Posted on 06/15/2007 9:47:49 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
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.
Here in Maryland it’s usually unsweetened, but once you cross the Potomac into Virginia they usually give you an option.
By the time you hit the Carolinas, it’s sweet all the way.
Actually - I've tried it and liked it. Another old-time Northern drink was Shrub - a fruit drink with a vinegar base. Rasberry, cherry and blackberry shrub are great!
Raspberry Shrub
4 quarts ripe raspberries
4 cups white or red wine vinegar 1 1/2 lbs. sugar
Wash 2 quarts of the raspberries, pour vinegar on top and mash with a wooden spoon in a glass dish. Cover and let stand for 48 hours at room temperature.
Wash remaining raspberries and pour over them, through a fine sieve or cheesecloth, the liquid formed by the first batch, discarding pulp. Let stand another 48 hours.
Mash well and strain through a fine sieve or cheesecloth.Add the sugar to the juice and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes, or until the sugar is completely dissolved and the syrup has come to a full rolling boil. Strain again through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. Cool and bottle. Yield: 8 - 10 cups.
To serve as a long, cool drink,pour 1/4 to 1/3 cup into a glass and fill with ice and water or soda water. To serve as a liqueur, pour 1 -2 Tbsp. into a small glass and add double the amount of gin, brandy or vodka and stir. Serve well iced.
Nectar of the gods.
When I was younger I made the mistake of taking “Iced Tea” from the self-serve tap at a Burger King in the US (I’m from Canada). To my disgust, it was unsweetened iced tea with no lemon. I was used to the Canadian BK stuff which was made from concentrate and had sugar and lemon in it. But that type of stuff is not very good compared to proper iced tea made from brewed tea, sugar and lemon. The worst of all iced tea made from powder (instant tea with sugar and artificial lemon flavour), or bottled and canned iced teas made form the same, like “Brisk”, or “NesTea” canned iced teas. Lipton and Snapple do sell bottled iced teas made from real, brewed tea, which are much better.
I like the “gin, brandy or vodka” part!
I found that out while living in Oklahoma City. I ordered a coke and the waitress asked "what kind?" I thought she meant regular or diet. She said, "Do you want a 7-Up coke or a rootbeer coke or what?"
I thought maybe I had wandered into a mental institution.
Same in the North - only we didn't fry it, we'd braise it and call it Swiss Steak.
“Best Served with BBQ”
Dang straight. Anything else with BBQ should be a crime and likely is in some small towns...
We do the same thing (almost) with the tougher steaks in the North - but we don't dip them in batter and deep fry them.
I'm from Michigan which was settled mostly by the Germans also.
“Ocra” is acceptable, and dictionary.com even lists “ochra” as an alternate spelling...but...I will acquiesce (accede, concur, capitulate) that “okra” seems to be the most common spelling.
I wish you hadn’t brought up that chicken fried steak and white pepper sauce, though. I got me a hankerin’ for some right now.
Sacrilege!
If I eat burgers or sandwich its lunch, if served on a plate its dinner.
McAlister's Deli is famous for its sweet tea. But I suppose that's what one should expect from a company based in Oxford, Mississippi, home of William Faulkner.
Exactly right.
And this is news? wow ... must be a slow day.
I’ve never had a chicken fried steak that resembled shoe leather. In this part of the country good restaurants make it or break it on the reputation of their chicken fried steaks. I still say you had a bad one.
That sounds like a great lunch. Chicken & dumplings is good comfort food.
Ah was raised on sweee iced tea - yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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