Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Wife of a Southern Man: Sweet Tea



Here in July, I know we all are feeling a bit patriotic and all warm and fuzzy about the big American family.  Yet as someone who has moved around the country a bit, I can tell you that this big messy family has as many differences as it does likenesses.  Truthfully, that is part of what makes us so beautiful.  Nothing drives it home more than being a northwestern girl married to a southern man.  Our differences in culture and speech allows for a lot of discovery and a even more laughs. 

For me culinary differences has been a great source of adventure.  I am constantly learning how to prepare new southern style dishes and a few of them I have become quite proficient at.  With that in mind, I came up with the idea of a weekly series of posts entitled The Wife of a Southern Man.  Since these southern folk (Superman included) drink sweet tea like us northern folks drink coffee, maybe even  a bit more enthusiastically, I thought that a few pointers on that front would be a great place to start.  No tea will not make or break a marriage, but I sure love the reaction I get every time I hand my husband a glass of perfectly brewed sweet tea. 




The instructions for brewing a good batch of tea can be found every box of tea bags ever manufactured, but there are a few additional hints for consistently perfect sweet tea. Trust me, I learned these the hard way: through trial and error. 
 
Have a picture set aside for tea only. Tea picks up flavors easily and can become tainted very quickly. (If you use a pot instead of a kettle for boiling the water this applies again.)
 
For ideal southern style sweet tea, use 1 1/2 cups sugar per gallon of tea. Be sure to stir in sugar while tea is still nearly boiling hot.
 
Make a fresh batch every 2-3 days, if it lasts that long. Old tea gets cloudy and will develop sludge.
 
Always serve sweet tea ice cold. 


 

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing! We moved to the south just over 3 years ago due to the military and my husband has fallen in love with sweet tea. He's going to love being able to drink it at home!

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