I bought a gallon of tea last week.
Yes, I know, such an event is a daily occurrence in these here parts.
Southerners start out with putting sweet tea in sippy cups for their toddlers and we drink it until our toes turn up.
Nothing new here. In fact, there is something comfortable about it.
But, the whole thing about it is I actually bought a gallon of tea.
I’m not sure, but I think this means I have now officially forfeited my membership in the prestigious and highly favored “Southern Society of Steeped Sweet Tea Drinkers.”
I didn’t mean to, honest.
It just sort of happened.
I come from a long line of sweet tea drinkers. As far as I can tell, my Jones grandparents steeped loose tea leaves in a white enamel tea pot since they got married and started keeping house in the Herbert Hoover administration.
You didn’t boil it. Grandma could tell if it was boiled and it affected the taste in a bad way. You just did bring it to a boil and then you poured the liquid through a strainer into a wide and weathered, galvanized aluminum pot The used leaves were collected in a cloth and later a Bounty paper towel.
The used tea leaves were poured out in her flower garden at the end of the walk.
I thought it was just throwing out the tea leaves, but I later learned there was a science to it. Tea leaves enrich the soil with organic nutrients, help the plants and deter pests.
I am not sure what grew there, but it was a pungent, fern-like ground cover. Day lilies, phlox, petunias and two old timey roses grew there. Not, the roses like today, but the old kind— the ones that are bright red, smell like the perfume of angels and have thorns that reach out and stab you for daring to come too close during a game of freeze tag.
Once steeped, strained and the leaves throwed out, the dark reddish brown liquid was poured into a glass pitcher. It was sweetened with sugar to taste and then more was added. Grandma Jones believed in Lipton and Dixie Crystals. There were no other kinds.
My Deal grandparents were also sweet tea devotees, but they found an easier way. They used tea bags in the coffee percolator. Granddaddy would add a small spoonful of “sody” (baking soda) to “take off the bite”.
Nevertheless, we were all lovers of sweet tea.
It was a comfort beverage, a constant, in a world that isn’t.
My Uncle Richard loved sweet tea so much, my Aunt Louise used to take him a gallon for his own personal use for special occasions. He drank the whole gallon by himself.
The changes in my tea drinking came subtly.
First, pre-diabetes required me to shift to unsweetened. I could barely stand that, so I had to use artificial sweeteners.
In the weeks before his ”graduation to glory” Daddy had to go to unsweet tea.
He told me on the way home from the hospital, that he hoped the Lord never punished him again by making him drink unsweet tea.
I felt this pain. But, at least I had artificial sweeteners in mine.
And, that’s when I saw it: the gallon of zero sugar sweet tea sitting on the shelf.
I wasn’t strong. I didn’t resist. I gave in to the temptation and bought a gallon.
I confess. It tasted good. I enjoyed it and I will probably buy another gallon.
But, my heart and soul still remembers the precious memories of sweet tea steeping.
I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I can still be at least an honorary member of the “Southern Society of Steeped Sweet Tea Drinkers.”
If so, please sign me up. Right now. Today.
• Jason Deal is News Editor for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at jdeal@blacksheartimes. news.
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