THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606210614
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: 69 lines
Iced tea, the South's most popular non-alcoholic summer thirst quencher, now being celebrated nationally during Iced Tea Month sponsored by the Tea Council of the U.S.A., Inc., isn't a Dixie dreamed-up beverage at all. It was first concocted by a desperate Britisher in the summer of 1904 during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Mo.
To tell the story from the beginning, Richard Blechynden, a young Englishman employed by a tea firm in Calcutta, India, was sent to the Fair to advertise its wares. He was accompanied by several young Singhalese, as the people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were then called. Tricked out in brilliantly colored turbans and jackets, these minions offered glasses of hot tea to the throngs who converged on the exposition to take in its spectacular attractions, including the earliest types of automobiles that were soon to revolutionize the horse-drawn American way of transportation.
Inspired by Kerry Mills' popular waltz song ``Meet Me in St. Louis,'' which became the theme song of the Fair, even people who rarely traveled flocked to the big event in such numbers that Blechynden had every reason to believe his beverages would be successful whistle-wetters.
Unfortunately the weather turned torrid, and for days Blechynden wrung his hands as the sweating crowds avoided his Far East Tea House and made bee lines for those concessions where iced drinks were available. Taking this in, Blechynden came up with an earth-shaking inspiration. He resolved that if people wanted iced drinks, he would gladly oblige them. Laying in a supply of ice, he and his assistants began offering tall glasses filled with ice fragments over which hot tea had been poured.
The chilled, copper-colored fluid surrounding the ice in the glasses looked tempting to the parched Fair-goers. And as they found the new brew to be refreshing as well as cooling they flocked back for more. As a result, by the time the Fair closed, iced tea had become a national institution, a reputation that has continued to burgeon until it is now America's - and particularly the Southland's - most popular dog day beverage.
Meanwhile, just the mention of iced tea is the equivalent of an Arabian Nights ``open sesame'' to me as far as an earlier Norfolk area custom and former well-known store are concerned. And I am sure there will be many among my readers who will share my memories.
The first concerns the shady front porches that were once common throughout the area for providing restful outside sitting rooms for many families during the summer months. On these wide and comfortable verandas of my boyhood, that were often enlivened by the tinkling of hanging Japanese glass wind chimes, people habitually gathered at the end of a ``scorcher'' to loll in swings or hammocks or relax in wicker or slat-backed rockers. Holding a palm leaf fan or a cardboard one advertising some local funeral parlor in one hand and a tall glass of iced tea in the other was the civilized way to ``catch the sea breeze off the gutter'' - to quote one of my mother's colorful expressions - in those pre-air conditioned times.
My other memory conjures up the C.D. Kenney Tea and Coffee Co. on Commercial Place in downtown Norfolk where all discriminating area housewives bought the dark India tea - the best kind for brewing iced tea - for their family's consumption and enjoyment.
A high-ceilinged emporium, Kenney's was outfitted with an impressive row of scarlet painted bins with sloping tops behind its long counter. These contained bulk teas such as Gunpowder, Formosa Oolong, English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Orange Pekoe and other exotic brands imported from China, Japan and India. The aroma from these, plus the heady fragrance of the fresh coffee that was constantly being ground in big metal urns on the counter, made the place an oasis of olfactory delight.
But enough of pedantry and nostalgia. I just looked out of the window and discovered that my outside thermometer was registering a temperature of 90 degrees! So, even though I am fortunate enough to live in an air-conditioned apartment, I'm taking out time to drink a tall glass of iced tea in honor of Richard Blechynden - the man who dreamed up the popular beverage when ``Meet Me in St. Louis'' was the nation's number one hit song. by CNB