The mom of of my best friends from college made the best iced tea. Okay, two people in my life have made the best iced tea, actually. The other was my aunt Helen — my grandfather’s sister — whose secret ingredient (remembering that she was a housewife in the ’60s after all) was TANG. And it was fabulous.
Anyway, I asked my friend’s mom for her wonderful tea recipe, and you know it’s gonna be sweet because she started her message back to me with “Hon”:
Love her. She won’t mind me sharing.
It’s two family-size bags of tea to a kettle of boiling water, add a heaping cup of sugar, take the kettle off the heat, and add water to the pitcher to taste. That turns out to be not some crazy secret recipe like I thought maybe. No doubt what made it so good was that SHE made it. And Shugie approves.
Now, Aunt Helen passed away in the late 90s so I never asked her what the recipe was for her Tang tea, and I’m not sure I have the hang of it, because whatever I do, it’s not as great as I remember hers tasting. I even tried it as some sort of takeoff on an Arnold Palmer, but…
If you know the secret to Tang tea, pass it on! Would love to hear how to do it the right way.
Now, two quick good natured things before we do the really terrific tea services:
Still life of Po Folks tea gallons, Manischewitz, and Kedem bottles at a luncheon in Florida from a few years ago,
and at Rojo in Birmingham, this is how they label their tea urns:
One of my besties treated me to Independent Presbyterian’s 73rd annual tour of homes and afternoon tea last month. We loved it! IPC’s sanctuary:
upstairs, the tea:
Served in beautiful silver
We really enjoyed our table guests too, and had a lovely time, and the treats were terrific
Destination Tea is the best tea room finder I came across when looking for establishments just now.
There are certainly teas going on at some higher-end hotels in Atlanta and New Orleans. Shugie’s favorite hotel in Atlanta, and maybe mine there too, is the St Regis and they have a tea at their Astor Court.
St. Regis, Buckhead
Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans
Windsor Court, New Orleans
Year round, there is a tea at Le Salon at Windsor Court in New Orleans, but I wind up going upstairs at their Grill Room which is a terrific meat & three at lunch. Saturday afternoon tea is served at the Davenport Lounge at the RC.
When Sucre had its Salon in the Quarter, I did that once with a blooming marigold tea:
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The best, best, best has been the afternoon tea at the Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas a few years ago. The hotel is now the Waldorf Astoria and still offers that service
If you know of a fab tea room or a fun tea experience, please share. xoxo!