Ice tea but mostly ice

Is it too much to ask for a decent glass of iced tea?

I live in what most Americans would associate with the “Deep South.” I live on the upper Texas Gulf Coast.  If I was to drive about 45 miles south and keep driving I’d be eventually sinking into the Gulf. So I reside in what is geographically, and pretty much culturally, the Deep South.

People in the South like their iced tea. Most drink “Sweet Tea.” I grew up drinking Sweet Tea. I also drank bottle after bottle of Coca Cola. I liked those little-bitty bottles of Coke on those smoldering hot days in East Texas. I liked anything sweet.

But at some particular time in my life I didn’t care for sweet stuff much anymore, at least as far as food and drink was concerned. I don’t know why. I still liked to drink tea. Hell, I’ve even been known to drink a Coke every now and then, mostly if it contained a shot of rum. But my tea has to be unsweetened or you will get that look like I just smelled expired milk.

I think I’ve mentioned here before that I had a great awakening about iced tea the second time I visited Washington, D.C. I was in some restaurant and asked for a glass of tea and all of a sudden: Pow! It hit me. This tea was good. It wasn’t just in that particular restaurant either. Pretty much every place I went in the greater D.C. area had tasty tea.

Then I came back home and drank tea and it tasted, well, like water with an attitude. That is what I get pretty much all the time here in Southeast Texas when I ask for iced tea. There are exceptions. But the run of the mill place — I stopped into Mickey D’s this afternoon and got an iced tea — you barely taste tea even though it isn’t terrible. It’s just not good.

I don’t drink that much tea. Usually I drink a glass of tea for lunch with perhaps a refill and I might drink one more on a hot day. I do it mainly for ice. I love ice. I eat ice. I am eating ice as I type this. I sometimes feel like a freak for my ice consumption, but I mean, can it be all that bad for you? I am just eating frozen water. I’ve seen a lot of mentions on the Internet that drinking too much tea causes kidney stones. However, some of the more serious medical sites don’t make such claims. Too much of anything is probably bad for you. Except ice. Well, maybe not.

Maybe it’s just me that thinks most of the iced tea I drink down here on the Texas coast leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t think so. Then again, I eat a lot of ice.