Hot tea is on my mind right now. Piping hot tea for my very sore throat…
It is funny how now, though it still feels kind of odd, I automatically make the distinction between hot tea and iced tea. I mean, tea used to just be tea for this West Coast girl.
I remember when I arrived here for a visit, my then fiance – now husband – and I had driven to a small town and gone out to a cafe. I had ordered tea. “Sweetened or unsweetend, sweetie?” our waitress asked. I was stunned for a moment. Sweetened or un…? That had never been presented to me as an option before… I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was stuck over something as simple as tea. (this would happen over and over again as I slowly became more and more accustomed to living in an American city in the South… so much to learn…so many moments of being stuck…)
I really wanted hot tea; I tried to explain what I meant… I didn’t think it would be so difficult, but honestly, she looked confused. And off she went digging in the back to see “if we have any…” and she emerged from the kitchen with one lone tattered old tea bag, hanging by an almost yellowed string.. she swung the tea bag in front of my eyes.
“Is this what you mean?” she asked.
“Yes.” I replied. I gulped. My fiance tried not to laugh.
Well, a couple of years have passed since that day… thankfully, each time I order hot tea now, folks know what I am talking about (not sure about that small town though…) and since that day, I have tried iced tea for the first time, and some more times since that. Sometimes sweetened, sometimes not. In fact, just the other day, I made my own iced tea for the very first time… I borrowed a recipe for sun tea from a friend. Added some mint.
And it was pretty refreshing on such a hot, hot day….
And it was cold.