My friend Bobby for example (a native Floridian... one of the only 35%), is utterly firm in his conviction that tea has not been properly sweetened until a spoon can stand up in it unaided.
Now, I should be clear, a bit of sugar and a bit of lemon in my tea (whether iced or hot) is quite fine... but sweet tea?
When I want to drink brown colored simple syrup, I order a whiskey sour thank you very much.
In support of my position on this matter, I quote the great Eric Arthur Blair:
"Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again."
