Wednesday July 23, 2008 | 11 comments
I have discovered a rather curious situation. It seems that many people think that drinking tea in the summer time, when it’s hot, is unreasonable. Now perhaps you’re shaking your head in agreement . . . but I find that very confusing.
It all started when Sandy and I were invited for dinner at a friend’s. She’s a recent convert to tea, buying a
wonderful tetsubin, a few bodum glasses and select teas from me. I’ve enjoyed watching her begin her journey with tea. She had some house guests from overseas and needed to get more tea and purchased a few tea gifts for her guests.
I usually bring my own tea with me when I’m spending a long evening out but didn’t feel the need to do so anymore with this couple, for obvious reasons. We had a delicious light meal with a fabulous salad made from greens picked that evening from their garden. Much to my surprise, no tea was served. When I inquired about it, her reply was, “We don’t drink tea when it’s hot.”
I asked, “Do you drink coffee in the summer?” The look on her face reflected that she thought that was a bizzarre question. “Of course”, she quickly answered. End of discussion. If I wasn’t her tea purveyor, I would have easily moved into a discussion about what makes the hot drink of tea any different from hot coffee. Having a dual relationship creates another dynamic to the relationship: We are relatively new friends and I didn’t want her to feel that I was trying to get her to buy more tea from me.
This incident brought an awareness to me of what other people think about tea. It never occurred to me to stop drinking my beloved tea because of the thermometer. As I’m not a coffee drinker, and never was. My experience of observing coffee drinkers is that they consume coffee year round. Yes, some add ice to coffee in hot weather, just as some add ice to tea, but for the most part, hot coffee is typically consumed year round. I’m left with the same question . . . why treat tea differently? If I were out in the sun and feeling very hot, I wouldn’t want any hot beverage. Other than that however, tea is tea and it is my beverage of choice. According to the international statistics, which have concluded that aside from water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. People all over the world continue to consume hot tea year round, despite the temperature outside.
I’d welcome the opportunity to hear from others about this curious phenomenon. Do you enjoy fresh brewed tea in the summer? I’m not talking iced!
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Hi, Michelle. We just opened our second store in about a year with tea headlining, but in this one it was a coffeehouse before and people are still thinking coffee. However, in just a week several are converting quickly to tea..but iced tea. The a.m. people ask for hot coffee, not hot tea. But iced tea..definitely. I think it’s just an American cultural thing; after all, ICED tea and HOT coffee are now, from what I read, about neck in neck in foodservice sales, so it has translated over.
Another strange thing; the iced tea drinking starts in the morning along with the hot coffee, possibly because we are in a hot climate.
At any rate, it’s fascinating to track all this. I agree with you and, hopefully, people will become adventurous. In fact, today I had a big ‘manly man’ type who has converted in a few days to a real tea enthusiast (he even goes home and reads about the subject now (specialty tea business) try a really rich Yunnan black tea and he was amazed (hot tea).
Hey, we can just continue to show people how vast and exciting tea, in all its’ forms, can be.
Thanks for provoking the thought, Michelle. I drink hot tea throughout the day; but my husband cannot. For some reason, hot tea on a hot day makes him perspire profusely. Rather than having a cooling effect, it makes him really uncomfortable.
Hi Michelle!
Thanks for the post. I am also not a coffee drinker and I also look forward to my hot tea everyday regardless of temperature.
(That said… I have been known to drink a cup or two of unsweetened iced tea or chilled bottled tea on some extremely rare and extremely hot occasions.)
I gotta know, just wanna know . . . does iced tea (unsweetened) retain any of the good stuff found in hot tea? I’m not asking for 100%, mind you. I love my hot tea, and I’m not going to give it up, but please give me some encouragement for iced tea. I promise not to overindulge.
I’m under the impression that fresh brewed ice tea is good – it does however lose it’s antioxidant power house over time, essentially losing strength as each hour passes. From what I understand, by the end of the day, it’s pretty much shot. BUT if one isn’t adding sugar, it’s still a good, tasty source of hydration and it is tastier than plain water. So don’t despair, it’s fine to drink if you made it recently.
Absolutely. Go for it Reg. If you are making fresh ice tea that you just brewed and are going to drink it right away, you will still get a big bang for your buck. Just don’t make a big batch that’s going to sit for long periods of time. Make each glass of ice tea you drink fresh at the time and you are good to go. Enjoy, and by all means feel free to overindulge.
I live in southern Arizona, where it tends to be a bit on the warm side, and I work part-time outside.
When I’m at work I drink about a liter of homemade iced black tea and another of homemade iced rooibos. There’s no way I could drink hot tea outside, but as soon as I get home I go nuts.
All in all I probably drink as much hot tea in hot weather as in cold. On the flipside, I have very little interest in iced tea when the weather is cooler.
Interesting observation Bill. Ice tea certainly appears to be directly related to summer/warm weather. Glad you’re a fan year round. I don’t believe iced tea has become as popular outside of the U.S. I’d love to hear from people outside of the states on this point. When I was in China a few years ago, I saw no evidence of this. I do believe Japan has caught the wave via Ito En.
Come to think of it, I remember talking with someone in China and they reported that the belief of traditional Chinese medicine was that when tea became cold, or even room temperature in fact, it negatively impacted the stomach.
Sandy, I thought you said in an earlier post that tea starts to lose its’ antioxidant benefits within 5 minutes?? That would include hot tea, correct? I had stated reading it was within an hour that things began to degrade and you brought up 5 minutes. I don’t understand why iced tea would be different than hot in that regard. We have VERY strong brew that we pour over ice, so the strength is about equal to hot tea.
I just meant that the process begins soon after brewing. It would take some time to lose all of it’s benefits, whether hot or cold. Either one, as long as you are consuming it soon after preparing, will give you most of the antioxidant load in that particular cup. It’s when you prepare a large batch, either hot or cold, that sits over time that you lose more of the antioxidant benefits with each subsequent cup.