After reading this article on Sweet Tea (thanks @steepster!), curiosity got the best of me and had me googling/BINGing about sweet tea. You go to your local Chick-fil-A or Lucille's BBQ, and find that sweet tea - as tooth-decay inducingly sweet and delicious as it may be - is never made with green tea.
And why not? So I googled a bit, and found this interesting bit.
Japanese green tea was the most popular tea in the states till WWII - all thanks to Kei Ooura, a power-house merchantress from Nagasaki (that's where Taku's hometown is. It's the southend of Japan.) She snuck some Ureshino teas to a dutch merchant, who sold it to a British merchant by the name of W.J. Alt, who went back to Japan with the very last packet of this delicious elixir and made a HUGE order.
And by huge, I mean, he bought all the Ureshino teas, but that wasn't enough, so he had Ms. Ooura source most of the teas from the Kyushu region. That huge order went to America and voila! Everybody in the states started to drink Japanese green tea, often sold under funny names like Rabbit Chop and Dude Chop (I'm assuming "Chop" means tea in 1920s English). Ms. Ooura became incredibly rich and went off to become a matronly figure during the Meiji Revolution in Japan, but that's another story. The point is, green tea is nothing new to America!
Which brings me back to the original point of the story. The original sweet tea (or SUHWEEEEET TEA-AY, sorry, had to add a little Paula Dean there for ya'll) was made with green tea. I kid you not!
In the 1800s, when green tea first became popular in the states, heavily liquored green tea "punches", were like margaritas are like now: the official party drink. Eventually regional variations would develop, like Regent's Punch and Charleston's St. Cecilia's Punch... But they were all made from green tea.
1839, a book by the title of The Kentucky Housewife was released, with a recipe for the aforementioned tea punch. It goes: Make a pint and a half of very strong tea in the usual manner; strain, and pour it boiling (hot) on one pound and a quarter of loaf sugar. (That's 2 1/2 cups white sugar) Add half a pint of rich sweet cream, and then stir in gradually a bottle of claret or of champaign (sic). You may heat it to the boiling point, and serve it so, or you may send it round entirely cold, in glass cups. If I do say so myself, that is a crazy amount of sugar.
Fast forward another 40 years, 1879, another cookbook released under the title of Housekeeping in Old Virginia, and had a recipe for - wait for it - the first sweet tea recipe ever. It goes like this: After scalding the teapot, put into it one quart of boiling water and two teaspoonfuls green tea. If wanted for supper, do this at breakfast. At dinner time, strain, without stirring, through a tea strainer into a pitcher. Let it stand till tea time and pour into decanters, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the pitcher. Fill the goblets with ice, put two teaspoonfuls granulated sugar in each, and pour the tea over the ice and sugar. A squeeze of lemon will make this delicious and healthful, as it will correct the astringent tendency.
(recipe source: The History of Iced Tea)
And then green tea sources became completely cut-off in the 1940s so iced tea has been exclusively made with black tea since. :(
After making you read this blurb on sweet tea, I just can't let you walk away without a recipe, can I? So here's a quickie recipe for you:
Traditional Sweet Tea (inspiried by the recipe in Housekeeping in Old Virginia)
1 quart hot water (~180 F is optimal)
3-4 teabags of Sen-cha Tea Bags*
raw sugar (raw is key!)**
1/2 a lemon worth of juice
Steep tea bags in water for up to 3 minutes. Fill the goblets with ice, put two teaspoonfuls raw, unprocessed cane sugar in each, and pour the tea over the ice and sugar. Add a splash of lemon juice (or yuzu juice if you're feeling extra fancy) and enjoy!
* We recommend this tea bag over our Premium Tea Bag series Sen-cha because it's our toastier blend, which is less grassy, and has a stronger aroma even when iced.
** Raw sugar has a light molasses-like flavor to it, and is wonderful with our toasty green tea tea bags!
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