Sweet Tea and Chinese Restaurants

[fel bautista]

When I'm in Mississippi, the sweet tea at a chinese resturant in the town I stay at, tastes the same to me as the other eateries (Taco Bell, Wendy's).

[Lambchop]

Sweet tea in Georgia always tastes a little jasmine-y to me. There's always the possibility of them sneaking a little mint into it.

If it's in a Chinese restaurant, I'd bet on jasmine. There is a black tea (or whatever, but it's not green) in a really pretty black can which contains dried jasmine flowers. That one is really good.

Liptons here is mostly ground wood-chips, I think. Bleah!

[emmline]

Could be you're referring to jasmine tea.

That's exactly what I brewed a pitcher of today. Love it.

[emmline]

Those who sugar their ice tea are, to be brutally blunt, rapscallions and churls.

May I be merely a rapscallion, and not a churl?

[Tony]

I don't know of any Asian restaurants around here that serve sweetened tea. The sushi place I go to, has bitter green tea. The Vietnamese place has cut tea (about 3x5mm rectangles) floating in the pot and the dim sum place serves tea that looks like chopped dandelions... also floating in the pot.

[djm]

The trouble with trying to pin down Chinese restaurants is that they are like a Greek-run restaurant - they serve what sells locally, not what they would have themselves. Serving jasmine tea is something they cottoned on to long ago - round-eyes like jasmine tea, whereas the Chinese know that it is very acidic and more than a cup is considered bad for you. Same with green tea.

Black dragon (oolong or wu lung) tea is often served, but more common is bo lé (Cantonese) also called pu erh (Mandarin). It is served as loose tea - never in bags. This might be the secret to some of the differences you may be finding down south.

I'm a bit confused on the sweet tea front: what's the difference between sweet tea and iced tea? Sounds the same to me.

djm

[fel bautista]

DJM- think of iced tea that comes WAY pre-sweetened, akin to the spoon standing up in the glass because the sugar has fallen out of solution... Not really, but close.

Its an aquired taste but really goes well with fried catfish on a hot day. Not something your every day Los Angeles gourmand would be seen drinking.

[dfernandez77]

The tea served with sugar by tradition in China is chrysanthemum tea.

In Mainland China you will often get a small bowl of rock sugar with your pot of chrysanthemum tea.

It's a good bet that the floral flavor you are recognizing as jasmine is actually chrysanthemum. The color will be between greenish yellow to gold.

The inexpensive regular or jasmine tea served in most American restaurants will be an earthy green or tan color, and will not take to sugar very kindly.

The two best traditional Chinese teas for chilling and light sweetening in the summer are chrysanthemum and barley tea.

Yum!

[Lambchop]

I'm a bit confused on the sweet tea front: what's the difference between sweet tea and iced tea? Sounds the same to me.

Iced tea is plain, unsweetened brewed tea served over ice in a tall glass. A wedge of lemon and/or a sprig of mint often accompany. To sweeten this, the drinker stirs a modest amount of sugar into the beverage when it is served. The sugar dissolves slowly, requiring a good bit of stirring. It's never very sweet, because you can't get enough sugar to dissolve at that temperature--the excess just piles up at the bottom.

Sweet tea is brewed the usual way, but it has sugar added while it is still hot, thus allowing more sugar to go into solution. This can be a modest amount, but it can also achieve almost a maple-syrup effect. In extreme cases, I have known people who dissolved the sugar by boiling it in water prior to adding the syrup to the hot tea. Tea made this way does not taste quite the same as tea sweetened after it has been iced. It does have a distinct flavor which I think comes from the sugar.

Here's proof of the definition:

2003 - Georgia State Representative, John Noel, and four co-sponsors, apparently as an April Fools' Day joke, introduced House Bill 819, proposing to require all Georgia restaurants that serve tea to serve sweet tea. Representative John Noel, one of the sponsors, is said to have acknowledged that the bill was an attempt to bring humor to the Legislature, but wouldn't mind if it became law. 03 LC 14 8246


House Bill 819
By: Representatives Noel of the 44th, Lane of the 101st, Barnard of the 121st, Post 1, Williams of the 4th, Rice of the 64th, and others

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT

To amend Article 13 of Chapter 2 of Title 26 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to food service establishments, so as to define a term; to provide that food service establishments which serve iced tea shall serve sweet tea; to provide for penalties; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA:

SECTION 1.

Article 13 of Chapter 2 of Title 26 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to food service establishments, is amended by adding at its end a new Code section to read as follows:
"26-2-379.
(a) As used in this Code section, the term 'sweet tea' means iced tea which is sweetened with sugar at the time that it is brewed.
(b) Any food service establishment which serves iced tea must serve sweet tea. Such an establishment may serve unsweetened tea but in such case must also serve sweet tea.
(c) Any person who violates this Code section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature."

SECTION 2.

All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this Act are repealed.

Georgia General Assembly, House Bill 819,

http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2003 ... /hb819.htm

[Flyingcursor]

I could never stomach sweet tea as defined by our southern brethren. Iced tea for me.

My recent kick is homemade lemonade. Lots of lemon, very little sugar.

AND my newest bike riding drink of choice is water with lemon juice and salt.

[fearfaoin]

Orange Pekoe (properly "peck-oh", not "pee-ko", I am informed, but whatever). It's a Chinese strain.

Orange Pekoe isn't a type of tea, it's a grade of black tea. It has to do
with which leaves/buds were included in the tea. But, it's still just black
tea. The "Orange" part has nothing to do with any flavor, it's the color
of the dried tea bud...

I just found a Wikipedia article on Lipton which says that the company
owns tea plantations in Kenya, Tanzania and India. I'd guess that the
tea bags probably include Orange Pekoe grade black tea from one of
these places.

[fearfaoin]

(b) Any food service establishment which serves iced tea must serve sweet tea.
Such an establishment may serve unsweetened tea but in such case must also serve sweet tea.

Wow. I always suspected there were laws about sweet tea,
it's still a bit weird to see confirmation.

[Nanohedron]

Orange Pekoe (properly "peck-oh", not "pee-ko", I am informed, but whatever). It's a Chinese strain.

Orange Pekoe isn't a type of tea, it's a grade of black tea. It has to do
with which leaves/buds were included in the tea. But, it's still just black
tea. The "Orange" part has nothing to do with any flavor, it's the color
of the dried tea bud...

I just found a Wikipedia article on Lipton which says that the company
owns tea plantations in Kenya, Tanzania and India. I'd guess that the
tea bags probably include Orange Pekoe grade black tea from one of
these places.

This from the Wikipedia article, which accounts for my assumption of Chinese origins (Amoy being a Sinitic language):

"The original Amoy name was pronounced "pek-ho" but the English word has corrupted into "pee-Ko" nowadays. The name means white downy hair. The term refers to the down-like white "hairs" on the tea leaves that are the youngest and smallest on the tea plant. The Chinese Pekoe teas are classified into various qualities according to whether the adjacent young leaves (two, one or none) were picked along with the leaf buds. Top quality pekoe consists of only the leaf buds. The buds are picked using only the balls of the finger tips. Finger nails or mechanical tools are not used to avoid bruising the picks."

I assumed that a particular strain of the tea plant, Chinese-bred, was involved.

[missy]

I can't stand Lipton. Tastes burnt.

I also don't like sweet tea. I don't like sweet anything to drink.

I'm drinking Twinings English Breakfast as I type.

Flydood - my dad worked in a non-airconditioned shop for years. He would take a 2 gallon jug, cut up two lemons in it, then put ice water in it and drink that all day.

[fearfaoin]

I assumed that a particular strain of the tea plant, Chinese-bred, was involved.

I agree about the origins, I just meant that the "Orange Pekoe" term
now seems to be used in the West as a classification, and is probably
applied to teas from various and sundry climes. When Lipton puts
"Orange Pekoe" on its ingredient list these days, I doubt you can infer
any particular region.

I agree that Lipton can taste pretty bitter. I think they include a lot
of tea dust and fannings in their tea bags, which can expell some
seriously yucky esthers. I saw an episode of Good Eats dealing with
tea, wherein Alton Brown suggests not letting the water boil when
using your average tea bag. I use his method, which involves placing
5 tea bags in water in a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup, covering with
a plate, and microwaving for 6 minutes. This gets the water to just
above 180 degrees F... below boiling, but just hot enough to steep.
Then, I let it sit for 5 minutes, and add the sugar. I dilute this in 4
more cups of room temp. water, and chill. It comes out quite nice,
without all the bitter. Sometimes I replace 1 bag with a Chai tea bag,
which is nice. I can't wait for my Chinese Retaurant tea shipment to
try that action out!