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Post by Toby Benoit on Jun 1, 2007 3:34:20 GMT 12.75
I just read an amusing article from the AP about the differences in tea served above and below the Mason & Dixon line.
Everybody knows that us true Southerners love our Sweet Tea. In fact I can't remember a time when my Granny's ice-box didn't have a pitcher of sweet tea in it. I still drink tea four or six nights a week, favoring it over soda anytime!
I do enjoy a cup of hot black tea at night while I'm working, but there ain't nothing in the world that'll top off a barbecue, fish fry, or even a steak dinner better'n a glass of cold sweet tea.
It seems there's no place else on earth that makes tea like we do in the south and in the AP article, it was suggested that sweet tea evolved during the Antibellum era as a substitute for wine at the dinner table, which in some circles might have been frowned upon.
What ya'll think about it?
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Post by Paws on Jun 1, 2007 6:38:54 GMT 12.75
Sweet tea is wonderful! Of course you realize the secret don't you ? Southerners brew their tea and sweeten it while it is hot and Northerners sweeten it in the glass after it has cooled. n;) When my dear sweet Ex-wife, not the second one; but the first, would make "sun tea" I was tempted to strangle her. What a rediculous thing to do! Wasting all that great tea to produce a piss weak drink. It's kind of like those whiners complaining about the coffee being too strong that haven't got enough sense to pour in more hot water! You know the best way to brew sun tea is to set the jar in a closed closet! Boy are you ever in for a surprise! ;D
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Post by g8rhed on Jun 2, 2007 7:13:09 GMT 12.75
....never could draink swait taieee.... Straight up on the rocks for me.
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Post by RogueWarrior1957 on Jun 2, 2007 11:15:38 GMT 12.75
I love sweet tea...I was raised on it...and it will be my favorite drink till the day I die. Lately I don't use sugar in it...I don't like the sugar substitute as well, but have no choice. Drinking it with no sweetener is not a negotiable option.
There is a special art to brewing the tea in the first place. I've seen people take the tea and boil it hell for leather in a pot until it wasn't fit for man nor beast. The high temperatures for prolonged times vaporize and destroy the essential oils in the tea leaves that give it the tantalizingly pungent taste that makes it good. Overboiled tea is bitter and pissy tasting. Metal vessels ruin the taste of tea as well, as does sweetening after it has already gotten cold.
The way to properly make tea that has that delicious aroma and taste is to pour boiling water (about a quart) into a heat resistant glass or porcelain vessel with the gallon-sized tea bags, cover the vessel with a lid, and wait about 30 minutes for the steeping process to become complete. Then remove the tea bags (don't squeeze that bitter stuff out of the dregs into the tea!), add preferred sweetener, and dilute to 1 gallon. Serve in a tall glass over ice with a twist of lemon if desired, or for a true southern flair, serve with a few crushed peppermint leaves floating around in there.
"Way down yonder past the caution light, There's a little country store with an old Coke sign, Ya gotta go inside and ask Miz Bell for some of her sweet tea. Then a left will take ya to the interstate, But a right will bring ya right back here to me..."(from "Good Directions")
Anyone else from the old south remember the little country stores where the whole rural community stopped at least once a day & got their mail, and the proprietor and his wife kept a big pitcher of sweet iced tea to refresh their friends and neighbors who dropped by. When the weather chilled into fall and winter, a pot of "John Wayne" coffee was kept on the potbelly stove and chairs pulled up around the stove so visitors could warm up a bit and have a cup of java. The cracker barrel was never far away, and you were expected to get a handful of those little soda crackers to go with your coffee. The younger crowd was usually treated to a cup of hot cocoa since coffee was supposed to be an adult drink.
Those were the days! If any of those little Mom and Pop stores still exist, I don't know where...they fell victim to all the 7-2-11, Circle-K, Allsups, and all the other inconvenient stores we have nowadays with clerks named Abdul or Hadjii. Sweet ol' Miz Bell got put outta business by a guy with a diaper on his head! And he sure as hell ain't gonna give you anything...except a rough way to go and probably the wrong change.
-Bill-
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Post by Toby Benoit on Jun 2, 2007 13:12:56 GMT 12.75
"Sweet ol' Miz Bell got put outta business by a guy with a diaper on his head! " You got that right!!! We only had one place like that while I was growing up Seffner, (east Tampa) Fl. called "Mattie's Corner" and Miss Mattie was an ancient black woman who always had a dip of beetle Nut snuff and a glass of tea or coffee ready for folks to pass the time with. Grandaddy damn near stomped the sheit out of a feller once who direspected her. She was always good to ask about the weather and signs of the zodiac, that Grandaddy and all the other farmers were so attentive to. I was still young when she died, but I remember her and sipping sweet tea while Grandaddy'd get his garden seed and whatever he needed. Not long after, the place was burnt down. I always heard that her youngin's burnt it for the insurance. My cousin Bonna and her husband opened a feed and farm store on the site and ran it for fifteen years when it too burned down; and I damn sure guarantee ya THAT fire was for the insurance. They widened the road and took the place not too long ago and it's nothing but strip malls and drive-thru restaurants around there now. I'm only thirty-seven, but I remember Mattie's Corner. hanks for jogging that memory loose for me Rogue!
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Post by OLKoot on Jun 2, 2007 13:47:36 GMT 12.75
When I moved out of Brooklyn NY, I moved upstate to a little town....I had a regular job at a max secure prison and I bought my wife a little Ma and Pa joint just for some extra cash and to get soem food home using that business discount....It lasted about a year and we soon got clobbered bybthat same old series of strip malls up in town.....Our little claim to fame was the coldest beer in that area and the best cuts of meat, but better pricing beat the crasp out of us at the supermarket.....No sweet tea there but our coffee was pretty good too.....
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Post by trblmandy on Jun 6, 2007 5:58:44 GMT 12.75
I love sweet tea i sweeten it when its freshly boiled. Dont think lil miss addison dont love it too. She lives for it, i constantly have to keep makin it cause that girl always has a sippy full and is constantly drainin it. cant help what the girl likes.
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Post by geiyserq on Jun 7, 2007 3:23:02 GMT 12.75
I learned the corect way to make sweet tea back in my USAF days down in Southern Ga. I remember my girl friends mom. She was always wantin to fill my glass full of ice and then pour the sweet tea in it. Finally, I asked her to not put more than 1/2 a glass of ice in it from now on. She said, "Oh yeah, You yankees dont use alot of ice because it dont get so hot up there. I said "NO ma'am. That tea's been in the frig for a couple hours now and its already cold. What I'm after is less ice trying to get up my nose and more tea to drink in 1 fill- up. Us yankees use our heads that way." Would you believe she didnt take kindly to that? But she still made me the best darn chicken & dumplins I've ever had. Should have been there the day she pulled this big ole roasting pan out of the oven. I took the lid off and looked inside. There was the biggest prettiest roast surrounded by potatoes, carrots, and onions. I looked at her and said, "Whatta ya call that?" She looked at me like I was dumb and said, "Pot roast!" I said, "NO ma'am.......that's YANKEE pot roast!" She didnt like that neither
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Post by Toby Benoit on Jun 7, 2007 5:00:58 GMT 12.75
I wouldn't have let you eat none of my pot roast if'n you done insulted it that way! ;D I'm with you on the less ice, more tea in the glass argument though. I rarely use ice if it's been in the ice-box already 'cause I never leave it in the glass long enough to warm up.
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