To Tea or Not To Tea...Adding "Sweet" is the Question

I grew up in the south where sweet tea was a staple beverage and requesting or ordering sweet tea always delivered expected results without disappointment: deliciously fresh brewed tea to which the perfect amount of sugar had been added while it was still hot so it completely dissolved and was then poured over a tall glass of ice for completion of the perfect southern summertime beverage! If you wanted tea prepared any other way, e.g., unsweetened iced tea, lemon, hot tea, etc., you would have to ask as it would not be automatically offered.

When I moved away from the south and into the northwest, I learned quickly that not only was ordering sweet tea not a valid request, it also created confusion to the server as to what I was actually asking to be served. This is even funnier to me now because not only was I ordering a foreign beverage, I'm sure it was accompanied with a bit of a southern drawl. Poor servers, I'm sorry!! It only took once to understand that if I wanted to enjoy sweet tea it meant ordering iced tea and having a glass holder of various sugar and artificial sweetener packets presented to me along with a tall spoon so I could create my own sweet tea. It was never the same!

Nine years later after acquiring, preferring and craving the taste for iced tea, no sugar or sweetener, and anticipating only being asked 'with or without lemon' when ordering, I was shocked when I recently ordered iced tea and was asked 'sweet or unsweet'! My initial reaction was to say 'no lemon' but then I realized that was not the question. So I replied 'oh, unsweet...and without lemon'.

As I left the restaurant I started wondering if sweet tea as I know it has made its way to the northwest and would now be offered every time I ordered iced tea. If it is, this actually makes me question a few things, such as will it be mandatory that sweet tea be sweetened with real sugar or will each establishment have the option to choose sugar or a sugar substitute/artificial sweetener? If I do want sweet tea will I have to ask each time with what it is sweetened? Or will there be sweet tea sweetened with sugar and then diet tea suggesting it to be sweetened with an artificial sweetener?

I wonder if my southern home state is experiencing this reciprocally with iced tea. What I do know is that until now, whether I was in the south or here, ordering tea was simple...sweet or iced, respectively. My point of view may not be simple but ordering iced tea should be, why complicate it!?!

Cheers