"LOVE ICED TEA!"

Love Iced Tea!

I don't just like iced tea, I love it! And I live on it day and night.

Maybe that's bad or maybe that's good. Suppose it depends upon your point of view. In the picture, you see lemon in the glass of tea; used to like lemon in mine but not anymore. Prefer mine straight with sugar or a sugar substitute and ice or no ice. But I have to have it--that's called a dependency and yes, I know it! And I get a caffeine buzz as well from it.

The first time I ever drank it was when I was five; it was at a neighbor's house. Sort of liked it but as a kid, had to drink milk at home and when not home, drank pop as all kids did. Iced tea was not on my mind or menu for a long time to come yet. In fact, I don't think that it wasn't until my late twenties when I started craving iced tea but wouldn't order it in a restaurant--why I don't know.

And with the craving came making the tea: I boiled water and tea bags and let the tea steep and cool. [Everyone made it that way that is until instant tea came on the scene. ] Usually I'd make a gallon of iced tea and it had tons of sugar and real slices of lemon in it. It tasted more like a tea lemonade than real tea but it was good. Everyone loved it and no doubt got a sugar buzz as well.

I'd drag this concoction with me to school where I taught in a huge thermos and had a separate one for ice. Daily that was part of my before going to work routine and imagine dragging two thermoses in along with books and a book bag but I did. Everyone knew me by those thermoses of tea and ice and if I didn't have them, trust me I was questioned as to why they weren't there. This went on forever it seemed and then I decided to take out the lemon; also decided to start using instant tea for that was a lot easier to make.

Imagine drinking all that tea while teaching [not in front of my students but like before school started, at lunch or during a break and definitely after school!] and crunching on the ice. Did I break any teeth? Yes. Broke my back molars on the top and bottom at different times. Bad for me and great for my dentist.

From my co-workers to my family, everyone knew and knows that I live on iced tea. It came in handy on lots of occasions when someone was dying of thirst or I needed to throw it on something that was on fire which actually happened when my older son's vent in his car was smoking fire! We had pulled into the very same drugstore and he saw me and screamed "Do you have your tea with you?" "Yes!" I replied and got out of my car and dashed to his where he proceeded to pour the tea into the vent. The fire was put out instantly by the iced tea.

Therefore, I could say that iced tea has many usages: It can quench thirst, break teeth if it has a lot of ice in it, wire you with the caffeine and put out fires. It's really a multipurpose beverage if ever!

And guess what? As I sit here writing this, I am drinking iced tea!

Would you expect me not to be? Of course not.

And as for me "Long live iced tea!" It rocks!

Sherry Hill


*About the age of eleven, I developed a hatred for milk. Won't go into it but never drink it ever. Do drink juices and some pop off and on. As for taking iced tea in the car with me, I gave that up about three years ago after I spilled my big cup all over the passenger seat. Now I take a can of Pepsi or Coke with me if I am going on a short trip. Long trip? Iced tea of course!