Tea

Southern California usually manages to achieve that fabled state with respect to iced tea: it has both tea and no tea. The problem is that while there is plenty of iced tea here, there just isn't any sweet tea like I'd be able to get back home. This is a very tragic thing, and so I am reduced to having good sweet tea on trips back east, or if we manage to make it to the Chik-Fil-A that's down here but quite a ways away.

Well, today I ran into something interesting. Chandler's installed a new drink machine, and it serves tea. Naturally I dismiss it out of hand, and examine the vast array of soft drinks, juices (strawberry banana orange?) and water. These are too difficult to choose from. I add the tea machine's selections to the choices. Oh weird, it's got a selector button but one dispenser. And the choices are black tea, sweetened black tea, sweetened green tea, and something else I forgot after seeing TWO sweet tea choices. Okay, have to try it. I get the sweet black tea, it comes out a little warm (exactly right for serving onto cold ice, and for mixing the sugar into the tea). The verdict: excellent sweet tea for the LA area. The sugar dosage was a little low but within the ranges where you couldn't achieve it with sugar bags, and the brew was a lighter taste than I usually prefer, but the combination worked well. (With a stronger brew, you need more sugar to balance it.)

Verdict: It is sad, but Pasadana no longer has both tea and no tea.