Iced tea: a rambling discourse

[bunrab]

I lived in Texas for 24 years, before moving to Maryland last month. I grew up in New York, and lived in Boston for 10 years, before moving to Texas. I've been drinking tea all my life - almost entirely hot tea, until I moved to Texas. I had iced tea, with free refills, at a Luby's cafeteria, the first evening I was in Austin, and was hooked.

When I moved from Boston to Austin, a friend drove me. As we stopped in places along the way, I tracked the tea - the dividing line at that time was Tulsa. North of Tulsa, if you asked for "tea" you automatically got hot tea. South of Tulsa, if you asked for "tea" you automatically got iced tea. And in Tulsa, they asked "hot or iced?"

After I got addicted to iced tea, when I'd fly back to New York or Boston, I'd miss it. Most places didn't offer it at all, except in July or August, and then it was quite likely to be Nestea powdered tea, stirred up on request. You know what changed that? Southwest Airlines, that's what. Really. It tracks quite closely. Southwest started flying into Midway Airport in Chicago, and suddenly all the places in the airport had iced tea year-round, for the crew and staff. Then it spread out from the airport. As Southwest added cities to its routes, those cities started carrying iced tea in all the airport eateries year-round, and then it spread. It's true.

But lately, there's been a different spread, and I don't like it. "Sweet tea" - disgustingly over-sweetened iced tea - has heretofore been a southeastern thing - Georgia, places like that. But over the past 2 years, it's been spreading - into Texas, for example. Where Luby's used to serve plain tea and assume that you were capable of stirring in a package of sweetener yourself, now they offer sweet and unsweet tea, and one has to specify rather forcefully that one wants unsweet. And outside of Texas, in places where the whole iced tea business is newer and less entrenched, some places are ONLY offering sweet tea. You ask for iced tea and you get sweet tea, UGH!! This particular virus is spreading like wildfire, and I DON'T LIKE IT. I would rather have hot tea in the middle of August, than have presweetened tea. Even my Spousal Unit, who is Texas born and bred, would rather have hot tea than presweetened, SU deeming itself perfectly capable of opening a packet of sweetener (and being able to choose which kind, at that) and stir it, without help. What will it take to stop this disgusting trend, and to get restaurants that have only one tea urn to go back to offering unsweet as their one iced tea, rather than sweet tea as their only iced tea????

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I am a heathen: I prefer sweetened tea. But this is because with the unsweetened, they always fill the glass with ice and I end up making a nasty racket trying to get the sugar I've added to dissolve properly, and I'm never quite sure how much to add, and I usually end up with a tasty but messy sugar sludge on the bottom of the glass...

Of course, I usually order Sprite or hot chocolate, so my preferences in the matter are only mild either way.

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

How much to add - that is the very issue. Presweetened takes it away from you.

S says to tell you he has had presweetened tea himself - but it's tea he brewed up fresh and hot by the half gallon, added an experientially determined amount of sweetener to while still hot so that it would dissolve nicely, and then chilled for future consumption.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

That's the way landley does up his tea, and I quite like it. Though I'd probably add a bit more sweetener on my own... Still, I'm fairly flexible when it comes to sweetness presented to me. It's when I'm trying to create the perfect blend myself that I get picky.

[blackberryice.livejournal.com]

My mother was trying to explain this all to me the other day. She spent time growing up in the southern states, and even worked as a waitress. Don't ask for tea, ask for iced tea. You want hot tea ask for hot tea. I get totally confused and just stick with ordering coffee.

^_^

[stylizedboredom.livejournal.com]

I used to like sweet tea. When done right, it is awesome. But, alas, it can be easily f-ed up. For the last three years, I have abstained (from sweet tea, not tea in general. Goodness, I consume at least two quarts a day). Unless a REAL Southern made it, it will taste like ass.

Since when is Steve an "it?" *concerned*

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Some moments lately, he's been extremely annoying, and that's when he turns into an it. It's true what they say about retirement - you don't really want to be in each other's company ALL DAMN DAY 'cause sometimes it turns from in company to on nerves.

[stylizedboredom.livejournal.com]

Okay, good. I thought Steve was speaking all taxidermied a la Norman Bates.

Makes you wish you retired with me, right? I am incapable of getting on anyone's nerves. Miss me? Admit it, you do!