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.
You know, I’m not sure if the new sweeteners that are made from sugar also have the bad effect. I keep saying I’m going to do the research, but I haven’t. I just don’t use any artificial sweeteners. If I find out something, I’ll let you know what I’ve discovered.
It just seems sad to me that those people who are already suffering from diabetes are being tricked (even if unintentionally) into taking something that will make their diabetes worse.
Born and raised in the South, but I drink my tea plain.
Well that sweet cornbread recipe has this Yankee frantically looking in the pantry for a box of cornbread mix I know is somewhere in there.
Cup of coffee and cornbread for breakfast tomorrow morning.
If I hadn’t given up tea, I’d try your excellent suggestion. Maybe you can still get the good effect of the sugar by boiling it (the sugar) in the water by itself. Then continue your recipe. That way, you’ll get both the clarity of the tea and the delicious effect of boiling the sugar.
Sure there is. You just have to ask for it.
“1) a glass bottle of ice water in the fridge;”
My old man always had a bottle of ice water in the fridge. One early Saturday morning I grabbed the bottle with two hands, it slipped though my fingers and right on my right foot big toe.
Lost the nail a few weeks later and the damned thing grew back as an ingrown. Still bothers me to this day.
I have memories of seeing signs like that during some of my childhood in the South. Does anyone still eat boild peanuts?
Gee, I don't know how we'll survive without you.
Well, because it’s a slow day and I grow weary of articles about the Middle East and the 08 election, thought I would weigh in on this one.
There are some problems with it.
First, the statement that Southerners are the only one’s to sweeten their tea; not true. The Brit’s put an enormous amount of sugar in their tea, only difference is they serve their’s hot. In fact, this is a major contributor to the horrendous state of British teeth, rotted out by so much sugar in their tea.
Second, the statement “Order an iced tea at a restaurant in the Deep South or Texas ~ a world away”. Again, an incorrect statement. As a native born Texan who has lived in and traveled all regions of the state, I can tell you that serving pre-sweetened iced tea in restaurants is not the norm. The demarcation line for this is somewhere between Greenville and Texarkanna - about the same line where one is served grits instead of hash-browns when ordering breakfast. See, told you it was a slow day....
I’ve seen them sold at farm stands in north GA so I guess they do. I don’t care for them. I like my peanuts crisp and salty.
Obviously sweet tea is different all over the South. The tea I had in GA and AL was mildly sweet compared to the molasses-like concoction I’ve seen served in the Delaware Valley. The yankee version of “Southern tea” doesn’t even resemble tea, but they call it “Southern sweet tea”. You could sweeten a glass of water with a jar of dark corn syrup and it would look and taste the same.
No air conditioning, heat indexes ( outside, Gawd knows what it was in the brick building ) of 110 degrees in August, and a humongous roaring exhaust fan in the back wall that sucked in more hot air...
First thing they told me was,
"Watch what the Old Guy ( who was younger than I am now ) does..."
He had a huge tumbler full of cracked ice and sweet tea, and he was always sipping on it.
Tried coke, got dehydrated the first day. Misery.
Next day, his wife ( who worked the front counter ) handed me an identical tumbler to sip on...
So strong, "you could see it raise its Dukes" ( Hattip, the great Ted Sturgeon, "Derm Fool" ) but Oh, Lord, was it refreshing.
Steeped hot, sugar poured in, then diluted and served over lots of ice.
Hard work, good times, good memories...
you know...if you take a southern girl away from the south and move her to Germany at the age of two, and she doesn’t return to the south until she’s six it must do something to her tastebuds. She does not like Grits. But she does like sweet tea (the sweeter the better, country fried steak, and biscuits and gravy. Granted she also thinks french fries must be dipped in mayo, and Coke is best served slightly cool with a lemon. And to be honest, I think she likes Country Fried Steak because it reminds her of Schnitzel.
country fried steak, and biscuits and gravy.
Papa is very proud. :) She needs to learn to eat Grits though, now that she is one again. ;)
I don’t drink ‘Sweet Tea’ any more. It’s just WAY too sweet for me. When my Mama used to come up to visit us in MA, she’d do some cooking, and would always make iced tea. When she’d leave, the kids would beg me to make tea like Mimi’s. NO way! I’d put 1/2 cup of sugar in a gallon of tea, and that was plenty sweet for us! Now I just order un-sweet tea, and put Splenda in it.
Says you.
I sugar all those things!
So do I! But it’s honey-sweetened, not sugar-sweetened.
I like the restaurants that have old-fashioned sugar-pourers on the table, rather than packets.
Then I’m not as embarrassed at all the crumpled-up wrappers I’m leaving, when I have to *harrumph* sweeten my own tea!
I retch even to think about this process. Though by the time it is sugared and lemoned to death and watered down it might become (barely) potable again. Lipton tea is particularly bad when squeezed this way. The resulting decoction would probably turn a hide to leather in about 3 minutes.
No need to crumple, just slide the emptied, flat packets under the edge of your plate.
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