2009.07.15
Take the official iced tea survey!
Stephanie Klein-Davis/The Roanoke Times
Okay, I cannot let steeping tea lie. Even after our blog conversation about iced tea a week or so ago, I was still thirsting for more information about how a person's birthplace and upbringing affect their consumption of this tasty beverage.
Today's column in Extra revealed the results of a quick, unofficial survey of my co-workers. But I'd love to have a whole pitcher of people take the survey, and that's where you come in. Please take a moment to take my iced tea survey by clicking here. Database editor Matt Chittum and I will fashion the results into some kind of fancy pie chart or map that will hopefully shed new light on this subject. I promise you it will be interesting!
I'm not writing to take the tea survey, but to defend my mother's honor! "Mary's Tea" is known from here to Idaho for it's perfect flavor.
Tea is serious business in our family, and sweetened or unsweetened is NOT the issue. No Southern woman worth her salt would ever make tea with TEA BAGS!! Real Southern iced tea is made with loose tea leaves and strained so as to have no icky, papery, tea-baggy taste. I've seen grown men salivate over my mother's tea. I've watched a days's activities be delayed while the tea brews to perfection.
The exact recipe is unknown, but this is a close estimation. All my siblings have the required Revere Ware sauce pan in which cold water is brought to a boil, then removed from heat. A "little less than" one-third cup loose tea is then promptly added. For authenticity, the pan should be covered with a saucer, although the lid can be substituted. Allow to brew "until it's done". We've never known exactly how long this is, but generally no longer than 15 minutes. Fill a glass pitcher (never plastic) with cold water, and strain tea into the pitcher. Place the strained leaves back into the pan, add cold water to rinse the leaves, and strain again into the pitcher. Fill with cold water. Sweeten or not. We don't refrigerate our tea, as this makes it cloudy. But then there's usually none left over to worry about!
Comment by Joyce Overstreet — July 15, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
Lindsey, I think that your poll may be a bit too "black and white."
It's the degree (intensity) of sweetness that's the regional and/or cultural thing--not simply whether or not the iced tea is sweetened or unsweetened.
I'm from Queens, New York, and I drink unsweetened tea, though I grew up in a family that drank lightly sweetened iced, which is the "norm" in NYC. However, your poll only allowed for answering "SWEETENED" or "UNSWEETENED," so I selected "UNSWEETENED," feeling this was the best choice under the circumstances (whew; I almost developed a cold sweat, it felt like I was taking a test...). When I first moved down here, the thick, syrupy "sweet" tea served to me when I ask for sweetened tea was such a shock to my system, I never asked for it again!
Comment by Hope — July 15, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
You make a good point, Hope. While we drank sweet tea growing up, it was also lightly sweetened, not syrupy. I cannot drink most sweet teas sold in the South. Well, we'll see what the survey results say. I'll be sure to mention your comment in the next article.
On a related note, has anyone noticed that Subway has apparently partnered with the FUZE beverage company? Two different Subways that I have visited recently (the one downtown and one out on U.S. 220 near Eagle Rock) now have two FUZE tea dispensers in place of the old sweet/unsweet dispensers. One flavor of FUZE is sweetened black tea and the other is green tea lightly sweetened with honey. I really like the latter one. I can see myself getting that instead of a soda whenever I'm in Subway. Still, I feel sorry for people like my husband who just want the old-fashioned, unsweetened, fresh-brewed tea.
Comment by Lindsey Nair — July 16, 2009 @ 9:41 am
Hope - Very good point! Your reaction is the same one I had when I went to the midwest for the first time, ordered a sweet tea, and got some concoction with raspberry in it! Ugh!
Comment by Original Greg — July 16, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
Growing up in East Texas and also the Houston area - as a youngster I always enjoyed sweetening my tea - but iced tea was almost always served unsweetened - if you wanted sugar, you added it yourself.
I still live in Texas - and iced tea remains a hugely popular drink - but it is still almost always served unsweetened - you add your own.
Now I love the unsweetened taste - so much better than sweet!
(When you go to Atlanta, be sure to eat at Mary Mac's - great homestyle cooking - being Atlanta, the iced tea is sweetened - at Mary Mac's it is called "the table wine of the South").
Comment by Rob — July 18, 2009 @ 9:26 am