Blogging about tea

Blogging from East Bruce

With apologies to Daniel D. Emment who wrote Dixie land in 1859 for a minstrel show as a joke

Oh I wish I lived in the land of Lipton, sweet iced tea is always ready,
Drink it up, drink it up, drink it up Lipton tea!

When a Southerner leaves our little universe, we discover the awful truth about the world outside of dear old Dixie.
You can’t find a proper glass of sweet iced tea! You might order a glass of sweet of tea but chances are what you get will not even resemble that sweet concoction that we were all weaned on. Tea in any other part of the world is not the same. The other evening I was squalling through Steele Magnolias for the umpteenth time and Dolly Parton’s character Truvey called those glasses of sweet tea she was serving “the house wine of the South”. And she wasn’t woofing.

Drinking sweet iced tea is one of the most traditional things about a Southern meal. There is an art to brewing that clear orangey reddish liquid we cherish so much; seven or eight of the small tea bags have hot (not quite boiling) water poured on them along with a cup plus a smidgin more of sugar. Then when it reaches just the right color its diluted to the one and only gallon pitcher whose only purpose in life is to pour the nectar of the gods into a tall glass that is packed full of crystal clear ice.

In the south when we say sweet tea, we mean sweet . I read somewhere (don’t try and pin me down where, I read a lot of stuff!) that Southern sweet tea is twice as sweet as a can of ‘Co-Cola’. I find that hard to believe but there are some ‘nutritional scientists’ out there that swear it’s so. But hey, look at the other sweet stuff we love to eat! We Southerners have a hankering for pecan pie and pralines and sweet potato pie and sweet potato compote, and mint juleps. Oops, did I say Mint Juleps?! Why shut my mouth! Now there’s a classic Southern cocktail if you consider Kentucky as southern too.

Maybe our fascination with sweet tea is with the ice. After all it does get hotter than blue blazes down here and there is nothing more refreshing and hospitable than sweet tea poured over ice. I love to hear the ice crackle as the warm sweet tea pours over it. I smack my lips in anticipation of the sweet treat! And don’t go and try and to sneak in instant tea and pass it off as the real deal. A true Southerner can tell the difference. Tea does not have foam on the top!

My oldest daughter Ariel and I had the opportunity to travel to Washington DC a couple of summers ago. She attended a youth leadership conference and I was taking summer classes at Washington Theological Union. For two weeks she and I attended our classes and communicated each evening by cell phone. As we would recount the days events the one common thing that we both noted was, we were starving. Both of us were longing for good ole white Wonder Bread and a tall glass of sweet iced tea. Oh, I could order the tea and get a glass of tea with a few cubes of ice in it and pack of sugar. That was not going to cut it. The little deli I ate at daily finally took pity on me. They called me Mississippi. ‘Hey Mississippi! Show us how you make tea way down there in the South.” So I did. I showed them how to pack that glass full of ice and just how sweet tea should be and how make a proper tomato sandwich. As they sampled my humble creations I saw them smile. The next day as I headed toward the metro for my trip into the city I noticed a new sign on their menu. New Items! Southern Sweet Iced tea and Tomato Sandwiches. Food and Sweet tea….the universal language.