Why does the South drink sweet tea?

When Prohibition took effect in the South, tea drinking became more popular. In fact, tea was often served with alcohol before the great dry-out. All those beautiful crystal glasses formerly filled with stiff drinks couldn’t go to waste, so sweet tea soothed the South through to the end.

When did sweet tea become a southern thing?

1928
It wasn’t until 1928 that sweet tea became the southern thirst-quencher of choice it is today. The well-known “Southern Cooking” cookbook published a sweet tea recipe that shifted iced tea from a refreshing beverage to a cultural staple.

Where did Southern sweet tea come from?

There’s some evidence that tea plants were brought to the US in the late 1700s by a French botanist. Planted in South Carolina, then a colony, the tea started to appear in cookbooks with iced versions of green tea. But these recipes were always spiked with alcohol!

Is sweet tea a southern thing?

Sweet tea is regarded as an important regional staple in the cuisine of the southern United States and Indonesia. The availability of sweet tea in restaurants and other establishments is popularly used as an indicator to gauge whether an area can be considered part of the South.

Where did sweet iced tea originated?

One of the most commonplace origin stories traces iced tea’s invention to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Richard Blechynden, the commissioner of Indian tea, had set up shop in the India Pavilion to promote the black teas of India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

What do Southerners drink?

Rum and locally-distilled apple and peach brandy were the spirits of choice of colonial Southerners. In the antebellum era they shifted to drinking whiskey, but the vast majority of it was not bourbon; it was either cheap, un-aged corn liquor or good rye whiskey imported from Pennsylvania and Maryland.

What tea do Southerners drink?

Sweet Tea
There are two traditional iced teas in the United States – Iced Tea and Sweet Tea. The only variation between them is sugar. Southerners swear by their traditional sweet ice tea and drink it by the gallons. In the South, ice tea is not just a summertime drink, it is served year round with most meals.

What state invented sweet tea?

Old Virginia
The first known published sweet tea recipe was in an 1879 cookbook by Marion Cabell Tyree called “Housekeeping in Old Virginia.” However, it calls for green tea, not black. Then, there’s the popular anecdote claiming iced tea was invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Who discovered sweet tea?

Where was sweet tea discovered?

Where was sweet tea originate?

How was iced tea invented?

You may have heard iced tea was invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. During that summer there was a heat wave in St. Louis, and few visitors were interested in the hot black tea. Blechynden decided to buy blocks of ice, make ice chips and serve iced tea.

Is sweet tea a southern beverage?

When sweet tea is made the right way, though, it carries deep meaning for people of the South. Sure, other beverages strongly identify as southern, but they either have a specific birthplace (Kentucky and bourbon), or their national popularity means that many no longer think of them as distinctly of the South (Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola).

Was sweet tea a surrender to the temperance movement?

It’s quite possible that sweet tea was a surrender to the temperance movement’s tidal wave of success at the state and local level in the South during the 1800s—decades before Prohibition became national law. Believe it or not, “dry” counties where alcohol sales are prohibited still exist in the South.

Why is iced tea called the house wine of the south?

That’s why when Dolly Parton’s character Truvy in the iconic southern movie Steel Magnolias called iced tea, “the house wine of the South,” southerners knew she meant sweet tea.

Is your sweet tea just sugar water?

Any sweet tea with a darker color might as well be called coffee, and any tea with a lighter color is probably just sugar water. Twitty concludes that, unfortunately, most of the sweet tea served outside of the South fails to strike the proper balance, and veers towards either extreme.