A question on Sweet Tea

[Delmonico]

I asked this question in Cosie's Corner and thought I would ask it here.


In my area making unsweetened iced tea is the most popular way, those who want it sweet just add sugar after the fact.

What I am looking for here is does anyone have any evidence/proof of it being made by adding the sugar while it is brewing before the early 20th Century.  It is another one of those items that is hard to track down, it seems logical someone might have done it.

The only references to sugar only mentions it as being added to the tea at serving or mentions that it should not be added because it destroys the flavor of the tea.

I did find one reference in the 19th Century of making cold brew iced tea. 

I am looking for straight facts here, a recipe from a dated cookbook, a hand written recipe from Great Grandma's Mother, or anything like that.

I'm looking to satisfy myself, as for making it in camp, if several people wanted it, I would make it on hot days because it would be good for people, not because it was PC.

BTW if anyone Wiki's it, I already did, I leave no stone unturned, the  1879 book "House Keeping in Old Virginia" I have access to, the sugar in the recipe wiki mentioned adds the sugar after the brewing. 

[Bugscuffle]

I asked this question in Cosie's Corner and thought I would ask it here.


You: In my area making unsweetened iced tea is the most popular way, those who want it sweet just add sugar after the fact.

Me: I really don't understand the reason for this statement. What difference does it make what order the ingredients were added to the water. Heck there's only three components here, water, tea and sugar. Do you really believe that you can tell whether the tea was sweetened before or after it was brewed by the taste?

You: What I am looking for here is does anyone have any evidence/proof of it being made by adding the sugar while it is brewing before the early 20th Century.  It is another one of those items that is hard to track down, it seems logical someone might have done it.

Me: No I don't have empirical evidence of how the tea was made. We do have empirical evidence of how the sugar was made/delivered/used. This may give us some idea of how it was used. Firstly the sugar back in the day was all brown sugar. Bleached white sugar didn't appear in volume until the late 1890's. In the early 1890's sugar was sold either in lumps broken off of a larger "loaf" of sugar or in cones, The cones are still available from ethnic food stores that deal in Mexican foods. The cubes didn't appear until the mid 1800's and was not widely avail;able until the late 1800's.

You: The only references to sugar only mentions it as being added to the tea at serving or mentions that it should not be added because it destroys the flavor of the tea.

Me: This was because the sugar was brown sugar, not the white sugar that we use today.

You: I did find one reference in the 19th Century of making cold brew iced tea. 

Me: Some of the more common ways of sweetening tea were to dunk a piece of sugar broken off of a larger loaf or cone into the tea until the tea was sweet enough. The Unused portion of the sugar lump was left to dry out and be re-used later, a lump of sugar was held between the teeth and the tea was drunk through/over the lump, a lump of sugar was just dropped into the tea and allowed to dissolve.

You: I am looking for straight facts here, a recipe from a dated cookbook, a hand written recipe from Great Grandma's Mother, or anything like that.

Me: How many recipes are you expecting to find for a concoction that only has three elements, tea, sugar, water? While you were looking did you find the recipe for ice too?

You: I'm looking to satisfy myself, as for making it in camp, if several people wanted it, I would make it on hot days because it would be good for people, not because it was PC.

Me: You might try lemonade too. It also has three ingredients, water, lemon, sugar.

You: BTW if anyone Wiki's it, I already did, I leave no stone unturned, the  1879 book "House Keeping in Old Virginia" I have access to, the sugar in the recipe wiki mentioned adds the sugar after the brewing. 

[Delmonico]

?

[Bugscuffle]

?

Delmonico, go back and read it again. I was responding to the post on a line by line basis. The lines marked "you" are what his post said. The ones marked "me" are my responses.

[Delmonico]

OK, I see it now, a strange way to do things, especially since for the most part you seem to have very little understanding of the facts of what was common and what was not. 

If you don't understand the search for filling in a gap of knowledge that's fine, I don't expect everyone to be a serious historian in a broad sense let alone trying to fill in what appears to be lost knowledge of the development of what we eat and drink and why. 

[Bugscuffle]

Dang! Don't get your knickers in a knot there, Pard. I was trying to bring some understanding of the references that you made, i.e. "The only references to sugar only mentions it as being added to the tea at serving or mentions that it should not be added because it destroys the flavor of the tea." My entry that followed tried to explain that in order to fully understand the statement made in that era, one must understand what THEY were talking about. Sugar back then was not the sugar that we eat today, and there are reasons that the sugar that was in use "back in the day" would certainly apply to that statement, but the sugar of today may not.

[GunClick Rick]

Would ya like two lumps or one?

[Bugscuffle]

Would ya like two lumps or one?

No thanks, I get enough lumps around this place already.

[GunClick Rick]

Here ya go Delmonico,holler when ya get a batch on..

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IcedTeaHistory.htm