Did you know iced tea has been around since the early 1800s? I assumed it to be a modern drink, until I used it in a time travel and decided to check to see when it came into use. I was in for a surprise. This is an odd subject for a blog, but I found it interesting. Hope you do too.
There are two traditional iced teas in the United States – Iced Tea and Sweet Tea. The only variation between them is sugar.
Southerners swear by their traditional sweet ice tea and drink it by
the gallons. In the South, ice tea is not just a summertime drink, it
is served year round with most meals. When people order tea in a
Southern restaurant, chances are they will get sweet ice tea.
Outside of the southern states, iced tea is served unsweetened or “black,” and most people have never even heard of sweet tea.
Favorite Sweet Tea Recipes:
Andra’s Sweet Tea Recipe
Juanita’s Southern Ice Tea Recipe
History of Iced Tea and Sweet Tea:
18th Century
1795 – South Carolina is the first place in the
United States where tea was grown and is the only state to ever have
produced tea commercially. Most historians agree that the first tea
plant arrived in this country in the late 1700s when French explorer and
botanist, Andre Michaux (1746-1802), imported it as well as other
beautiful and showy varieties of camellias, gardenias and azaleas to
suit the aesthetic and acquisitive desires of wealthy Charleston
planters. He planted tea near Charleston at Middleton Barony, now known
as Middleton Place Gardens.
19th Century
1800’s – English and American cookbooks shows us
that tea has been served cold at least since the early nineteenth
century, when cold green tea punches, that were heavily spiked with
liquor, were popularized. The oldest recipes in print are made with
green tea and not black tea and were called punches. The tea punches
went by names such as Regent’s Punch, named after George IV, the English
prince regent between 1811 until 1820, and king from 1820 to 1830.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, American versions of this
punch begin to acquire regional and even patriotic names, such as
Charleston’s St. Cecilia Punch (named for the musical society whose
annual ball it graced), and Savannah’s potent version, Chatham Artillery
Punch.
Iced tea’s popularity parallels the development of refrigeration:
The ice house, the icebox (refrigerator), and the commercial
manufacture of pure ice, which were in place by the middle of the
nineteenth century. The term “refrigerator” was used for the first
patented ice box in 1803 and were common in the mid 19th century in the
United States.
1839 – The 1839 cookbook,
The Kentucky Housewife, by Mrs. Lettice Bryanon, was typical of the American tea punch recipes:
“Tea Punch –
Make a pint and a half of very strong tea in the usual manner; strain
it, 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.”
1879 – The oldest sweet tea recipe (ice tea) in print comes from a community cookbook called
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, published in 1879:
“Ice Tea. –
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.”
1884 – This may be the first printed recipe using
black tea, which has become so universal today, and could also be the
earliest version of pre-sweetened iced tea, the usual way of making it
in the South today. Mrs. D. A. (Mary) Lincoln, director of the Boston
Cooking School, published
Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking in 1884. On page 112, there it is: iced tea, proving that the drink was not just a Southern drink.
“Ice Tea or
Russian Tea – Make the tea by the first receipt, strain it from the
grounds, and keep it cool. When ready to serve, put two cubes of block
sugar in a glass, half fill with broken ice, add a slice of lemon, and
fill the glass with cold tea.”
1890 – Professor Lyndon N. Irwin, of Southwest
Missouri State University and a member of the St. Louis World’s Fair
Society, found an article from the September 28, 1890 issue of the
Nevada Noticer
newspaper regarding the 1890 Missouri State Reunion of Ex-Confederate
Veterans. This article clearly states that iced tea had been around
prior to1890. The article states the following:
“The
following figures will convey some idea of the amount of provision used a
Camp Jackson during the recent encampment. There were 4,800 pounds of
bread, 11,705 pounds of beef, 407 pounds of ham, 21 sheep, 600 pounds of
sugar, 6 bushels of beans, 60 gallon of pickles, and a wagonload of
potatoes. It was all washed down with 2,220 gallons of coffee and 880
gallons of iced tea. The committee expended $3,000, a little in excess
of the amount subscribed, for the entertainment of the old soldiers.”
1893 – The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, also called the Columbian
Exposition, had a concessionair that grossed over $2,000 selling iced
tea and lemonade.
The Home Queen World’s Fair Souvenir Cookbook – Two Thousand
Valuable Recipes on Cookery and Household Economy, Menus, Table
Etiquette, Toilet, Etc. Contributed by Two Hundred World’s Fair Lady
Managers, Wives of Governors and Other Ladies of Position and Influence,
compiled by Miss Juliet Corson includes a recipe for variations on
serving iced tea.
1895 – The Enterprising Manufacturing Co. of Pennsylvania
distributed its popular recipe booklet called The Enterprising
Housekeeper by Helen Louise Johnson. In the recipe booklet, they
advertise their popular ice shredders and its many uses. One use was
“for your iced tea.”
20th Century
1900s – After 1900, iced tea became commonplace in
cookbooks, and black tea began replacing green as the preferred tea for
serving cold. The preference for black over green tea in an iced
beverage came with of import of inexpensive black tea exports from
India, Ceylon, South America, and Africa.
1904 – It was at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis
that iced tea was popularized and commercialized (not invented). Due to
the hot summer of 1904, people ignored any hot drinks and went in
search of cold drinks, including iced tea. Because of this, it changed
the way the rest of Americans thought of tea, thus popularizing iced
tea.
Most historians mistakenly give credit to Richard Blechynden, India
Tea Commissioner and Director of the East Indian Pavilion, as being the
creator of ice tea at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. In the East
Indian Pavilion at the Fair, Blechynden was offering free hot tea to
everyone. Because of the intense heat, it was soon realized that the
heat prevented the crowd from drinking his hot tea. Blechynden and his
team took the brewed India tea, filled several large bottles, and placed
them on stands upside down – thus allowing the tea to flow through iced
lead pipes. This free iced tea was very much welcomed by the thirsty
fair goers. After the fair, Blechynden took his lead pipe apparatus to
New York City, offering free iced tea to shoppers at Bloomingdale
Brothers Department Store, demonstrating iced tea is a desirable
summertime drink.
According to the book Beyond The Ice Cream Cone – The Whole Scoop on Food at the 1904 World’s Fair by Pamela J. Vaccaro:
“Both hot
tea and iced tea appeared on most restaurant menus at the Fair – at the
Barbecue, Fair Japan, the Old Irish Parliament House, the Louisiana and
Texas Rice Kitchen, Mrs. Rorer’s East Pavilioin Cafe, and so on. It is
highly unlikely that all these restaurants jumped on the bandwagon of
Blechynden’s “new idea,” and scurried to the print shops to have their
menus reprinted!
What really
“stirs the pot” is that “Richard Blechynden” was listed as an official
concessionaire (No. 325) “to serve tea in cups and packages” at the
Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 – 11 years before the one in St. Louis. The
financial records from the exposition do not list any ledger entries
for Blechynden – which raises the question of whether he actually showed
up or was just late with his report. But, if he had been there, it
would have been odd that he would not have realized that his product was
already being sold in hot and cold versions. It would likewise be odd
that, in the 11 intervening years, he would have been totally oblivious
to the drink’s inclusion in cookbooks and on menus.”
1917 – By World War I, Americans were buying special
tall iced tea glasses, long spoons, and lemon forks. By the 1930s,
people were commonly referring to the tall goblet in crystal sets as an
“iced tea” glass.
1920 to 1933 – The American Prohibition (1920-1933)
helped boost the popularity of iced tea because average Americans were
forced to find alternatives to illegal beer, wine, and alcohol. Iced
tea recipes begin appearing routinely in most southern cookbooks during
this time.
1928 – In the southern cookbook,
Southern Cooking,
by Henrietta Stanley Dull (Mrs. S.R. Dull), Home Ecomonics Editor for
the Atlanta Journal, gives the recipe that remained standard in the
South for decades thereafter. It is a regional book that very much
resembles the many “church” or “ladies society” cookbooks of that era.
“TEA –
Freshly brewed tea, after three to five minutes’ infusion, is essential
if a good quality is desired. The water, as for coffee, should be
freshly boiled and poured over the tea for this short time . . . The tea
leaves may be removed when the desired strength is obtained . . . Tea,
when it is to be iced, should be made much stronger, to allow for the
ice used in chilling. A medium strength tea is usually liked. A good
blend and grade of black tea is most popular for iced tea, while green
and black are used for hot . . . To sweeten tea for an iced drink-less
sugar is required if put in while tea is hot, but often too much is made
and sweetened, so in the end there is more often a waste than saving . .
. Iced tea should be served with or without lemon, with a sprig of
mint, a strawberry, a cherry, a slice of orange, or pineapple. This may
be fresh or canned fruit. Milk is not used in iced tea.”
1941 – During World War II, the major sources of
green tea were cut off from the United States, leaving us with tea
almost exclusively from British-controlled India, which produces black
tea. Americans came out of the war drinking nearly 99 percent black tea.
1995 – South Carolina’s grown tea was officially
adopted as the Official Hospitality Beverage by State Bill 3487, Act No.
31 of the 111th Session of the South Carolina General Assembly on April
10, 1995.
