2009.06.18
Sweet vs. unsweet
June is National Iced Tea Month, and who understands iced tea better than Southerners?
Obviously, sweet tea is a staple in the South. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you don't have to like your tea sweetened to be a true Southerner. In fact, my grandparents often had a pitcher of freshly made iced tea in the refrigerator, but it was never sweetened.
Come time for dinner or supper, Grandma would put the pitcher on the table along with whatever she had prepared, which usually included good home-cooked foods like meatloaf, roast beef, green beans, potato salad or just tomato sandwiches. If you wanted sweetened tea, you had to add sugar and stir pretty much the entire rest of the meal to get it to dissolve. Even then, there was always a clump of sugar at the bottom of the glass.
Grandma was originally from the North, but she turned as Southern as could be over the years of living in Virginia with Papa. My mom is originally a Northerner, too, but she always preferred to make tea with sugar in it. However, I never recall it being as sweet as the "sweet tea" you find in restaurants these days. She may have put a cup of sugar in the entire pitcher, enough to take the bitterness out of the tea but not so much that you felt you were drinking syrup. I'll admit right now that I don't like most restaurant sweet tea. I usually order it half-and-half.
Mom was also fond of making sun tea in the summertime. I believe I've written before about how she would put a big, glass jar out in the sun to steep for hours. Nowadays, the health people say it's not safe to make sun tea. I'm not going to tell you not to do it. I'm just going to look the other way.
My husband is now the tea maker in our household. He does not care for hot beverages like coffee or hot tea, so his pick-me-up in the morning (and pretty much throughout the entire work day) is iced tea. He, too, makes it unsweetened, but he likes to mix green tea and black tea together to make his.
So you see, iced tea can be as unique as the person making it. Maybe you like to add flavored teas, such as peach or orange, to the mix. Maybe you prefer to brew yours with honey instead of white sugar. Maybe you use a tea maker like my hubby or just a pot of boiling water and some loose tea, like me.
It's an individual thing. An individual, Southern thing. Have an iced tea soon - however you like it - to pay tribute to National Iced Tea Month!
Good day lindsey!!Happy Thursday
i'm a tea lover but im one that loves the strong walk of the table kind of sweet tea. my favorite in the whole valley is hardees tea, for me it is perfect, after them i choose mcdonalds. but i love mine to be good and sweet.
Comment by opal — June 18, 2009 @ 11:51 am
I'm with your mom. I like enough sugar in tea to take out the bitterness, but not enough that you can really taste the sugar.
Comment by Debbie — June 18, 2009 @ 11:54 am
I'm an unsweet girl myself. I'm off to make a batch now. Thanks!!
Comment by Amy Hanek — June 18, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Being from the South, I like my iced tea really sweet. I have to agree with Opal, Hardees has some really good sweet tea. My mom makes sun tea throughout the summer and it's delicious. I'm surely not going to tell her it's supposedly not good for you.
Comment by Blass — June 18, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
I'm from the north and we always drank our tea un-sweet (or no sugar) as I would rather say. Only b/c sometimes when you ask for un-sweet all the order taker hears is the "sweet" part. Many a times I've had to circle back thru the drive-in window (after I've gagged on the syrup in my cup) to re-order tea w/ no sugar.
Comment by Kim — June 18, 2009 @ 12:15 pm
I feel like I'm a true Southerner to the core... and I love tea, but I don't want even a grain of sugar in it.
I used to drink Hardee's tea and a buddy challenged me to drink it unsweetened because it was better for me.
He told me that if I would tough it out for two weeks, I'd never go back. He was right. I find sweet tea nauseating now.
After years of getting sweet tea at drive thrus by mistake, I thought I was the only person in the state that didn't use sweetners. I'm glad to see that I am not alone.
And the buddy who got me to switch... he went back to the sweet stuff. But I think he's a closet Yankee.
Comment by Thom — June 18, 2009 @ 12:45 pm
I love tea, iced or hot! But I like both kinds "straight up". No sugar or anything else. Blech!
But then, I moved to VA from Up North (MI) about 10 years ago. Took me a while to get used to ordering UNsweet tea at restaurants instead of just saying 'iced tea'. And I still seem to have a 50/50 chance of getting a cup of 'brown sugar water'.
I use a Mr. Coffee Tea Pot to brew my tea, and use Twinings English Breakfast loose tea in it. I go through so much of it that I ended up buying 6-packs of the loose tea via Amazon.
What's anyone elses favorite tea? I use Twinings Irish Breakfast for hot tea.
Comment by Dave — June 18, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
I like mine unsweetened... but so many times I get a spoon and sweetener on the table, even when I don't ask for it! That seems to be changing a little, but I'm sure there are people out there who just don't understand unsweetened tea! I love the actual "tea" flavor! Make mine green, black, orange - I don't care. Herbals are wonderful hot in the winter, too. But a nice tall glass of plain old Lipton with lots of ice is more refreshing than anything else I know of!
Comment by ginny — June 18, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
After years of drinking tea with sugar, I find that it actually quenches my thirst better without sweetner (also better for the figure!). I make mine in a regular pan on the stove or in my coffee maker.
Comment by Tami — June 18, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
I like to add a little bit of sugar (and fresh lemon) to mine, too; but I like really strong tea so I add maybe 1/2C sugar to an entire pitcher. Most restaurants make their tea too sweet and too weak; so even if I order 1/2 & 1/2 like you do, Lindsey, it still leaves me switching to just plain water with lemon.
Comment by Julie — June 18, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
I grew up just on the other side of the Sweet-tea Line, a mysterious cultural divide that lies somewhere less than two hours North of here, so the only place we had sweet tea was at home. It's funny what you get used to; I never even considered how strange it was that we made our tea differently from everyone else.
I agree that some places make their tea way too sweet, more like sugar-water with brown food coloring. I generally find bbq places to be the worst offenders. Mom made our tea fairly sweet, but at least you could still taste the tea!
As an adult, I like to order unsweet and then sweeten it with "the pink stuff". Saccharin dissolves in cold liquid better than any other sweetener (including sugar), and its bitter aftertaste is masked by the tea itself. That way you can perfectly control the level of sweetness in your tea --as long as you don't run out of sweetener packets.
Comment by Mark — June 18, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
I make sun tea every summer and it hasn't killed me or made me sick so to heck with the health folks. Sometimes I think they are overly cautious when it comes to stuff like that.
Sweet tea is the best!! Mom is right, just enough to remove the bitter is the best way. My neighbor makes hers with 3 cups of sugar and her family goes through at least 4 gallons a week of that stuff. I don't see how the kids teeth haven't rotted out.
I refuse to try and sweeten ice tea after the fact - you might as well just drink it unsweetened because it doesn't work very well. I once tried to order sweet tea in Northern Ohio and the waitress kindly informed me that they didn't have it. Nowadays it is easier to find up north - perhaps we have convinced them of the error of their ways!!
Comment by Kim — June 18, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
Splenda dissolves nicely in cold tea and tastes better to me than Sweet 'n' Low or Equal.
Comment by Lindsey Nair — June 18, 2009 @ 2:00 pm
I'm originally from Georgia and was raised mostly here in Virginia, and I absolutely hate sugar in my tea, or coffee. I like the bitterness of it, and enjoy the variations between brands and types of teas and coffees. The sugars mute the flavor too much, and besides, if I want something sweet to drink, I'll just grab an ice cold Coke or root beer.
Comment by Other John — June 18, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
Unsweet with one pack of Blue and one pack of Pink for me!! perfect combo for just right sweetness.
Comment by Kenn Sanders — June 18, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
In my house, even my California-bred husband is a sweet tea lover. I agree, some restaurant tea is brown sugar water and not refreshing at all. If I'm at a restaurant where drinks are self-serve, I usually do a mix of unsweet and sweet to prevent the sugar overload.
We use our Mr. Coffee Iced Tea pot or heat up water in the microwave and steep the tea in a glass pitcher. For plain iced tea, I use Luzianne bags. I bought Tazo Iced Tea bags from Starbucks and they are very good, with a mild citrus flavor. For both kinds, we use somewhere between 1/2 cup to 1 cup of sugar for 2 quarts of tea. We also let the bags steep for around 5 minutes.
When I got pregnant last year, I switched from my morning coffee to hot tea to cut back on caffeine. My son is 11 months old, and I'm still drinking my morning tea, with milk and honey. I prefer PG Tips. The flavor is good and you get 40 bags for $3-4. And it's England's #1 tea, and I figure the Brits know their tea!
What's the deal with sun tea being unhealthy? How exactly is it unhealthy? I used to babysit for my neighbors' 2 daughters in the summers when I was a teenager. Every morning we set the sun tea jar on the porch and it was ready by lunch. The 3 of us must have consumed a gallon a day and we're still here to talk about it!
Comment by Lori — June 18, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
For you sweet tea lovers - McCallister's Deli at Towers Mall in Roanoke has GREAT sweet tea. Very similar to Hardee's sweet tea.
Comment by Amanda — June 18, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
1/2 n 1/2 4 Me
Comment by Brendan — June 18, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
Unsweet or Splenda at home...half-and-half in restaurants....Lots of lemon! Years ago my mom and I took a mother-daughter trip to New England in the month of March. When I tried to order iced tea in restaurants up there the wait person would look at me like I'd just grown three heads. "We might serve that in the summer time," they'd say, "but not this time of year." One waiter offered to bring me hot tea and a glass of ice...funny. We Southerners want our iced tea year round!!!
Comment by Michele — June 18, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
whatever the case, left over sweet tea makes a nice brine for fried chicken...
Comment by josh — June 18, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
I hear you Thom. No sugar at all! Once you get used to it, you'll never go back.
Comment by Howard — June 18, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
I like Splenda too Lindsey. I've never liked Sweet 'n' Low, I hate the aftertaste.
Dave, I love Twinings English Breakfast too. I recently bought Numi White Orange Spice and it's great. My dad used to drink Lipton's instant tea. I've always hated that stuff, but when my daughter was a child she loved it. A neighbor gave her some brewed ice tea one time, and she asked her, "Don't you have any of the good tea." Thankfully she's reformed now.
Comment by Debbie — June 18, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
As a child (long ago) we lived in Oklahoma, and we always drank iced tea with sugar. Then during WW II when sugar was rationed, we started drinking tea without sugar, and I have drunk it that way ever since. I like the tea flavor. I prepare my tea the old-fashioned way, steep it in boiling water then strain. I also drink my coffee straight. For those of you who like to sample different varieties of bulk tea (and coffee), here's a website that I found recently and have ordered from them a couple of times. They ship promptly and delivery time is short.
http://www.coffeebeandirect.com/about.php
Comment by Fletch — June 18, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
Thanks for pointing out that plenty of us southerners take our tea unsweet, too! I sweeten my iced coffee, but the only time I sweeten iced tea is if it's chai (in which case I also add milk.) My mother and grandmother also take their tea unsweet, and they're both Patrick County born and bred.
Comment by Emma — June 18, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
I'm originally from NY and was introduced to "sweet tea" the day before my sister and I moved onto Tech's and Radford's campuses. The server must have thought we were dunces when we ordered iced tea only to be greeted in response, "Sweet or unsweet?" We had no clue what she was talking about. We only wanted our drinks after having driven 10 hours south.
To this day, I loathe sweet tea. It makes me feel like I've swallowed goopy school glue because it seems so "thick" in comparison to unsweetened tea.
I prefer mine with some fresh lemon juice and tons of crushed ice.
I'm also with Dave - I adore both English breakfast and Irish breakfast teas.
Comment by Amy — June 18, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
I prefer unsweet, or a little sweet (like Mrs. T's or Honest T), but I am not a fan of "sweet tea" as I am not from the south...it is like drinking corn syrup.
Comment by Nicole B. — June 18, 2009 @ 6:22 pm
A brine for fried chicken? Sounds fascinating.
Kenn, you drink one blue and one pink in one glass of tea? You're going to melt in the rain!!!
This is a great discussion. I believe the argument against sun tea has to do with bacteria multiplying in the tea as it heats, thus posing a food poisoning danger.
Again, I don't know for sure. Personally, I'd just make sure to use a nice, clean jar and not sweat it too much.
Comment by Lindsey Nair — June 18, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between English and Irish tea? I love the English, haven't tried the Irish.
Comment by Debbie — June 19, 2009 @ 3:35 am
Definately have to have sweet tea with no lemon. I cant stand it so sweet it makes you bounce off the walls, but just enough to take the bitter taste out and make it taste yummy!
Comment by Amber — June 19, 2009 @ 6:26 am
Thanks for the link, Fletch! I'll have to try some of their teas.
I grew up drinking Nestea instant tea and hated the taste of brewed tea. Until I moved south. Now I'm the opposite. A friend up in MI makes his tea by putting the bags in a pitcher of water and putting it in the fridge. Kind of like sun tea without the sun. That 'cold steeping' gives it a flavor that's a little different. I prefer the 'heat brewed' kind. But I'll drink it when I'm there!
I've ended up with sugar water so often that I've gotten into the habit of testing my tea at restaurants before the waitress can walk away. *grin* And if I'm at a drive-through, I take a test-sip before leaving the window.
Glad to see there are so many tea lovers out there!
Comment by Dave — June 19, 2009 @ 7:07 am
We use Red Rose tea bags for iced tea and drink it unsweet.
Comment by Angell Pasley — June 19, 2009 @ 8:14 am
I am a mountain south gal to the core, and grew up with my also very mountain grandma keeping a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge (like Lindsey's) that had just one barely there touch of sugar. I started drinking unsweet for the lower calories and to cut back on sugar because I have diabetics in my family.
Once I started drinking unsweet - there is no way I could go back!! Unsweet tea is just refreshing, whereas I find sweet too much like a candy! (Mammaw's is still good though!)
My fiancee, a Franklin County boy, likes sweet (not syrupy sweet, but sweet). He says he likes Bojangles iced tea!
Comment by NT — June 19, 2009 @ 9:38 am
Sweet.
Comment by Ralph — June 19, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
You are a man of few words, Ralph. I like it.
Comment by Lindsey Nair — June 19, 2009 @ 6:14 pm