My mom made great iced tea. She made it all the time, often four or five times a week during the hot months of the summer. Our family would drink it regularly, downing several glasses each during dinner. Even my dad, who was very particular about what he consumed — he never ate pizza and he never drank Coca-Cola — happily drank my mother's iced tea. When guests would come to our house, my mom always made sure she had a pitcher or two of her iced tea ready to be served, because she knew that someone would ask for a glass within minutes of their arrival. Even my friends would refer to my mom's iced tea as "World Famous."
Because my mom's iced tea was so downright delicious, folks would often ask for the recipe. My mom was only too happy to give the recipe — one that she concocted herself — to anyone who made the request. She would even write it down to make sure all of the ingredients and procedures were included correctly. Actually, the recipe wasn't at all complicated. But, if it wasn't followed correctly, it wouldn't taste like my mother's iced tea.
First off, she used a brand of tea bags called "Swee Touch Nee." Back in the 1960s, this brand wasn't always readily available at our regular supermarket. Sure, they stocked it sometimes, but other times, my mom would have to hit some out-of-the-way market or smaller grocery store to track down the main component that made her iced tea
her iced tea. The recipe called for
ten tea bags for a half-gallon batch... and she
only made it in half-gallon batches. Then, she would fill up her old reliable whistling tea kettle and set it on the stove with a full flame underneath until the high-pitched shriek — or "
g'shrei from the chinik" as she'd say in Yiddish — would alert her that the water was boiling. She'd drop the ten tea bags into her big Tupperware pitcher, pour in the boiling water until the kettle was empty, then add a cup of sugar. That's right a brimming cup of full-strength, one hundred percent granulated cane sugar poured right from that familiar yellow Domino's paper sack. She'd give it a few stirs, fit the lid in place and position it front and center on the top shelf of our refrigerator. Once the refrigerator door was shut, some sort of magic happened over the next hour or so. Those few, simple ingredients mingled and melded into something so indescribably delicious that it was.... well,
indescribable! And that's it! That's my mom's "world famous" iced tea recipe.
But no one could ever duplicate it. No one. Even those with the recipe. Even those who were coached on the phone — by my mom — during the actual process... they still couldn't get it right.
Now, I ask you. Were those instructions complicated? Jeez, there are only
three ingredients. Sure,
one of them could prove to be a bit difficult to locate, but not
impossible. Besides, if
my mom could find a lesser-known brand of tea bags, any of her friends and relatives were just as capable of doing the same. For all we knew, Swee Touch Nee was the top seller at the supermarket where
they shopped. And the other ingredients?
Everyone had access to water and
every one of my mom's friends, neighbors and relatives had a whistling tea kettle. It was the
60s, for goodness sake! It was a
required piece of kitchen equipment, like the ubiquitous electric can opener/knife sharpener. So, how tough is it to boil water, pour it over some tea bags, add sugar and stick it in fridge for a few hours? Evidently,
very! My mom would routinely receive phone calls from those who were disappointed, even after claiming to have followed her recipe to the letter. They'd complain that
their version of the finished iced tea didn't taste the same as the contents of those tall glasses that my mom served at our house. Trying to help, my mom would run down the short list of ingredients and the relatively easy process for making her iced tea.
"Did you use ten Swee Touch Nee tea bags?," she'd ask
"Well, I couldn't find Swee Touch Nee, so I just used Lipton. And since they are, like, double-size — y'know, those "flow-thru" like on the commercial — I just used five."
"Did you use a cup of sugar?," my mom would further question.
"Well," the reply would begin... and when a reply begins with "well," you just know it will be followed by some lengthy justification for why the original instructions were not followed. "We don't like to use sugar in our house, so I used four or five packets of Sweet 'n Low, instead."
"Did you use a half gallon pitcher?" my mom would ask.
"Well, I don't have one, so I used a glass pitcher, but I don't know how much it holds."
"Did you put it in the refrigerator for a few hours?" my mom inquired.
"Well, I wanted to see how it tasted, so I just poured it over some ice in a glass as soon as I finished mixing it up. Oh, and I put some lemon slices in it, 'cause I like lemon."
They'd usually end with: "It didn't taste like yours!"
At this point, my mom would pull the telephone receiver away from her ear, stare at it, roll her eyes and shake her head.
For years and years, she received calls from various acquaintances, who were simply baffled as to why their iced tea didn't taste like my mom's ice tea.
After all, they didn't follow the directions.
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