When iced tea made its biggest splash

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Southerners have been drinking iced tea (or at least cold, not hot tea) forever. Before ice was available, they might have put probably sweetened tea in a cool part of their house and have that with meals. When ice became readily available, iced tea was even more refreshing. In 1904 at the St. Louis world’s fair an Englishman whose company specialized in black Indian tea, had gallons of hot tea sitting around when a heat wave came through. He punted and got blocks of ice which his workers chipped and put in glasses of tea – it was a great success. Our South Carolina Legislature in 1995 declared iced tea to be our official hospitality beverage with a nod to history as the first tea grown in the United States was grown in Charleston.