The Southern Fried History of Sweet Iced Tea
By: C.W. Roden
June 10th is National Iced Tea Day, Y'all.
With the exception of water, tea is probably the most consumed beverage in the world today. Millions of Americans consume roughly 3.5 billion gallons of tea a year, and of that number around 85% of the tea consumed is iced tea, making it one of the most popular drinks in America.
In the
American Southland, this iconic hot-weather beverage has been the drink
of choice -- with iced cold lemonade running a close second -- for more
than a century-and-a-half.
From
personal experience, I know that nothing beats sitting in a rocking
chair on your front porch, or on the porch swing, and enjoying a nice
tall glass of sweet iced tea with a piece of lemon inside. Some people enjoy other flavors: lime, mint, apple, cherry, peach, strawberry, or just plain; while some horribly misguided souls prefer unsweetened iced tea (blasphemy!).
A glass of cold, sweet tea is as much a part of the Southern supper table as fried chicken and 4th of July picnics. South of the Mason-Dixon Line this beverage is as popular as barbecue and watermelon. Some people down here in Dixie also drink their iced tea from a Mason jar; though it is just as acceptable to serve Southern sweet iced tea in a tall crystal glass, or a paper Dixie cup. A pitcher of sweet tea can almost always be found in every refrigerator in the South.
Yes folks, there is nothing like this sweet Southern-born nectar to cut the scorching heat during those long summer months.
Southern sweet iced tea has its humble origins in this writer's own home state of South Carolina. The Palmetto State is the first place in the United States where tea was grown and produced commercially. The first crop of tea in America was planted in Dorchester County in the late 1700s by French botanist and explorer Andre Michaux and his son, Francois at what is now the site of Middleton Place Gardens. Eventually, sprigs of those same tea leaves were transferred to Wadmalaw Island, where tea is still grown and cultivated today at the Charleston Tea Plantation.
Today, the town of Summerville boldly proclaims itself: "The Birthplace of Sweet Tea" and the town's Chamber of Commerce launched a Sweet Tea Trail in 2013. At stops along the trail, visitors can get a sweet-tea facial, lunch on a sandwich made with a sweet tea -- marinated pork chop, or hit a few balls on a golf course at the Summerville Country Club, the site of a former tea farm.
Sweet tea recipes have been found in Southern cookbooks dating back to the 1830 during the late Antebellum period when cold green tea "punches" spiked with booze gained in popularity. The recipes called for green tea and not black tea, because green tea was more common than black tea in America before about the 1880s when the import of inexpensive black tea exports from British India, Ceylon, South America, and Africa became more popular.
Perhaps the oldest printed recipes for iced tea date back to the 1870s. Two of the earliest cookbooks with iced tea recipes are the Buckeye Cookbook by Estelle Woods Wilcox, first published in 1876; and Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree, first published in 1877.
The drink was also apparently quite popular with the South's former veterans of the War Between the States (1861 - 1865) as well.
According to an article from the September 28, 1890 issue of the Nevada Noticer newspaper regarding the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) Missouri State Reunion in 1890:
"The following figures will convey some idea of the amount of provisions used at Camp Jackson during the recent encampment. There were 4,800 pounds of bread, 11,705 pounds of beef, 407 pounds of ham, 21 sheep, 600 pounds of sugar, 6 bushels of beans, 60 gallons of pickles, and a wagon load of potatoes. It was all washed down with 2,220 gallons of coffee and 880 gallons of iced tea. The committee expended $3,000, a little in excess of the amount subscribed, for the entertainment of the old soldiers."
We have the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri to thank for the lift-off in the national popularity of iced tea. A man named Richard Blechynden, India Tea Commissioner and Director of the East Indian Pavilion, was offering free hot tea for everyone. However, because that summer was exceedingly hot summer fair goers were looking to cool down and hot tea wasn't going to cut it. Blechynden and his tea took the brewed black India tea, filled several large bottles and placed them on stands upside down running the tea through iced lead pipes cooling it down. The free iced tea became very popular to the thirsty fair goers.
By World War I (1914 - 1918) Americans were buying tall glasses, which became commonly known as iced-tea glasses, long spoons suitable for stirring sugar into taller glasses and lemon forks. Iced tea became a common recipe in most Southern cookbooks a the time.
The Prohibition Era (1920 - 1933) helped boost the popularity of iced tea as Americans looked at alternatives to drinking beer, wine and hard liquor, which were made illegal during this period. Restaurant owners needed something to serve diners other than water. Given the heat and the Southern preference for all things sweet, restaurants began offering chilled tea with bowls of sugar on the side.
This practice shifted starting in 1942 following the U.S. entering World War II, when fighting with Japan cut off trade routes in the Pacific. Cargo vessels to Hawaii, which was a chief source for domestic sugar, were redirected for military use, and sugar became the first food designated for wartime rationing. Even after the end of the war, the price of sugar remained tempestuous, forcing restaurant owners to rethink their approach to iced tea.
World War II also had a significant impact on tea because most sources of green tea became unavailable to the American public leaving the only source of tea being black tea exported from British controlled India. By the end of the war Americans were drinking nearly 99% black tea.
Following the end of the war in 1946, a returning U.S. Army mess cook named Milo Carlton opened Milo's Hamburger Shop in Birmingham, Alabama.
His business served quick food for workers at the nearby factories.
Because of the continued sugar shortage, Carlton couldn't afford to bake
pies and leave sugar out for sweet tea. So he began the practice of
pre-sweetening his tea in the back before service -- something that
probably nobody else thought to do before, but others soon caught on.
Not long after tea began arriving at table pre-sweetened as a standard,
prompting the rise of the now-standard question: "Sweet or unsweet? --
as if that's even a choice!
In 1995, South Carolina's tea was officially adopted as the Official Hospitality Beverage by State Bill 3487, Act No. 31 of the 111th Secession of the South Carolina General Assembly on Monday, April 10, 1995.
So folks, however y'all enjoy it -- yeah even you weirdos who like it unsweetened -- let's remember on this 10th day of June to raise a toast to our beloved Dixie-born beverage. Nothing else beats the heat quite like a tall glass of Southern-made sweet iced tea.
A glass of cold, sweet tea is as much a part of the Southern supper table as fried chicken and 4th of July picnics. South of the Mason-Dixon Line this beverage is as popular as barbecue and watermelon. Some people down here in Dixie also drink their iced tea from a Mason jar; though it is just as acceptable to serve Southern sweet iced tea in a tall crystal glass, or a paper Dixie cup. A pitcher of sweet tea can almost always be found in every refrigerator in the South.
Yes folks, there is nothing like this sweet Southern-born nectar to cut the scorching heat during those long summer months.
Southern sweet iced tea has its humble origins in this writer's own home state of South Carolina. The Palmetto State is the first place in the United States where tea was grown and produced commercially. The first crop of tea in America was planted in Dorchester County in the late 1700s by French botanist and explorer Andre Michaux and his son, Francois at what is now the site of Middleton Place Gardens. Eventually, sprigs of those same tea leaves were transferred to Wadmalaw Island, where tea is still grown and cultivated today at the Charleston Tea Plantation.
Today, the town of Summerville boldly proclaims itself: "The Birthplace of Sweet Tea" and the town's Chamber of Commerce launched a Sweet Tea Trail in 2013. At stops along the trail, visitors can get a sweet-tea facial, lunch on a sandwich made with a sweet tea -- marinated pork chop, or hit a few balls on a golf course at the Summerville Country Club, the site of a former tea farm.
Sweet tea recipes have been found in Southern cookbooks dating back to the 1830 during the late Antebellum period when cold green tea "punches" spiked with booze gained in popularity. The recipes called for green tea and not black tea, because green tea was more common than black tea in America before about the 1880s when the import of inexpensive black tea exports from British India, Ceylon, South America, and Africa became more popular.
Perhaps the oldest printed recipes for iced tea date back to the 1870s. Two of the earliest cookbooks with iced tea recipes are the Buckeye Cookbook by Estelle Woods Wilcox, first published in 1876; and Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree, first published in 1877.
The drink was also apparently quite popular with the South's former veterans of the War Between the States (1861 - 1865) as well.
According to an article from the September 28, 1890 issue of the Nevada Noticer newspaper regarding the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) Missouri State Reunion in 1890:
"The following figures will convey some idea of the amount of provisions used at Camp Jackson during the recent encampment. There were 4,800 pounds of bread, 11,705 pounds of beef, 407 pounds of ham, 21 sheep, 600 pounds of sugar, 6 bushels of beans, 60 gallons of pickles, and a wagon load of potatoes. It was all washed down with 2,220 gallons of coffee and 880 gallons of iced tea. The committee expended $3,000, a little in excess of the amount subscribed, for the entertainment of the old soldiers."
 |
| Confederate Veterans at a reunion in South Carolina circa 1900 enjoying a meal that includes glasses of iced tea. |
We have the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri to thank for the lift-off in the national popularity of iced tea. A man named Richard Blechynden, India Tea Commissioner and Director of the East Indian Pavilion, was offering free hot tea for everyone. However, because that summer was exceedingly hot summer fair goers were looking to cool down and hot tea wasn't going to cut it. Blechynden and his tea took the brewed black India tea, filled several large bottles and placed them on stands upside down running the tea through iced lead pipes cooling it down. The free iced tea became very popular to the thirsty fair goers.
By World War I (1914 - 1918) Americans were buying tall glasses, which became commonly known as iced-tea glasses, long spoons suitable for stirring sugar into taller glasses and lemon forks. Iced tea became a common recipe in most Southern cookbooks a the time.
The Prohibition Era (1920 - 1933) helped boost the popularity of iced tea as Americans looked at alternatives to drinking beer, wine and hard liquor, which were made illegal during this period. Restaurant owners needed something to serve diners other than water. Given the heat and the Southern preference for all things sweet, restaurants began offering chilled tea with bowls of sugar on the side.
This practice shifted starting in 1942 following the U.S. entering World War II, when fighting with Japan cut off trade routes in the Pacific. Cargo vessels to Hawaii, which was a chief source for domestic sugar, were redirected for military use, and sugar became the first food designated for wartime rationing. Even after the end of the war, the price of sugar remained tempestuous, forcing restaurant owners to rethink their approach to iced tea.
World War II also had a significant impact on tea because most sources of green tea became unavailable to the American public leaving the only source of tea being black tea exported from British controlled India. By the end of the war Americans were drinking nearly 99% black tea.
In 1995, South Carolina's tea was officially adopted as the Official Hospitality Beverage by State Bill 3487, Act No. 31 of the 111th Secession of the South Carolina General Assembly on Monday, April 10, 1995.
So folks, however y'all enjoy it -- yeah even you weirdos who like it unsweetened -- let's remember on this 10th day of June to raise a toast to our beloved Dixie-born beverage. Nothing else beats the heat quite like a tall glass of Southern-made sweet iced tea.
 |
| Cheers! |
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