This week I’m thinking about iced tea. Normally I’m a big tea drinker, as in I drink a lot of tea.
What bothers me about iced tea is the way people pronounce it. Just listen at a restaurant and you’ll hear, “I’ll have an ice tea.”
No, it’s “Iced tea.” With a ‘d.’ You don’t make tea out of ice. Steeping an ice cube in hot water gets you warm water, not tea. You make tea and then “ice” it to make it cold. Maybe we should say, “I’ll have a cold tea.” Likely, you’d get a room temperature tea as it’s not hot and therefore cold, but not ice cold. In the summer I want my tea cold.
No sugar. No sweetener, just tea over ice. Black tea, none of that fancy herbal stuff on ice. All I want is just plain, no nonsense back tea poured over a large glass of ice. I don’t travel much in the south, but when I do, I’m careful not to order a sweet tea, which is iced tea poured over a pound of sugar with a pound of ice. As I tell the waitstaff, “No sweetener, I’m sweet enough.”
Nobody laughs at that. I think they’re just so stunned that someone doesn’t like sugar that they just stop listening when I say, “No sweetener.”
In past years I made my own iced tea at home. Maybe I should say, I ice my own tea at home. I shutter to think how they make iced tea at a restaurant — likely some weird powdery thing they get from a machine, but I will drink it there. At home, I’d do the regular, brew a pot of real tea and pour it over ice. In the last few years I have gotten lazy and will often buy it in bottles at the store. The local supermarket will often have Tejava black tea on sale at two big bottles for $5.00. It actually tastes like real black tea and at the price, I’m willing to ignore the manufacturing methods for the convenience of just being able to open a bottle and pour over ice.
I should point out that cold/iced tea doesn’t have milk in it. Hot tea on the other hand must have milk. You brew the tea in a pot, pour the milk in your cup and then pour the hot tea over the milk. Not the other way around. I’m not going to explain why.
I do find it strange that when I order just “tea” in a restaurant, they’ll ask me, “Hot or iced?” Which I find weird because should be hot unless it’s iced. I guess that I’m one of the few who think. Of course, you don’t get many people in an American restaurant ordering hot tea so I’m just the strange customer who doesn’t want coffee with breakfast.
Summer is the right time to be drinking iced tea, but even in summer I like my morning cup of “hot” tea and my afternoon tea and cookie. Heather likes that too and most often I’m the guy who makes the tea. Heather is British and does like to comment on my tea making faults like not enough milk or letting it brew too long. On these warm summer mornings we often have tea in the garden. I’ll drink it while sitting and admiring the garden. Heather has it while she works in the garden. Often she gets out before I do — be fair, I’m inside making the tea — and I’ll end up having to chase through the yard to find out where she is (it’s a big yard).
This morning I couldn’t find her in the normal places. Then I saw the gate to the front yard opened and I thought, “Oh no. Someone left the gate open and Heather escaped.”
Turns out Heather was just out digging in a front bed and not really lost.
Next time, I think I’ll discuss the difference between a shovel and a spade, but now it’s time to cut the pizza.
Andrew's View of the Week 
Guilty as charged with saying “ice tea”, Andrew. I consider it “lazy English” and I know there are several other examples where I take a similar shortcut. Also, I like your suggestion of “cold tea” because all of us coffee drinkers go with the parallel “cold brew”. On that note, it’s a sad statement on my coffee peers when I order a cold brew and the response is “what would you like in it”? What would I like in it? NOTHING! I just want cold brew!
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One time I was asked what I wanted in my iced tea. I assume they meant sugar, but I replied, “Tea, water, ice in a cup would be nice.”
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They give you a strange look when you take it straight.
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This made me laugh! Growing up, I thought of tea (hot, with milk and honey) as a restorative after being sick. As an exchange student in Tunisia at the age of 17, I learned to love hot red tea with an almond in the glass. In college, I learned to drink black tea, jasmine tea and orange pekoe. Now, in my older years, I drink Tulsi and lots of herbals both hot and cold.
But of course, I consider myself a coffee drinker!
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I don’t drink coffee at home – I make a horrible cup of coffee, but will buy fancy, expensive coffees once in a while.
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Luckily I’ve never heard anyone say ‘ice tea’ and I would cringe at this! As for ‘iced tea’ I loved this when visiting friends in America but when I tried at home here in England it just wasn’t the same. Back to normal herbal tea for me and gallons of ‘builder’s tea’ for my husband! Look forward to shovel and spade post – a debate we have going on here at home!
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I only drink “iced tea” when it’s very hot out. Most times it “builder’s tea” for me with my wife complaining that I brew it too strong.
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You’re definitely on top of a very important matter! Good for you. Hopefully you’ll prevent someone’s embarrassment in repeatedly asking for “ice tea.” And I sure will work harder to be sure that I enunciate properly and can further be a better example, Andrew. And I love tea in the morning, too. 🙂
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I wish everyone realized how important this is — so many people just plow through life without understanding or caring. I want to change that … 😉
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I love tea, but I never drink it cold (or iced). The closest I come to iced tea is dropping a few ice cubes into my hot cup so I can drink it immediately instead of waiting for it to cool enough that it doesn’t scald my mouth. (We’re at sea level, so hot tea here is HOT.) But once I did accidentally make ice tea: I forgot to put the tea in the infuser. Poured in my hot water, let it steep, added my usual 5 ice cubes… and drank hot water. Not quite what I’d had in mind. 😉
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I do let my hot tea cool a bit before drinking it. Iced tea is just for summers and most of the time, I’m drinking the hot stuff.
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You have to admit, ‘sweet tea’ has a great sound to it.
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If you like sweet drinks, sweet tea is for you.
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Couldn’t agree with you more on all counts in this post. I, too, am a tea drinker – hot and iced. Yes, it IS iced. Plain iced tea, no sugar, no fancy flavors and not from a powdered mix (yuck). We actually have an iced tea maker. It’s our second one because we totally wore out the first one which we had for many years.
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I’ve never had an iced tea maker. I might look into that.
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It works really well. 🙂
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A cup or two of straight hot black tea in the morning is a habit I picked up from my beloved.
I’ve learned to just order “hot tea” when out for breakfast – unless I’ve been to the restaurant before and know they might put the hot water in a pot that once held coffee. I like the smell of coffee but have never learned to like the taste of it and definitely do not want it flavoring my tea.
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I will order “hot tea” but have to say it never tastes right in a restaurant. Like you say, you sometime get coffee flavored water and often it isn’t hot enough to brew the tea right. I’m more likely to order iced tea at a restaurant than hot.
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I’ve ended up straight coffee–“bulletproof” first thing (pat of butter whisked in), another hot coffee, third one is iced (also unsweetened) until autumn arrives. (But then there’s Thai iced coffee at Cool Basil. I may need that as a reward when this manuscript goes to an editor!)
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Heather likes a good iced coffee now and then, but I never developed the tasted for it. I do sometimes go for an iced latte, but that is more milk than coffee.
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Good morning. I actually do drink more tea than coffee. I have coffee first thing (like now) and tea from here on throughout the day. I keep a big pitcher of cold tea on hand all summer and try to drink a full pitcher each day. (I sometimes don’t drink enough) I do like it “slightly” sweetened, which is why I make my own. And somewhat weak. More like ‘tea-flavored water’ for me. It is more refreshing to me that way. Come autumn, I will switch back to hot tea again. I like both decaf at night (after supper) and regular, but unlike you, I do like flavors. There is a USA company called “Harney & Sons” that has the best tea I have experienced. I had gotten a sampler set from them and discovered many of them that I never thought I would enjoy, but do. their “Paris” tea is a take on Earl Grey (My favorite, although some find it too ‘perfumy’) Some of their other flavors are really a treat. As I said, I like it pretty weak so the flavors just give it a little character. Like you, milk is a must in my hot tea. In the winter, I also have a cookie (just one) in the afternoon with tea. It is a treat I look forward to every day. I guess I have a lot to say about tea. But it is really good stuff. No soda for me generally, except on occasion. I doubt I go through a 12-pack all summer. Give me tea any day. 😀
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In the evenings, we do drink herb teas. The only coffee I drink is the occasional latte, which is more milky than coffee and I gave up on sodas a long time ago.
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The nicest tea I ever had was tea with lemon from a samovar in Russia. I would like to try Tibetan tea, though, drunk with yak butter (pretty scarce round here).
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Not many yaks over here either – you might have to go to Tibet for that. 😉
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I know it’s “iced” but it’s a lot easier to say “ice tea” than “iced tea.” Must have sugar and lemon in it. I’m not real particular about how it’s made — just so it’s not green tea, which I once got by accident. Yuck!! If I wanted grass flavor, I’ve got a yard full of my own.
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Green tea should not be iced. I know people do it, but yuck.
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