmas with mounds of real homemade unsweetened whipped cream. Yeah, I was the only girl in the family who didn't get the recipe and I was my mother's only child. I think she did that so I'd have to come and find her on the other side. "You want that recipe, kid? Come and find me." ;-)

My grandpa had the false modesty thing going. You have to realize that, first of all, this guy didn't strike you as the cook type. He was a hardcore southerner from rural Kentucky (and so is everyone else in the family, including me). He was in the Navy in WW2 and spent the following forty years working as an engineer for a couple of towboat outfits, finally retiring from Ingram Towing. This is when he picked up his cooking skills. He got the recipes from the cooks on the boat. He was hard, but friendly, had a good sense of humor and could cuss like a sailor because, hey, he was one.

Anyway, you've got a good picture of him now. Last year about this time, I'm sitting in my Meemaw's kitchen eating some of that wonderful pecan pie, and he comes ambling in from his perch in the living room after reading the paper. He takes a sidelong glance at my pie platter and says, 'bah! That pie ain't no count.'

This is exactly the same thing he's said about every single thing he's cooked for the past 25 years of my life, and probably for the entire length of his own life as well. And all of it was great no matter what he said.

So I looked at him and I said, "you know Pa, for as long as I can remember, all 25 of my years, you've said that about everything you've ever cooked."

He paused and considered this for a second, and finally nodded his head and said, "I know." Then he paused a second longer before he said, "But by God, this time it really ISN'T any count."

It took me an hour to quit laughing.

[part deux]

Grits with sugar...never tried. I prefer butter or olive oil on top of my grits.

[Maigrey]

You should, when you get a chance, try the sweet tea at a franchise named McAlister’s. It’s to die for.....

[Constitutions Grandchild]

STOP! You’re making me crazy!!! I can taste them now. I want to come to YOUR house.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Your story makes me want to hug him. I know his cut and jib. Next time you see him (and make that sooner than later, sonny) give him a hug from me.

[ravingnutter]

I drink unsweetened and un-lemoned (I tell them “lose the fruit!”) tea too. Brewed Lipton is great...that Nestea crap some of the restaurants serve down here in South Texas is NOT tea! It’s just nasty! I don’t use sugar of any kind, in anything. It gives me a such a sugar high that I get all jittery and then I crash and want to go to sleep, I just can’t handle it.

[TKDietz]

I live in the South and have for more than forty years and I can’t recall ever being in a restaurant where all they had was sweet tea. Usually they have both sweetened or unsweetened iced tea, or just unsweetened tea you add your own sweetener to.

[JamesP81]

Your story makes me want to hug him. I know his cut and jib. Next time you see him (and make that sooner than later, sonny) give him a hug from me.

Well, God willing, that'll be a long time from now as he took his last voyage home to Heaven's Shores this past December.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I used to prepare the ham by cutting up a half pound of bacon into little bits and putting a little scald on the ham in the grease. Wife suggested cutting out the pork bacon so last time I switched to turkey bacon which gives a little smoky flavor.
Mom always served this with cornbread.

[Daffynition]

Switchel anyone?

[luckystarmom]

I’m from Texas and I hate sweet tea. When I’m in Texas, I can easily get unsweetened tea just about anywhere.

In Canada and Seatle, I couldn’t get it.

In California (where I live), some places have it and some just carry the rasberry snapple type tea that I can’t stand.

I know lots of Texans that just drink unsweetened tea.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Well, then, now I can send him a hug through my prayers. I’d have liked him, I know. So, if Grandma is still keepin’ on, tell her and give HER the hug.

[luckystarmom]

Us Texans are sure chiming into the unsweetened tea.

Of course, we’re a little different than the other southerners.

[L98Fiero]

“A good steak tossed on the grill for about 20 seconds is what I call food of the gods.

Any steak cooked to shoe-leather is a bad one.”

Apples and oranges. Chicken-fried steak is originally from the poorest cuts of beef. Beating the hell out of it, breading it and frying it for a bit actually did it some good. You’ll find that many Southern dishes are based on what rural poor people could get.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

I hear what the Missus is saying, but for us die-hards, there’s nothing like real bacon. However, nothing you can say will dissuade me. What time is dinner? ;-) My son and his father are working late tonight. I can be there by — oh, well, never mind. You’ll be in bed by then.