I found them last winter, while meandering around an antique mall, pausing idly from booth to booth, fingering odds and ends. They sat among a jumble of dusty things. There were six of them with a ribbon tied around their reed-thin handles, some kind of utensil, though it took me a minute to figure out what.
Then I realized I held an elegant set of sterling silver iced tea straws, with delicate mint-leaf shaped spoons.
I decided the combination sippers-and-stirrers were Victorian because of the finely etched veins on the spoons and because only the Victorians had a utensil for just about everything. I bought them right away and stepped out into the cold, hoping for warmer days.
Today, warmth surrounds me as I pick up my son R.J. from school, the last days of fifth grade before the summer holidays. The humidity is high, the sun strong and I know exactly what I'm going to do when I get home: make some iced tea.
When R.J. was born, my husband Ron and I lived in languid New Orleans in a splendid Victorian house with a wraparound porch and gingerbread trim.
Our neighbors to the right of us always brewed their iced tea right on their back porch. Sun tea, they called it, stringy tea bags afloat in tap water in a large glass pitcher brewing ever-so-slowly throughout the morning in the hot sun. They would always offer me some on ice if I were outside.
I have less patience. For good measure, I shovel in plenty of ice. The ice splits and crackles at first, but then cools down and bobs about. I like to add fresh mint and lemon slices, or fresh basil and orange slices.
When I have company, I leave the herb leaves whole, and when alone, I crush them for a burst of flavor. The tea tastes good for several days if covered and kept refrigerated.
This is just the way I do it, the beauty of iced tea is that you can do what you like. My husband prefers his sweet, Southern-style like his roots, so he gets it heaped with sugar. My son drinks his decaf with extra ice.
Though I make a simple iced tea, iced tea can be made using any kind of tea, with added sweeteners, with carbonated water instead of still water, or with assorted dairy products. I also prefer the kind that I brew at home by steeping tealeaves, rather than a packaged mix, bottled or canned tea, but I have become more adventurous.
One of my new favorites is Bubble Tea from Taiwan, a black iced tea sweetened with sugar and condensed milk with gummy tapioca pearls floating in it. Another iced tea I tried recently was a deep pink hibiscus tea barely sweetened with syrup and frothy with seltzer. I have even lately sampled and enjoyed passion fruit tea with lemonade mixed in. I experiment and have fun.
After all, little says summer more to me than a pretty pitcher of refreshing iced tea served on my back porch. I toss Today, warmth surrounds me as I pick up my son R.J. from school, the last days of fifth grade before the summer holidays. The humidity is high, the sun strong and I know exactly what I'm going to do when I get home: make some iced tea. a vintage tablecloth on my table, invite friends and neighbors over, pour tea into chilled glasses, perhaps serve a slice of blueberry tart, and of course, give everyone their very own Victorian iced tea straw.
This story first appeared in my column Tea Talk for Inns magazine.
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David Parker: Global Icing: How Smirnoff Ice Changed the World
I've used Icing to get my apartment cleaned and my car serviced. Icing has also improved my romantic life. I gave an engagement ring to a beautiful woman on the subway and now she has to marry me.
http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/suntea.asp
Gross.
I have always made ice tea, just simple lipton, with a scant cup of cane sugar to a gallon. Not sweet enough for my southern friends, but it is the way I like it.
When we go out to eat and I order tea, I have to order half sweet mixed with half unsweet, otherwise it is way to syrupy.
We drink about a half gallon of ice tea each day--summer or winter--and we love it. I believe this one, simple switch helped me to lose weight over time. I also read how healthy it is to drink tea. I make a brew with 3 black & 3 green teabags to get the health benefits of both.
Tea is a wonderful thing. Give it a try instead of reaching for a soda next time. Your body will thank you!
I lost my taste for it in my teens. Sort of lost interest in sugar, to be honest. A taste I've never regained. And I ended up converted to diet sodas. Not so much for any health reasons but because they tasted far less sweet than regular sodas. In my thirties, I noticed that I was getting head aches at the same time every day. And I had a lot of physical aches that seemed peculiar for someone of my age. After talking to some friends, I figured it might be the gallons of diet soda I was drinking. Between the nutra-sweet and the excessive carbonation, _something_ was affecting me, because when I started cutting it back- the symptoms evaporated.
Looking at something to replace the diet cola... I took another look at tea. Iced tea, unsweetened. It was a revelation to me. So much so that I drink maybe five or six glasses a day- along with water.
I recommend converting your drip coffee maker into a tea maker. Two of those big Iced Tea bags or four regular seem to work marvelously well.
Here's to a second American revolution, the acceptance of Sweet Tea in the north.
Love your essay and am now on the hunt (at estate sales) for some lovely iced tea straw/spoons for summer, thanks for the inspiration!
*Blogger accidentally deleted this lovely shared story by momcat 54