OK, just so we’re on the same page, sweet tea is a stereotypically
Southern American drink which is made by putting several teabags
into a pot of hot or boiling water, letting it steep, then removing the
teabags and adding sugar. The concoction is then placed into a
pitcher, possibly diluted with more water, and chilled, then served
over ice in a glass. Your method may vary, but this covers the
basics.
Now, in the South it is the Law of Good Economics that a restaurant
must have sweet tea as a beverage option. Even restaurants that
represent an ethnicity which doesn’t drink sweet tea (e.g., Indian
cuisine or N.Y. Pizza) will serve it. This brings me to my observation:
the sweet tea served in Chinese restaurants in the South is delicious.
I don’t know what they do differently, but the tea tastes the same in
almost every Chinese restaurant in which I’ve eaten hereabouts,
and that taste is distinct from the sweet tea usually served in non-Chinese Southern restaurants.
I’ve been trying to figure out what they do that makes this difference
so that I may harness it for home use. Now, the tea bags sold here
with which most Southerners make their sweet tea contains broken
black tea leaves. The Chinese restaurant tea has the brown color
that one expects from sweet tea, so I’ve ruled out purely green or
white teas.
So, does anyone have any idea what might be making this difference?
Do the tea leaves come from a different region? Do they mix black
tea with green tea? Do they add an exotic sweetener? Anybody ever
work in a Chinese restaurant making sweet tea? Am I just imagining
things (maybe tea just tastes better when in the presence of Sesame
Chicken)?
Could be you’re referring to jasmine tea. Time was, every Chinese restaurant I went to served it as a matter of course. Delicious stuff. I have a tin in the cupboard. Sadly, hereabouts I don’t find it served anymore for some reason. I suppose they decided it was pearls before swine or something.
I’ve never gotten sweet tea at a Chinese restaurant (but apparently I need to!), but all the Mexican restaurants around here have excellent tea. Go fig.
Maybe so. Was it served sweetened, over ice in a tall glass?
What makes it “jasmine” tea? Is that the type of tea, or the type
of preparation?
Agreed. But Mexican restaurant tea is an example of what good
sweet tea is supposed to taste like, whereas Chinese restaurant
tea is somehow a different, but related, beast.
“Jasmine Tea is a famous tea made from Green or Pouchong
(Chinese Green) tea leaves that are scented with jasmine flowers.”
Hm, this may be an ingredient, but it probably doesn’t make up the
whole glass of tea, since the tea served is brown, and so, must have
some amount of black tea involved. I’ll have to get some jasmine tea
and try a few mixing experiments. (Don’t worry, I’ll drink some of it
unadulturated, too; it sounds quite nice.)
Hell, no. Waddya think the upper Midwest is, a colony of Dixie? No, it was served hot - whatever the season - without sugar from a little individual pot, usually, and drunk from teacups. I don’t normally care for scented teas at all, but I find jasmine tea elegant.
Closest thing we Damnyankees get to sweet tea is the institution we call “ice tea”. Normally it’s unsweetened with a wedge of lemon in it. Sugar is optional, and added to taste.
It dissolves, but at a horrendously glacial pace. The protracted clinking of someone else’s spoon in glass is enough to make one want to kill something. Those who sugar their ice tea are, to be brutally blunt, rapscallions and churls.
A lot of Chinese restaurants serve oolong tea or black tea blends that are peculiarly Chinese. While you’re looking for jasmine tea you might try “Chinese restaurant tea” (I think Kame has boxes of something like that), Keemun (I think Twinings has boxes of it) or Formosa or China oolong (Twining, Bigelow, Wagner, etc. market this stuff).
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! Dynasty’s Chinese Restaurant Tea
says that it is a “blend of oolong, jasmine, and green tea”, so maybe
a mix is the key. I’ll pick some of those up. Now, I have specific
questions to ask the waiter next time I’m getting my chopstick on.
So, do you know what kind of tea would be in the Lipton tea bags
that I use? Indian, perhaps?
Orange Pekoe (properly “peck-oh”, not “pee-ko”, I am informed, but whatever). It’s a Chinese strain. What I understand is that Lipton’s a pretty good brand elswhere in the world; the US gets sent the cullings, hence the product’s less-than-excellent rating here.
I assume the American Lipton is a blend from several places – certainly India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), but also likely a couple of places in Africa and possibly China, Turkey, or even South America or the Caribbean. They would have to blend it so that if someplace has a drought or typhoon, it’s a small enough part of the blend that the tea wouldn’t be substantially different that year. Orange Pekoe may be a particular strain, but it will grow just about anywhere. The “pekoe cut black tea” that makes up much of it is a generic term – it just means black tea with small cut-up leaves.
If you’re out tea shopping, I think that some of the lighter Indian teas make great sweet tea. My absolute favorite is Darjeeling Marybong, but the Twinings Queen Mary or Darjeeling come close. These teas are naturally sweet, so they suck up the sugar taste really nicely. (A diabetic once accused me of putting sugar in his glass of Marybong when I hadn’t.)
Sweet tea in Georgia always tastes a little jasmine-y to me. There’s always the possibility of them sneaking a little mint into it.
If it’s in a Chinese restaurant, I’d bet on jasmine. There is a black tea (or whatever, but it’s not green) in a really pretty black can which contains dried jasmine flowers. That one is really good.
Liptons here is mostly ground wood-chips, I think. Bleah!
I don’t know of any Asian restaurants around here that serve sweetened tea. The sushi place I go to, has bitter green tea. The Vietnamese place has cut tea (about 3x5mm rectangles) floating in the pot and the dim sum place serves tea that looks like chopped dandelions… also floating in the pot.
No, it was served hot - whatever the season - without sugar from a little individual pot, usually, and drunk from teacups. I don’t normally care for scented teas at all, but I find jasmine tea elegant. 
