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.
Jalepeños or habeneros?
jalepeno
I love corn bread with cheese, corn, and peppers in it. I also love garlic cheese grits. Yummy!
On a summer evening some years ago, two of the South’s most celebrated writers, William Faulkner and Katherine Anne Porter, were dining together at a plush restaurant in Paris. Everything had been laid out to perfection: a splendid meal had been consumed, a bottle of fine burgundy emptied, and thimble-sized glasses of an expensive liqueur drained. The maitre d’ and an entourage of waiters hovered close by, ready to satisfy any final whim.
“Back home the butter beans are in,” said Faulkner, peering into the distance, “the speckled ones.”
Miss Porter fiddled with her glass and stared into space. “Blackberries,” she said wistfully.
In Texas, chicken fried it isn't made from flank steak, because that's what gets made into fajitas.
I usually put lemons or limes in my unsweetened iced tea.
“Best Served with BBQ”
not to mention a good old meat n’ three down at the cafe
I loved CFS as a kid, but I can’t eat it now. It’s tough, greasy, and (unless drenched in gravy) almost flavorless.
I no longer drink sweet tea, either. It’s just sugar water. I like iced tea, but my favorite is English hot tea (P&G brand) with milk.
Here in Texas we mostly drink whiskey, beer, tequila, and Dr Pepper anyway. And coffee — lots and lots of coffee.
I only drink Sweet Tea at places I know are really good....like most BBQ joints
or Milos burger joints in Alabama
or Ruth and Jimmy’s in Abbeville Miss
or City Cafe in Murfreesboro Tennessee
it’s a treat for me ..like dessert
mostly I live on Diet Dr Pepper
I beg to differ with you. My mother, a good southern girl, ate grits with a bit of sugar and a bit of half and half in each bite! She couldn't wait to get to the south so she could get some grits.
There’s a local restaurant that sells a ribeye chicken fried. It’s big enough to feed your average african village.
Most parts of Texas is barely Southern from a cultural point of view. It's more Southwest than South.
What are them liter things yew speak of? I've never heard of sweet tea that came in anything but gallon containers.
In case you care, the quote you gave was taken out of context. Dr. Clark doesn’t say that all cancer is caused by one parasite. She says that they all are caused by a combination of parasites and toxins. She tells exactly which parasite and which toxins interact and somehow are always present in certain types of cancers. Her research jives with other alternative health practitioners and schools of thought.
You bet I have a zapper! I had a friend build me one using her specs, and I use it whenever I need it. Following her advice I almost never get colds anymore; I used to get them all the time, and they would last forever. By following her advice to stop drinking tea (except herbal), my legs are much better after years of pain and discomfort. After suffering with acid reflux for over a year, I used natural remedies to cure myself in three weeks. Other people I know are content to just take drugs the rest of their lives. Not me.
Of course mainstream medical bureaucracy considers Dr. Clark—and any other person who isn’t a member of their club—a quack. They and the pharmaceutical companies need your money. Go ahead and pay them if it makes you feel more secure, but who do you think funds sites like “Quackwatch.com”? They have to keep the sheeple in line and keep the goose laying the golden egg. I do a lot of research and follow not only Dr. Clark but other non-mainstream, alternative health advice.
It takes guts to take your health into your own hands. But, the alternative is just unthinkable.
Best wishes
Just came back from Chattanooga where I had my share of “Sweet.”
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