What are you some kind of freak....
I admit it.....I'm probably becoming a tea snob, not British, but a tea snob. I never really thought about the phenomenon of tea here in the South and how people are affected by it. Sweet tea is a staple.....accept it....it's a fact of Southern life. Now you might not drink it, but woe to ye that dareth defy it!!
I was raised along the gulf coast, and while my parents are going to win many parenting awards, there are a few things I'm glad they did. My father is to blame for my current tea addiction. I can easily remember him drinking sweet tea at meals and when we went out to eat. So as I aged (like a fine wine I might add) and occasionally dodged the "soda" craving and had a sweet tea or two. Then in college, Los Arcos, brought my inner tea-lover out by offering free sweet tea to students in HUGE glasses and the phenomenon known as "cheese dip" (which is another story). A few years later McAlister's arrived and by that point, I didn't have a chance.
Now when I moved up to B'ham, I kinda thought to myself to try to reduce my "sugar" intake just a little. Also with it being colder up here, I thought it might be nice to occasionally have a glass of hot tea (which I attribute to my mother drinking hot-tea a lot while she was fighting the cancer). So I started to do a little research on tea, try a few flavors, see what is "out there" on the tea scene. And surprisingly found tea to my liking (though I'm sure my kidney's give me the finger daily).
Ok, so the point of all that build up. For the second time in the last five days, I've been charged as being a "Yankee" (not to be confused with "yanker" or "wanker"). Last Friday night, after having several beers (well pitchers actually) at the department Christmas gathering, we hit a Buffalo Wild Wings to grab the after beer grub. And while there, I figured I'd drink some tea to help hydrate a little. The waitress brought back unsweet tea and was apologizing profusely at the fact that they didn't have any more sweet. My reaction was simple "Bah unsweet is the bomb yo, bring that shit on!". Which of course had all the females at the table immediately stop their fiddling of the boy-friends and stare at the "unsweet tea freak". One was so shocked she gasped and asked, "I thought you grew up in the South, how can you drink that?" Now I had two answers to that, the Skrubby one (which you'll have to email me to hear because I won't post that type of language on the Internet) and the one I said which was, "I find that the bitterness of tea without the suger tends to cleanse my pallet better than sweet and the no sugar is better for me".
The second occurence of "everyone stare at the unsweet tea freak" happened this morning at Panera bread. I was getting my usual (plain bagel Sliced and toasted, with a coke - if you say iced tea most of the clerks think you want the iced green tea, which is goo.....horrible) and walked my merry way to the beverage station. There I had to wait on this lady who took about 40.9576 hours to make herself a glass of tea (she bought the large). She filled her glass with ice, then unsweet tea, and finally put 3 f'n lemons (lemons are the devil's droppings) and about 69x10^45632 packets of equal in her tea. I jumped in, filled my glass with unsweet and started to drink it right there in front of all these people. The lady looks at me like I just stealthed, sapped her companion, cheap shotted her bagel, and hit her with a 5 point cold blood eviscerate. And she said, "You know you're drinking unsweet tea, right?". She came a pubic hair's breadth away from getting the Skrubby answer.......
I was raised along the gulf coast, and while my parents are going to win many parenting awards, there are a few things I'm glad they did. My father is to blame for my current tea addiction. I can easily remember him drinking sweet tea at meals and when we went out to eat. So as I aged (like a fine wine I might add) and occasionally dodged the "soda" craving and had a sweet tea or two. Then in college, Los Arcos, brought my inner tea-lover out by offering free sweet tea to students in HUGE glasses and the phenomenon known as "cheese dip" (which is another story). A few years later McAlister's arrived and by that point, I didn't have a chance.
Now when I moved up to B'ham, I kinda thought to myself to try to reduce my "sugar" intake just a little. Also with it being colder up here, I thought it might be nice to occasionally have a glass of hot tea (which I attribute to my mother drinking hot-tea a lot while she was fighting the cancer). So I started to do a little research on tea, try a few flavors, see what is "out there" on the tea scene. And surprisingly found tea to my liking (though I'm sure my kidney's give me the finger daily).
Ok, so the point of all that build up. For the second time in the last five days, I've been charged as being a "Yankee" (not to be confused with "yanker" or "wanker"). Last Friday night, after having several beers (well pitchers actually) at the department Christmas gathering, we hit a Buffalo Wild Wings to grab the after beer grub. And while there, I figured I'd drink some tea to help hydrate a little. The waitress brought back unsweet tea and was apologizing profusely at the fact that they didn't have any more sweet. My reaction was simple "Bah unsweet is the bomb yo, bring that shit on!". Which of course had all the females at the table immediately stop their fiddling of the boy-friends and stare at the "unsweet tea freak". One was so shocked she gasped and asked, "I thought you grew up in the South, how can you drink that?" Now I had two answers to that, the Skrubby one (which you'll have to email me to hear because I won't post that type of language on the Internet) and the one I said which was, "I find that the bitterness of tea without the suger tends to cleanse my pallet better than sweet and the no sugar is better for me".
The second occurence of "everyone stare at the unsweet tea freak" happened this morning at Panera bread. I was getting my usual (plain bagel Sliced and toasted, with a coke - if you say iced tea most of the clerks think you want the iced green tea, which is goo.....horrible) and walked my merry way to the beverage station. There I had to wait on this lady who took about 40.9576 hours to make herself a glass of tea (she bought the large). She filled her glass with ice, then unsweet tea, and finally put 3 f'n lemons (lemons are the devil's droppings) and about 69x10^45632 packets of equal in her tea. I jumped in, filled my glass with unsweet and started to drink it right there in front of all these people. The lady looks at me like I just stealthed, sapped her companion, cheap shotted her bagel, and hit her with a 5 point cold blood eviscerate. And she said, "You know you're drinking unsweet tea, right?". She came a pubic hair's breadth away from getting the Skrubby answer.......
posted by Skrubby at
11:32 AM
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