In Kansas restaurants, can you get sweet tea?

[raccoon]

(sweet tea is when the sugar has been added right after the tea has been brewed and
poured up, and way before it comes to the table. This is extremely important.)

[DURHAM D]

1. Why would anyone add sugar to tea?

[hlthe2b]

3. That's how I feel now... If you travel to the South, beware.

[DURHAM D]

4. I moved to the South about 30 years ago.

Early on I found that many restaurants did not have un-sweet tea. Now they all do.

The occupation has taken hold.

[hlthe2b]

6. They must have gotten tired of folks like me always asking for it..

and getting a sick look when they said no. I learned to drink a lot of iced water during those early years.....

[DURHAM D]

8. I also found that if I asked for un-sweet and they had it

the waiter would automatically bring artificial sweetner to the table along with the tea. When I told him/her I didn't need the sweetner they would give me a look of horror. They could not imagine drinking tea "straight". Sometimes I received that pinched faced look or silent treatment that said "foreigner" or even worse "yankee".

[Kellerfeller]

12. So it isn't so bitter? (nt)

[hlthe2b]

2. That's a southern thing... I know my early years were spent in Mid-west & I never had it

Iced tea was always served unsweetened with sweetener on the side to add as you would. It wasn't until my parents moved to the deep South that I ever had it and had a little shock, as I just wasn't used to that much sugar in tea. All in what you get used to....

This was throughout Missouri and Kansas--at least in my childhood. I never had it in the far West (CO, WY, NM) either, unless it was a restaurant themed after a southern restaurant.

[DURHAM D]

5. Are you moving to Kansas?

[raccoon]

13. I'm planning to take a trip to Kansas. nt

[izquierdista]

7. This is the South's contribution to American culture

For if you try to add sugar to iced tea, you will never get enough to dissolve in the cold liquid to give it that unique Southern overly sweet flavor. Same with Coca-Cola. It was invented in the South, dissolving lots of sugar in warm water (with flavorings and carbonation) and then cooling it down with ice to drink it.

Some fancy restaurants out west have solved the age old problem of dissolving sugar in cold liquid by serving a small carafe of sugar syrup along with your (unsweetened) iced tea. Then you have no problem adjusting the sweetness exactly where you like it. And if you are a fan of authentic Southern sweet tea, you can say "waiter, two more carafes of sugar syrup, please.......aw, just bring me a glass of sugar syrup and a small carafe of tea".

[DURHAM D]

9. I work with a man who claims he puts sugar in his cat's water.

[hlthe2b]

11. then wonders why his cats become diabetic?

[fasttense]

10. Sweet tea is the wine of the South.

Sometimes it is too sweet, sometimes it is just right. When you find a restaurant that makes it the way you like it, you are hooked forever.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. It's becoming more common

I despise sweet tea but a dear friend loves it and we see it being served more often here.

[beyurslf]

15. My sister moved to Georgia this summer and she told us the first time she was in a place

and ordered tea without sugar in it, the waitress looked at her and said "well, whatever for?" When she brought out the tea, she brought my sister several bags of sweetner.

[raccoon]

16. That's how I feel about sweet tea too. :-) nt