Sweet Tea?

[Kanikazi]

My son got married in North Carolina last year. It was our first trip to the "real" south (had been to Florida before, but evidently they don't think they are southern) and my first taste of real southern sweet tea. They even ask you if you want water or sweet tea when you first sit down in the restaurants!

I had grown up on iced tea in Oregon. My mom would boil water, add tea bags, put it in a pitcher add cold water and then add the sugar. But sweet tea is a whole new level of tea enjoyment. It has about twice the sugar, and dissolving it in the boiling water makes all the difference. I get "tea" logged sometimes on it!

 

[Airb330]

The best place I have found for us Northeners to get sweet tea is at Cracker Barrell. We go to Charlotte NC and that is the first thing we have to have!

"Waffle Houses" have them as well. Not very northern...but they do have a few places in Delaware now, so maybe PA too?

Edited to add....Myrtle Beach definitely has the best places for sweet tea. Even McDonalds has it! Can't wait to go down there again next week. If someone calls me a Yankee again (with actual disdain) I'm going to freak out. Good lord, we are one country.

 

[aubriee]

I'm sure they do just order it as Iced tea and they will get it worked out...JK I had friends in Kentucky and I ordered hot tea and they looked at me like I was nuts!

No insult meant, but you gotta be a Yank! Sweet tea tastes nothing like iced tea with sugar added afterwards. The only way I'll drink iced tea is if I know the sugar is added while the tea is still hot. Whole different taste!

 

[padalyn]

The best place I have found for us Northeners to get sweet tea is at Cracker Barrell. We go to Charlotte NC and that is the first thing we have to have!

The Cracker Barrell in NJ on Rte 80 east sometimes has Sweet Tea. Thanks for the lessons on how to make it - I have always wondered. We just called that tea...

Off site locations also would include Sweet Tomatoes - they are a great salad/soup restaurant - give it a try - they have a website also.

 

[LindsayDunn228]

I make a gallon of sweet tea a day, we drink it morning, noon and night. Once the tea is cold it's hard to mix the sugar in it, it's just not the same.

You are exactly right. It is not the same. And Splenda is NOT sugar!

 

[randmel]

Sweet tea, made correctly, is the nectar of the gods! Yummy!

I saw somewhere once in GA, I think, that sweet tea is Southern Table Wine.

randmel

 

[randmel]

Thanks for the lessons on how to make it - I have always wondered. We just called that tea...

As a Southerner, I used to just call it tea, too, until I got burned too many times by some restaurants thinking they're too good to serve sweet tea. Ordering tea and finding it unsweet is NOT a pleasant thing. So, now I always ask.

I guess I could get around the tea thing by having them mix it with lemonade...

I just can't understand the logic behind not serving sweet tea. I mean, it can't possibly go to waste.

randmel

 

[yankeepenny]

I too enjoy sweet tea, southern friends at work would make it and bring it in, I have also made it, and I am a Yankee!
when we were in Virginia, it was everywhere,in DC we had to look for it....

 

[keishashadow]

The best place I have found for us Northeners to get sweet tea is at Cracker Barrell. We go to Charlotte NC and that is the first thing we have to have!

PA has cracker barrells too (need that country ham fix every so often)...still, don't think their version is the same as you find in the deep south.

I really do think there's something to boiling the sugar before hand to make a syrup to add to the tea. Wish I could find the right proportions for the mix.

 

[LadyOmega]

I saw somewhere once in GA, I think, that sweet tea is Southern Table Wine.

randmel

ROFL.......that reminds me of the movie Steel Magnolias.....Like Dolly Parton says, "Its the House wine of the South!!"

And please no one get offended at being called a Yank when your in the South. It's really not deroggatory, it's sort of like we're saying "well you poor thing", because it really seems like sometimes Southerners and some of our customs confuse y'all!! (At least I know that that's the way it is with my family from Michigan, and friends from Canada!!)

 

[PlutoLuvr]

To those that think Florida isn't a southern state, only half of Florida isn't considered southern. Central Florida south to the Keys, you're going to have a hard time finding sweet tea, corn nuggets, collard greens, good fried chicken, etc.

However, the nothern half is very much the south. This is coming from someone who moved from Miami to Jacksonville. If anyone's driving to Orlando, you'll find all the sweet southern (authentic!) fixins in the northern half of the state

 

[OKWMom]

And please no one get offended at being called a Yank when your in the South. It's really not deroggatory, it's sort of like we're saying "well you poor thing", because it really seems like sometimes Southerners and some of our customs confuse y'all!!

Also kind of like saying "bless your heart". I'm taking notes of the places on property with sweet tea. We couldn't find any last December and I could only placate DH, who is a sweet tea connoisseur by the way, by making some when we got back to the villa. Thank heavens we had that kitchen.

 

[Jennasis]

DH LOVES sweet tea, I would rather drink an icey glass of sock sweat. Sweet tea is just unpleasant, as far as I am concerned.

We are northerners who transplanted to NC over 3 years ago, so there is great sweet tea here (according to DH). I think there is a large enough section of the population who enjoy sweet tea that WDW should try serving it in their restaurants (you guys can all have my share!)

 

[jjarman]

And please no one get offended at being called a Yank when your in the South. It's really not deroggatory, it's sort of like we're saying "well you poor thing", because it really seems like sometimes Southerners and some of our customs confuse y'all!! (At least I know that that's the way it is with my family from Michigan, and friends from Canada!!)

Or you can just say "She's from up North, bless her heart."

I have a Lipton tea maker (I think that is who made it) and they are very popular here in Mississippi. Basically you put in about 3 cups of water and pour that into the maker. Then put the pitcher under the spout, put in your tea bags and that is it. It makes wonderful tea. To make it "sweet" I put in a cup or so of sugar in the bottom of the pitcher after I have poured the water into the maker. The water comes out hot and melts the sugar. Also, I like my tea strong. It looks more like a Coke when it is done. That is another southern drink. Coke that is. Then the lady will ask you what kind of Coke you want, Sprite, Seven-Up, Diet Coke or regular Coke? All soft drinks are called Coke.

 

[LadyOmega]

Or you can just say "She's from up North, bless her heart."

I have a Lipton tea maker (I think that is who made it) and they are very popular here in Mississippi. Basically you put in about 3 cups of water and pour that into the maker. Then put the pitcher under the spout, put in your tea bags and that is it. It makes wonderful tea. To make it "sweet" I put in a cup or so of sugar in the bottom of the pitcher after I have poured the water into the maker. The water comes out hot and melts the sugar. Also, I like my tea strong. It looks more like a Coke when it is done. That is another southern drink. Coke that is. Then the lady will ask you what kind of Coke you want, Sprite, Seven-Up, Diet Coke or regular Coke? All soft drinks are called Coke.

This is crackin me up.......my husband told that about the Coke to a good friend of his from Canada, and he just cannot wrap his brain around that concept, just doesn't understand that at all. And sweet tea is a mystery to him as well, I explained to him how it is made, and he had never heard of it and cannot understand why we would sweeten iced tea for some reason either.

 

[keishashadow]

Don't get me started on the bright pink/red hot dogs or the NC BBQ (it's nekkie!) but tasty.

 

[Golf4food]

My DW and I have been sampling different types of wine recently to find one we like, and I just can't stand any of them - because I'm addicted to Souther Table Wine, as it has been called earlier in the thread.

Sweet tea can only be made while the water/tea is HOT. You cannot mix in packets of table sugar to a cold glass of tea and expect to get true sweet tea - it is scientifically impossible due to the cold temperature, etc.

Lousianne tea is better than Lipton, btw.

And as for Florida not being Southern - bite your tongue, whoever said that. The bottom half of the state may have been overrun by retired Yankees and illegal (and yes, some legal) hispanics of various origins, but the top half of the state is very much still Southern and it will be a cold day in Heckfire before we give up our Suthron-ness in the name of unsweet tea and socks with sandals!

Git yerself up round abouts Ocala and northwards and exit I-75 and drive into a small town and ask someone outside of a wooden house if they are Southern or not. Then run, because they are likely to have a shotgun nearby and will be sure to pepper your **** with buckshot! Or, alternately, drive up near Starke, find a nice young lad in a very large pickup truck that has giant tires, a #3 sticker in the back window, and splatters of mud down the side, and ask him if he is Southern or not. Check the back window of the truck for a gunrack first, and make sure that there are no rifles in it...

Now, it's about time for lunch... I need me some BBQ beef, corn nuggets, baked beans, fried squash, onion rings, and a giant ole glass of REAL, 100% SUTHRON sweet tea - made fresh and sweetened while it was still hot!

 

[princesspiglet]

I am a Yankee, but lived in NC for 3 years straight after college. I had never had "real" sweet tea before then. We just add the sugar after the tea is cold. However, I worked at the Midtown Cafe and Dessertery in Winston-Salem and was taught how to make proper sweet tea...I became addicted from day one!

Now I can't drink anything but real sweet tea. I also got my folks addicted. My DH is a New Yorker and refuses to put sugar in his tea! I sure hope I can find some sweet tea down there. They don't sell it anywhere up here, so I just make it at home (I use 3 large size tea bags with 2 cups of sugar!) and put it in my empty water bottles. I take it everywhere I go...even to restaurants!!

BTW, I consider myself a southener at heart. I fell in love with NC and GA and would love to live there again someday. I always felt I was born to live in a gilded mansion sipping sweet tea.

 

[heatherlynn444]

I have lived in mississippi, New Orleans, and Atlanta, and there is nothing like a good glass of sweet tea! I am apalled when I go somewhere up north, ask for sweet tea and they look at me like I'm a FREAK! it also makes me very sad that some people have never experienced this heavenly taste!

Also, the coke thing cracks me up. everything around here is called a coke. I find it histarical when someone says "Pop" or "soda" it is just so foreign to me!

 

[NC State]

Lousianne tea is better than Lipton, btw.

Now, it's about time for lunch... I need me some BBQ beef, corn nuggets, baked beans, fried squash, onion rings, and a giant ole glass of REAL, 100% SUTHRON sweet tea - made fresh and sweetened while it was still hot!

Now you're talking...however, we would go for the BBQ pork in our area