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.
Acres and acres of afternoon. (Borrowed from an old Reader's Digest found in a Doctor's office.)
How do you catch a feeling? (God, I miss the South.)
There used to be a restaurant called Top of the River overlooking the MS river in Vicksburg. Best catfish I ever ate.
People in the southern states have more problems with kidney stones and they usually attribute this to drinking a lot of tea. I still drink it by the gallon and you would think that since tea is mostly water it would be good at preventing kidney problems, but it contains a lot of “oxalate” which is one of the main things some kidney stones are formed of. I thought it was interesting.
My Yankee sister in law was in a restaurant in SC and asked them if they had any of that tea with ice in it.
She couldn’t understand the odd look she got from the waitress.
From Wiki:
Darjeeling
Type: Black
Other names: The Champagne of Teas
Origin: Darjeeling, India
Quick description: Fruity and spicy.
Darjeeling tea has traditionally been prized above all other black teas, especially in the UK and the countries comprising the former British Empire. It comes from Darjeeling in West Bengal, India. When properly brewed it yields a thin-bodied, light-colored liquor with a floral aroma a tinge of astringent tannic characteristics, and a musky spiciness often referred to by tea connoisseurs as “muscatel.” A sweet cooling aftertaste should be felt on the mouth.
Tea planting in the Indian district of Darjeeling was begun during 1841 by a Dr. Campbell, a civil surgeon of the Indian Medical Service, who had been transferred to that area during 1839: he used seeds from China. Experimental tea plantation by himself and others occurred during the 1840s and the government established tea nurseries during that period. Commercial exploitation began during the 1850s.
Chick-fil-a does make the best tea. Hardee’s makes the worst. The tea is too weak.
I was also fascinated with "Chicken Fried Steak". I didn't know for the longest time exactly what it was - chicken or steak? I made the mistake of ordering it once to find out.
They take a perfectly good steak, dip it in batter and then fry it to death. What a waste of steak!
Nor did I know what grits were - I think I expected something like hush puppies, I don't really know what I expected - but the first time a bowl was set in front of me, I looked at the waitress and said, "This is nothing but cream of wheat!" (at least that's what it looked like). I was kind of disappointed - I guess I expected something more exotic than a bowl of mush.
Don't get me going on Turkey stuffing/dressing. The stuff I was served in the South was more like cornbread soup than the bread stuffing I grew up with in the North. I found out later its called stuffing in the North and dressing in the South.
What I missed most living in the South were simple rolls. Rolls in the North and biscuits in the South. I learned later that the reason was that yeast-raised bread was harder to do in the South because of the heat so they tend to more "quick-bread" biscuits.
While I am an "adventurous" eater - I'll try almost anything at least once, I did find myself missing real bread rolls, real bread stuffing, real iced tea and mostly (because I am from Detroit) Vernors and Faygo pop. Incidentally this is Faygo's 100th birthday. Faygo was the company that first started calling "pop" pop. The name comes from the sound when the top was popped off.
Soda can be confused with plain carbonated water - as in Whisley and Soda, or with baking soda. But pop is pop.
I'm back living in the North, although my family lives in the South. Whenever I'm down for a visit and they ask me if I want a soda, I have 2 answers:
"Yes, but could I have some flavor and sweetener with it." or
(my favorite)"No thanks, I don't plan on baking a cake today."
I’m from the South and never did like sweet tea. It’s always had to be unsweetened for me. Yes, I know, it’s heresy in the South! Maybe that’s why I went up north.
My Texas lunch today is Bush’s chicken tenders with cream gravy, fried okra, roll and a huge glass of sweet tea. Heart attack on a plate so I only do it about once a month.
Co-Cola = Georgia
Coke = South
Cold drinks = South (not sure)
Soda = North
Pop = North, Midwest
Dr. Pepper = Texas....Dublin
Here's the map
You gotta try some Southern homemade cathead biscuits.
My daughter would ask you to adopt her.
You just have to go there in your heart. It’s amazing how the drudgery of the day evaporates like the fog early on a summer morning when you do. Think on what is good, what is lovely, what is “Heavenly,” and you’ll be there — always in your secret place in your heart.
Don’t make him struggle with metaphorical names more than he already seems to do. :)
Heresy! Chicken fried steak is food of the gods. You must have had a bad one.
I love it!
Neither my husband nor I like sugar in regular food. But we like it in coleslaw. I think it’s because it’s needed to balance the vinegar. But only a little, not enough to make it taste sweet.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.