Wednesday, July 20, 2011

I is for Iced Tea

You would think that in a country that has so much British influence that the people would know how to make iced tea and you would be WRONG. Canadians think that that awful sugar/lemon/tea-ish stuff in a can or (worse yet) a powder is iced tea. It's horrid.

Real iced tea is made out of tea, cooled and maybe a little sugar added (hold the lemon for me please, I don't really like lemonade). I have never been able to order iced tea north of the border and get anything but the false crap. I only have to cross the border (Eureka, Montana or Bonner's Ferry Idaho) to get the real stuff. I don't know why that is...Fortunately, I just make sun tea at home by setting a mason jar in the greenhouse until it is nicely steeped, add my sugar and iced cubes and aahhhh. I have even educated Bruce.

2 comments:

Autumn Leaves said...

I have always loved iced tea, as long as no mint, no lemon, no flavor other than the tea itself comes through. I also need it stronger as opposed to lighter (so I don't make sun tea much; not strong enough for my taste), and with sugar but not too much. Not a fan of the "sweet tea" you find in the south.

Nora and James McDowell said...

Sigh ....
We Canadians know (or some of us do) how to make real hot tea from loose tea leaves in a pot with a tea cozy.
I suspect the loose tea leaves are the good ones, and the bagged leaves are the sweepings.
Iced tea is an American invention, I fear, and why they sweeten it I do not know.
I remember the shock, on my way to college in southern Idaho, of ordering "tea" and being given iced tea!
I like iced tea on occasion but not sweet! I don't know why they sweeten it up here. (Having lived in the US for 2 years of college and about 19 years after that, coming back here in 1990)>
I'm diabetic and in summer it seems the only unsweetened cold drink is often water.