And this is news? wow ... must be a slow day.
Ah was raised on sweee iced tea - yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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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
Just came back from Chattanooga where I had my share of “Sweet.”
Born and raised in the South, but I drink my tea plain.
Sure there is. You just have to ask for it.
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...
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.
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.
Yuck... give me the unsweet vintage please.
Every once in a while Chick-fil-a dumps that stuff in my cup by accident; it is like drinking straight high-fructose corn syrup with a hint of tea thrown in. Might as well drink Coca-cola syrup straight from the dispenser.
ping
Yick, there is nothing refreshing about “sweet” tea.
The sugar clings to your palate and I don’t care how cold
you think you can get it, that second sip is just warm sugar.
I’ve lived my whole adult life in the south but give me
UNSWEET tea every time, cold, refreshing, and a real pick me up that doesn’t give you sugar burnout in half an hour.
Unsweet and STRONG!
When visiting Toronto a few years ago I ordered iced tea in a restaurant. Imagine my surprise to find that it was sweet tea. I was even more surprised when the same thing happened in two other restaurants. I always thought once you were north of Tennessee you were served unsweetened tea by default.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must preface my comments by stating that I am a native born-and-bred North Carolinian, currently living in Texas, who spent 5.5 years in Michigan.
The best sweet tea I have ever had is at the Ramshead Rathskellar in Chapel Hill. Perfectly brewed, perfectly sweet, served by the surliest waiters south of the Mason-Dixon line.
The best fast food sweet tea is usually found at Bojangles, although Chick-Fil-A is pretty good.
Since moving to Texas, I have become accustomed to the Bill Miller sweet tea, which is made with approximately 2/3 cup of sugar to the gallon (instead of the standard 1 to 1&1/2 cup in Southern sweet tea). I’ve discovered that many restaurants in San Antonio serve sweet tea of some kind, with barbecue and pizza joins most likely to serve it, and “casual dining” restaurants the least likely.
My home tea recipe is:
Boil water on stove. Remove from heat and add three family sized decaffinated tea bags. Steep for 30 minutes. Pour tea into 1 gallon pitcher with 2/3 cup sugar. Add lukewarm water to pitcher until there is 1 gallon of tea. Stir the tea to dissolve the sugar. Chill and serve over ice. For best results, use filtered water in all stages.