Clearly iced tea has had a much longer history than many have supposed. A significant factor in the growing popularity of iced tea is that it parallels the development of refrigeration and the commercial manufacture of pure ice, both of which were in place by the middle of the nineteenth century. In that way, it parallels the developing popularity of all iced beverages. Before that time, cold beverages were iced by packing their containers in basins of ice such as a wine cooler.

The 1904 World's Fair story is not completely without merit, for it probably marks iced tea's beginnings as a commercial product. Whether or not Mr. Blechynden had thought of anything new, he may well have been the first to recognize the value of the idea and capitalize on iced tea as a commercial product. Certainly, the enduring nature of that legend signals a turning point in iced tea's popularity.

After 1900, iced tea became commonplace in cookbooks, and black tea began replacing green as the preferred tea for serving cold. By World War I, it had moved off the pages of cookbooks and into other aspects of social life. Specially designed tall glasses, iced beverage spoons, and even "iced tea" flatware sets (which included long spoons and a lemon fork) appeared, all sure signs that the drink was already very popular-and all before 1920. By the 1930's the tall goblet in crystal sets was often called an "iced tea," at least, in the South.

The 1920s ushered in the largest commercial boost for iced tea: prohibition. When wine and beer became illegal, the wealthy and determined kept finding ways to get and drink alcoholic beverages, but the average middleclass household had to look for another daily beverage at table. From all indications, iced tea had long been served with supper-a light, late evening meal. With the advent of prohibition, the fashion made its way quickly to summer dinner tables (in those days, dinner was still a midday meal) and has never left them. After around 1920, iced tea recipes appear routinely in cookbooks. Henrietta Stanley (Mrs. S. R.) Dull, in her 1928 classic Southern Cooking (Atlanta: Ruralist Press, 1928) provided the recipe that remained standard for decades thereafter. It also indicates that black tea had supplanted green as the preferred leaf for the brew. The following is excerpted from the long recipe for tea in general, beginning on page 218:

TEA

Freshly brewed tea, after three to five minutes' infusion, is essential if a good quality is desired. The water, as for coffee, should be freshly boiled and poured over the tea for this short time . . . The tea leaves may be removed when the desired strength is obtained . . . Tea, when it is to be iced, should be made much stronger, to allow for the ice used in chilling. A medium strength tea is usually liked. A good blend and grade of black tea is most popular for iced tea, while green and black are used for hot . . . To sweeten tea for an iced drink-less sugar is required if put in while tea is hot, but often too much is made and sweetened, so in the end there is more often a waste than saving . . . Iced tea should be served with or without lemon, with a sprig of mint, a strawberry, a cherry, a slice of orange, or pineapple. This may be fresh or canned fruit. Milk is not used in iced tea.

Mrs. Dull was one of the last Southern authors to give directions for serving tea both hot and iced. By World War II, almost every printed recipe was for iced tea.

The preference for black over green tea in an iced beverage parallels the rise of relatively inexpensive black tea exports from India, Ceylon, and, during the twentieth century, South America and Africa. By the end of the 1920's, Mrs. Dull's assertion that "black tea is most popular for iced tea" reflected the national taste.

Despite the fact that iced tea is so universal in the South that it has been jokingly called the region's "house wine," it has never been an exclusively Southern drink. Since the 1930's, iced tea recipes have been appearing routinely in American cookbooks from all regions. Such general-purpose books as the New York Herald-Tribune's Home Institute Cookbook (1947) contained as many as three separate variations on iced tea.

Social Studies: Mrs. Dull's menu section is especially illuminating, in some ways more so than her recipe. While she still frequently suggests coffee as a beverage for dinner, supper, and some formal luncheons, iced tea is her first choice for summer meals, for afternoon teas, and for bridge parties. In fact, these menus reinforce the suggestion in that first recipe (Housekeeping in Old Virginia, above) that iced tea may first have supplanted hot at tea and suppertime as an afternoon and early evening refreshment. Tea at other meals-iced and otherwise-was not commonplace at American luncheon and dinner tables until prohibition.

By the 1930's, iced was supplanting hot tea as the beverage most often served at tea parties in the South; hot tea was served only in cold weather. This practice crossed social lines. African-American author Dori Sanders recalls a common Sunday social called "Silver Teas," the naming of which comes not so much from the pot the tea was served in, but from the silver coins that guests contributed at the door to help the hostess defray the cost. In hot weather, the tea was always iced. Sanders' recalled that the idea for "silver teas" was introduced by her Great Aunt Vestula, who lived in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

An interesting aside to this story suggests that by the time of Sanders' childhood in the early 1930's, the taste for very sweet tea was well established. She recalled that most guests brought extra sugar stashed in their purses in recycled snuff tins. When they thought no one was looking, they would slip an extra spoonful into their cup or glass.

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