A related question ... Who here is a tea drinker? As in proper hot tea with milk, not that weird cold stuff Americans drink. We drink it all day long here, like most people in this country. Very English in our tea habits.
Not sure what that means, sorry. We don't drink cold tea in this country. It's a hot beverage, with milk.
Ice or no ice isn't the great tea divide in America. It is sweetened or unsweetened. This issue is where the civil war still rages on: North vs. South.
~ I have a vintage Pyrex Flameware Glass percolator, grind fresh beans and perk with spring water. A drop of sucralose, vanilla extract and a dash of heavy cream. Time for a cup !
It's a joke. I'm from Texas, where the temperature routinely hits 102° F in Summer, and where 105° F is not uncommon in August. And it gets hotter than that occasionally. I just drove across the desert in Arizona, and the temperature was 113°F. So, when you say "tea" down here, the default meaning is iced tea. The only option is sweet or unsweetened. Coffee does mean hot coffee, I admit, and no, I can't reconcile the two practices.
Yes, it certainly does. When I lived up North, people liked to make 'sun tea' with little to no sugar. They would put tea bags into a large jar and leave it in the sun all day. If you ordered iced tea at a restaurant, they would ask if you wanted sugar. I tried the iced tea only once down here in the South. It just about sent me into sugar shock. They don't even call it iced tea, they call it sweet tea. It's got a very light tan color and is mostly sugar with no tea flavor. Getting it without sugar often means you have to put the kettle back on the stove.
~ I just purchased Peets Dark Roast & Medium Roast whole bean on sale . Not bad — but I am just learning ...
India (and other ragingly hot and tropical countries) only drink hot tea, so that makes no sense. Cold tea is horrific, in any case. I think I've tried it twice in my life, and both times felt like I was drinking dishwater.
can't say i'm a coffee snob, but i do appreciate some of the nuances in taste. yes, indonesian is a wonderful blend of earthiness and fruitiness, as is sumatran. the problem i run across is that what is commercially available is so often diluted with inferior beans or is simply old. on the other hand the roast is also a deciding factor. i like a good dark roast because you can take marginal beans, give them a good dark roast and taste the flavor of the roast instead of that marginal bean. of course, my "coffee upbringing" has something to do with it. i didn't start drinking coffee in earnest until i was working on construction sites. we'd keep the same pot of coffee going from early morning until we shut down and just add to it as the day went on. i usually didn't leave until i'd drunk the last bit of the last pot. slightly burnt and concentrated beyond belief, those were some of the most satisfying cups of coffee i've ever had. to this day i brew my coffee a little too long, just so i get that bit of bitterness that takes me back to poorer days.
They actually supersaturate it with sugar by adding the sugar when the water is hot. Hot liquids can hold more sugar than cold liquids.