Sipp'n Sweet Tea

My entire family lives in the south, and they have been ever since my grandfather brought our family here in the 70's. Being Indian, I always felt that I was only southern because it was where I was born and raised. On top of that, I always thought of the south as the place depicted in movies. It is a quiet and calm place, and in some cases it is a little backwards and underdeveloped. It took a long time for me to see that I was wrong. The south has a rich history and an unpredictable future. It is filled with bustling cities and scenery that I believe not even the best poets can describe. The south is a region unlike any other, and I saw this all through my absolute favorite drink, sweet tea.

Yes, it was a simple and delicious glass of sweet tea that made me see what the south actually was. The scene above is one that I used to associate with the south. A nice porch with a rocking chair and of course a tall glass of ice cold sweet tea. This image if looked at shows the "simplicity" of the south, but in reality it shows that the south is anything but simple. Everything that I used to associate with the south actually contains a rich and complex history. Even sweet tea has a history that should not be taken lightly.

I looked into the history and stumbled upon a timeline that describes the major points in the history of sweet tea. I can see from this timeline that sweet tea in it of itself may be simple, but like many other things has become part of what the south is known for because of its rich history. Yes, somewhere down the line sweet tea was invented, but that was not the end of it. Sweet tea became part of the south because it continued to be assimilated into what the majority of people believed the south to be. The south is something that varies from person to person. I used to associate myself with the physical region of the south. That is why I was unable to move past these fake notions of what the south truly is. The south is not a finite place. The south is the history I choose to understand and remember. In my south, we have sweet tea, soul food, big cities, small towns, breathtaking scenery, and a melting pot of different kinds of people. What's in your south?