So is Florida "sweet tea" what we'd call Nestea/iced tea up in Canada?

[sunshinehighway]

I think that's because you can only get it in the South. I live in Virginia, but used to live up north. If you order iced tea there you get unsweetened tea, not sweet tea. They didn't even have sweet tea in PA.

And Nestea isn't tea, is it?? I've tasted it a few times and I thought it was some sort of un-carbonated soda type drink. Like lemon-tea flavored water. I don't think it has any tea in it, does it?

Eh, nestea is a powered drink.
I guess I just don't understand the hoopla, i can get sweetened iced tea in MA. It's called sweetened iced tea, not sweet tea. I usually prefer unsweetened. Besides in MA we are more iced coffee people.
I read an interesting comment on a adult little article about the best ways to make iced coffee. The comments were full of people saying, in great detail, how they make it, there was one comment about how American seem to enjoy making things more complicated than they actually and it's just cold coffee...shouldn't be so difficult. Since I read that comment, I've been noticing it. I don't know if it's an American thing, like the comment said, or what but people do seem to like making things sounds more complicated than they actually are.

 

[Wishing on a star]

Ohhhh, I agree sunshinghighway...
What was the recent post on one thread... "solving problems that don't exist... only in America." Hahahaha!!!

But, the thing is, different methods of brewing and preparing different tea and coffee drinks do net different results.
Sometimes the devil IS in the details!!!!

I can promise you that I can tell the difference between what we know here as SweetTea, and Iced Tea that is sweetened... with one sip.

Wouldn't even have to take a sip.

 

[Wishing on a star]

And Nestea isn't tea, is it?? I've tasted it a few times and I thought it was some sort of un-carbonated soda type drink. Like lemon-tea flavored water. I don't think it has any tea in it, does it?

Here are the ingredients of this nasty toxic 'flavored beverage', right from the website:

Water (of course)
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Citric Acid
Phosphoric Acid
Sodium Polyphosphate
Caramel Color
Natural Flavors (There are NO real regulations as to what the word 'natural' means in food product packaging)
Black Tea Extract (if one can call that 'tea')
Potassium Sorbate
Potassium Benzoate
Sucralose
Calcium EDTA
Acesulfame Potassium

 

[saucymb]

Nope, not Yankee business; that's restaurant business. If you are making tea in large quantities, you cannot add the sugar that way because it won't dissolve properly; a large quantity of liquid cools unevenly, and dumping in 3 cups of sugar makes it even worse. Making simple syrup to keep in a bottle to add to the tea makes it a lot easier to make it in bulk. If you have people in the house who like their tea with differing degrees of sweetness (or none at all) it's actually a lot less hassle to make a bottle of simple syrup first (it will keep for a month). Simple syrup can be added to cold tea and still dissolves properly, unlike sugar.

I worked at a restaurant in NC for 5 years during/after college, known for their sweet tea. And it was definitely not made with the simple syrup method. Tea was brewed through the coffee maker; while it was brewing, sugar (large quantities of it, I can't remember now the ratio) was poured into a 20-gallon bucket. The brewed tea (3 pitchers of it) was poured in with the sugar, and then it was stirred for a minute or two while the sugar dissolved. Then water was added "to the tippy-top" (like one previous poster said!) and it was served over crushed ice. This is roughly the recipe I use, though I'm trying to cut back the sugar and I certainly don't make 20 gallons at once! If you order tea at this restaurant, you are getting sweet tea. Ask for unsweetened, and you will get some - but it may take a couple of minutes as the only keep a gallon of it brewed at the time.

 

[L&Lfan]

I love "real" southern sweet tea and have yet to find it here in New Jersey. What they call sweetened iced tea here has certainly gotten better in the 30 plus years I've lived here , but it's still not the same as I used to drink in South Carolina. And I don't think they have "real" sweet tea in WDW. I haven't tried it in several years but I remember not liking it when I began to see it on Disney menus. Nowadays I usually drink bottled water during the day and booze at night. I'll have to try the "sweet tea" again this November.

 

[princesspiglet]

I am a huge tea drinker. I'm a northerner, but lived in the south (Winston-Salem, NC) for 5 years. I was a server at "Midtown Cafe and Dessertery" and I learned to master the art of sweet-tea making. We brewed the tea bags hot through the coffee maker- while that was brewing, we made a simple syrup out of hot water and sugar. Poured the simple syrup into the bucket of fresh brewed hot tea and let that cool. It sat out in a container all day and we filled a glass with ice and poured the brewed sweet tea over top of it. Served with a slice of lemon.

I used to love that stuff and would drink a gallon a day! Back then I was young and naive and could get away with it. Now I drink either fresh brewed hot tea unsweetened or fresh-brewed iced tea unsweetened. My favorites are Twinning and Teavana. Now when we visit friends in the south and I get sweet tea, I gag because of the sweetness.

And don't even get me started on the "powdered" tea. That isn't even real tea and it's nasty!

 

[DisneyHardin]

I don't drink tea, but my DH loves it. He alternates between wanting sweet and unsweet tea. When he wants it sweet, I put a cup of sugar in the bottom of the pitcher and pour the boiling tea water on top if it and then fill the rest of the pitcher with cold water and stir a little bit. Right now he is on an unsweet kick, so that is super easy, I just boil my tea kettle with water and Lipton tea bags and then put it in a pitcher and fill the rest of the way with water.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Do people really think it's great and magical? I just prefer brewed tea (sweet or unsweet) over syrup mixed with water and blue, pink or yellow packets of stuff dumped in...

When I was in the Navy back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was stationed in Puerto Rico and worked in an office with a guy who was from Arkansas. We often traveled throughout Puerto Rico and the Caribbean on duty, and whenever we went to a restaurant, he'd ask if they had sweet tea. They'd invariably look at him funny and say they just have iced tea and sweetener. He'd give me a long look and shake his head like he'd left civilization. You'd think he'd have figured it out after the 1st or 2nd time that he was no longer in the "Sweet Tea Zone." So for him, it was great and magical.

 

[JaxDad]

Well, he was in the Navy. An Air Force guy would have figured it out much more quickly.

 

[brooke789]

I worked at a restaurant in NC for 5 years during/after college, known for their sweet tea. And it was definitely not made with the simple syrup method. Tea was brewed through the coffee maker; while it was brewing, sugar (large quantities of it, I can't remember now the ratio) was poured into a 20-gallon bucket. The brewed tea (3 pitchers of it) was poured in with the sugar, and then it was stirred for a minute or two while the sugar dissolved. Then water was added "to the tippy-top" (like one previous poster said!) and it was served over crushed ice. This is roughly the recipe I use, though I'm trying to cut back the sugar and I certainly don't make 20 gallons at once! If you order tea at this restaurant, you are getting sweet tea. Ask for unsweetened, and you will get some - but it may take a couple of minutes as the only keep a gallon of it brewed at the time.

That is exactly how we made sweet tea when I worked at Ruby Tuesday in college. Brew it in the coffee maker, then dump that hot tea into the tea dispenser and 1 pitcher (yes a pitcher was our measuring device) of sugar. Stir and fill to the top with water.

 

[Min Min]

That is as wrong as anything has ever been in this world.

I agree. No true southern uses instant tea. It taste gross.

 

[goofyernmost]

I think that's because you can only get it in the South. I live in Virginia, but used to live up north. If you order iced tea there you get unsweetened tea, not sweet tea. They didn't even have sweet tea in PA.

And Nestea isn't tea, is it?? I've tasted it a few times and I thought it was some sort of un-carbonated soda type drink. Like lemon-tea flavored water. I don't think it has any tea in it, does it?

Within the last 5 or 6 years, McDonalds started to have Sweet Tea in all their restaurants up north. I don't really know how well it has gone over up there (originally from Vermont), but, it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't a big seller except with tourist that go up from the south to ski in the Winter.

As for Nestea, I think they have bottled Iced Tea of a multitude of flavors including Sweet Tea and Unsweetened Tea. They also used to have a powdered (freeze dried, I believe) that you mix with water to re-hydrate, but it is real tea, just not all that tasty. It they get the balance off, (Tea to Water) it can be pretty nasty.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Well, he was in the Navy. An Air Force guy would have figured it out much more quickly.

Only because they have nothing else to do while waiting for the ink on their lunch order to dry....