The following was taken from the website eightoverfive, and is “a nonscientific investigation into the relationship of sweet tea availability and the separation of northern and southern cultures in the United States.”
“An interesting phenomenon exists in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The northern and urban areas of the state do not generally offer sweet tea in restaurants, whereas it is a staple beverage in the southern part of the state. Many clear present-day distinctions exist between the cultures of the north and south, but could the availability of Sweet Tea be a quantitative example?”
This map shows the results of a survey of over 300 McDonald’s restaurants in Virginia as to the availability of sweet tea in their premises. The result is a dividing line between northern and southern culture quite distinct from other, more commonly used dividing lines, such as the Mason-Dixon Line and the border between the Union and Confederate states during the Civil War.
That line was established by calculating a median line between the southern range of non-sweet tea and the northern range of sweet tea (both of which become much clearer by ticking the relevant boxes on the website).
Sweet tea is not available in the northernmost parts of Virginia, while non-sweet tea is available quite far south in the state. The resulting line of best fit dissects Virginia in roughly equal northern and southern halves, implying that ‘northern’ (i.e. non-sweet tea drinking) culture penetrates far more south than previous demarcations suggest.
Thanks to Sean Holihan for pointing out this cool experiment. Go visit the relevant page here.
but what is “sweet tea”? is it Iced Tea?
Comment by Jen D — October 5, 2008 @ 12:35 am
Yep. Wikipedia:
“Sweet tea is a form of iced tea in which sugar or some other form of sweetener is added to the hot water before brewing, while brewing the tea, or post-brewing, but before the beverage is chilled and served.”
“This especially sweet variation of tea enjoys most of its popularity in the Southern United States, though bottled iced teas labeled “Southern Style” or “Extra-sweet Southern Style” appear in refrigerated cases throughout the country.”
Comment by strangemaps — October 5, 2008 @ 12:42 am
It is the nectar of the Gods… travel south my friend.
It is iced tea with sugar, obviously not very good for you. But a staple of Southern life.
McDonalds has recently started offering sweet tea in other locations. I can confirm its availability in Ohio.
Comment by Stuart — October 5, 2008 @ 12:43 am
I live in Japan, where people are thin. Do you know why they’re thin? BECAUSE THEY DRINK TEA WITHOUT SUGAR!!! Americans need a wake-up call here — learn to love freshly brewed iced tea, it’s the only way to stay even the slightest bit healthy.
Comment by Peter Payne — October 5, 2008 @ 1:22 am
Ew. To this Canadian iced tea comes from a can, tastes of metal and fake lemon, and is best for leaving on the shelf. HOT TEA FOREVER!!!
Comment by Charlene — October 5, 2008 @ 1:22 am
Heck, Mcdonalds has sweet tea in Connecticut! God that stuff is good (taste-wise, not heath-wise!)
Comment by Kath8562 — October 5, 2008 @ 1:24 am
You missed two counties of Virginia — Accomack and Northampton, the Eastern Shore.
I really couldn’t predict which side of your line they’d fall on.
Comment by Dan Milton — October 5, 2008 @ 1:28 am
“Ew. To this Canadian iced tea comes from a can, tastes of metal and fake lemon, and is best for leaving on the shelf. HOT TEA FOREVER!!!”
So take a cup of hot tea. Let it cool. Add ice. That’s iced tea. Now add sugar. That’s sweet tea. Where does the can come in?
Comment by Gim — October 5, 2008 @ 1:31 am
[...] 317 – Tea As A North/South Litmus Test [...]
Pingback by 317 - Tea As A North/South Litmus Test : Sophoblog — October 5, 2008 @ 2:07 am
Pardon me but what is Delaware’s southern border up to in 1760?
Comment by Lurker — October 5, 2008 @ 2:11 am
Sweet tea is pretty much available throughout the DC suburbs McDonald’s locations these days. But that’s definitely changed since I moved here in 2004.
Comment by Stevis — October 5, 2008 @ 2:39 am
Sweet tea (or rather the HFCS-laden version McD’s is peddling) has been moving steadily north. McDonalds even offers it in Boston now.
Comment by Daniel Drucker — October 5, 2008 @ 3:15 am
Chicago has sweet tea in McDonalds.
Comment by Matt K — October 5, 2008 @ 3:37 am
I am surprised that unsweetened tea is NOT available in some restaurants. In Georgia I’m accustomed to unsweetened tea being available everywhere that iced tea is served at all, though usually you might have to ask for it specially.
Comment by Adrian — October 5, 2008 @ 3:46 am
Ugh. I am from Texas, and sweet tea prevails here, although until the last five years, you just got unsweetened tea and sweetened it yourself, if you were so inclined.
These days, a lot of places presweeten their tea, which is extremely annoying to people like me who think sweet tea is nasty…
Comment by lekkermeisje — October 5, 2008 @ 6:54 am
This reminds me of an argument they made once on Richard and Judy (i.e. daytime TV) that the best way to draw the boundary between north and south in England was whether people preferred ketchup or brown sauce. I think they may have had some kind of phone poll to test it out, but I don’t suppose the map is available anywhere.
Comment by Harry — October 5, 2008 @ 8:39 am
So, how is this different from the iced tea that McDonalds seems to sell everywhere else?
Comment by Joshua — October 5, 2008 @ 10:30 am
Here in Northern Virginia, sweet tea is available in McDonald’s and is often the “default” one I get if I forget to ask for unsweetened iced tea. The cannister of unsweetened tea is often located in a less convenient spot than the sweet tea. I have found this from several years of personal experience.
I love the map. In the geography classes I teach, when we talk about the cultural geography of the U.S., I ask my students if they think we, here in Northern Virginia, are in the North or the South. And where’s the line?
Comment by ssheers — October 5, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
I’ve heard rumors that the whole think was a fake.
Comment by RPM — October 5, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Here in the Capital District of Upstate New York both Sweet and Unsweet tea are available equally from cannisters, usually located with the other beverages.
An interesting closely related fact is that the city of Schenectady, part of the Capital District, is home to a General Electric facility. Although downsized now, it employed 40,000 workers at peak capacity. GE also has a satelite plant in Greenville, South Carolina. I would like to think that the introduction of the bagel to the South is the result of northern GE workers being transferred south, to Greenville, and that the prevalence of sweet tea way up north is the result of a reverse migration of GE workers.
By the way, as a child living in New York City in the 1950’s, I first became aware that New York was divided into recreational districts, such as New York City, Long Island, Capital District and Southern Tier by pouring over brochures issued by the state. However, the Department of Labor includes Schenectady in the Hudson Poughkeepsie region. Just a thought to share with trivia enthusiasts.
Comment by Upstate — October 5, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
19:
When the guy admits to making something up, I’d hardly call it a rumor.
However, I wonder if the popularity of the website is in phase with the expansion of Sweet Tea over the nation. I hadn’t known about McD’s Sweet tea before 2007 (but then I hand’t visited any McDonalds in the south since 1982, if ever), but suddenly Sweet Tea had suddenly become a national drink by McD’s.
Comment by godozo — October 5, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
About 5 years ago I was made aware of the idea that in important cultural ways (not involving tea) that Richmond was in the North and everyone should just admit it.
Comment by sm — October 5, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
I have often wondered the exact same thing myself, but for me the definitive test has always been: when you order “iced tea,” do they automatically bring it sweetened or not? But lately I have noticed that some restaurants even in the deep south will ask for your preference. So this is a much better test. Thanks!
Comment by Rebecca — October 5, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Way way back when my family we drove from the east coast to the west coast of Canada. There was no Trans-Canada highway yet so we had to drive through the northern USA part of the way. At one restaurant my parents ordered tea for themselves and coke for us kids. A chilled dark brown beverage arrived, in tall glasses. My parents assumed it was the coke, although there were only 2 glasses instead of 3 as ordered. We sipped it: yecchh, what is this?
Turns out it was iced tea, a beverage of which my parents had until that time been in blissful ignorance. They elarned they had to order HOT tea, and with the teabag IN the pot, not on the side so that the water is tepid.
Unfortunately fewer and fewer restaurants anywhere make tea properly with boiling water.
Comment by Jen D — October 5, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
from the Sequitur blog:
Justin Stimmel, interactive artist and the brains behind that sweet tea map … explains:
“Yes I did make the map, and sadly it is fake ….
Because it was a student project, and I didn’t want to actually contact every McDonalds in VA, [I] made up the data based on my experiences.”
Comment by Jen D — October 5, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
@3: North too.
As Charlene (#5) points out, it’s ubiquitous in Canada as well. When I was with the Canadian Forces in 1997, they gave us ice tea a lot (probably because we were doing our basic training in over 40C/100F weather (yes, it gets that hot here in summer) in a dusty area (CFB Dundurn, if anyone knows the Canadian Forces … ) and it’s probably the best to revitalize you in that weather. I was hooked on it and since then have never failed to *always* have a pitcher of ice tea in the fridge at all times for my enjoyment. It’s also my default drink of choice when I go out to eat (since I don’t care for alcohol). That was until my first US visit after I got hooked on ice tea. I ordered it in a restaurant in (I think it was) Minneapolis and they served me what I can best describe as ice*d* tea – basically cold tea. I did not care for it at all due to it not being sweetened and made a mental note to never again order ice tea when I’m in the states again – the farthest south I’ve ever been in the US is Port Huron, Michigan (with Minneapolis and Yellowstone bringing up second place) so I don’t have to worry yet about the drink suddenly becoming delicious again once I cross the Mason/Dixon line, but if I’m ever in the southern US I’ll make a note to test the theory that southern iced tea is exactly like the drink I know and love in Canada.
Comment by David Kendall — October 6, 2008 @ 3:27 am
As a native Virginia smack dab in the middle of the zone between North and South, this map comes as no surprise to me. What most people don’t know is that Virginia is not really Southern until you cross the James River, which incidentally follows the line of best fit. This is because most areas north of it are still holdouts of the old Anglo-American culture that used to dominate the mid-Atlantic. This area is culturally distinct from its surroundings by its past times (Foxhunting), religion (Anglican/Episcopalian) and of course its tea (good English Tea).
At some point I want to submit my map of the Hunt Country, a territory between the Potomac and Rapidan rivers, that is the center of this culture.
Comment by Brad — October 6, 2008 @ 5:33 am
[...] 317 – Tea As A North/South Litmus Test « Strange Maps Cool visualization of the relationship between the availabiltiy of sweet tea and southern culture in Virginia. (tags: tea maps south culture) [...]
Pingback by links for 2008-10-06 « A Californian Living Down South — October 6, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Regardless of Rumor or Truth – how does one define regions? A pefect lesson in cultural geography. As a former geography professor, I would have definitely used this in my classroom.
I love this map, as I love sweet tea.
Hailing from Central Virginia, I was raised on it, and much to the suprise of “haters” I am perfectly fit and healthy. It is nectar of the gods.
Up men! And to your posts! And let no man forget today, that you are from Old Virginia!
Comment by Mag — October 6, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
It seems like people often draw some kind of line between sweet tea (the super sugar saturated southern treat), and plain old iced tea (water that was boiled with tea leaves, then cooled and served).
I’m from the mid-atlantic US (PA specifically), and when younger people refer to iced tea, they mean neither of the two. I’m assuming Arizona iced tea and Snapple (no, not that Nestea style crap) are available nation wide, so how are those classified in this two sided system? They are sweet, but you can’t classify them as “sweet tea.” Believe me, you could blind taste test anyone from the area and they could differentiate.
When you go to any store around here, there’s generally many different flavors like lemon, raspberry, peach and so on. It’s probably only marginaly tea anyway, kind of like how some orange flavored sodas contain minimal oranje juice, which would be another reason it would fit into neither sweet, nor regular iced tea.
Comment by BAT — October 6, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
[...] through some of my favorite blogs (Post Secret, Strange Maps, and Savage Minds) I found this one – defining regions in Virginia (my home-state that I love as well) based on the availability of [...]
Pingback by Good Directions and Sweet Tea « It’s Not Just You — October 6, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
@ Brad (Post #27)
I was always under the impression that suburban Washington DC was “Northern,” while the rest of the state prided themselves as “Southern.” The James river represents the modern Mason-Dixon line? Well, thanks for letting me know.
I think iced tea is being promoted as an “alternative” drink to soda pop. Soda pop sales have been hurting in recent years, as many people have switched to bottled water. How much sugar is in a 12 oz. glass of sweet tea?
Just for fun, it would also be interesting to see the North-South cultural boundaries of Indiana and Ohio…….
Comment by bourgoises pig — October 6, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
Could you update the post to show the link to the map itself. Navigating around the Eight over Five website, I can’t find the interactive version of the map in question.
Comment by Robert — October 6, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
I need to point out the fallacy of using a vast food chain to measure cultural boundaries?
I.E. I know of several McDonald’s in North Carolina that don’t offer sweet tea, and several here in Washington State that do…
Comment by Derek L. — October 6, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
I’d be curious to seen this done for real, but forget about McDonald’s. The key is to use non-chain family restaurants. And instead of asking which they serve (most will serve both, especially along I-95 and I-85), the question should be which they sell more of.
FWIW, my wife postulates that there are two tea lines. The “Southern Tea Line” (mapped here) is the boundary between sweet iced tea and unsweet iced tea; she puts it somewhere around Petersburg VA. The “North Tea Line” is the line between unsweet iced tea and unsweet hot tea; she puts it around Harrisburg PA. I have no idea how accurate her placements of the line are.
In my experience, the boundary between North and South in the lower Midatlantic/upper South region (which I personally define as MD, DE, VA, and NC) isn’t so much a question of distance from Canada as much as distance from the nearest big city. Cary NC (a suburb of Raleigh) is far more Northern than Rocky Mount NC despite being slightly farther south. The same can be said for Norfolk VA and places on Virginia’s eastern shore, or Richmond VA and Salisbury MD. Even much of rural Pennsylvania has a Southern feel to it (I’ve heard Pennsylvania derisiviely referred to before as “two big cities with Arkansas between them”).
Comment by rhodent — October 6, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Yeah, you can’t really use McDonald’s as a reliable indicator. McDonald’s is serving sweet tea in Nevada now, so I’m thinking they’ve decided to roll it out nationwide.
Comment by Scott Schrantz — October 6, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
[...] Strange Maps points to an interesting one: you can map the northern extent of America’s South by seeing how far north in Virginia McDonald’s has sweet tea. [...]
Pingback by Southern Tea — Link Banana — October 7, 2008 @ 2:23 am
I just read about a pol;l of Virginia–Obama is leading by a huge margin in the north, slightly ahead in the middle, and tied with McCain in the south. So voting may depend on culture, not a rational political choice. Allen Kamp
Comment by Allen R. Kamp — October 7, 2008 @ 2:25 am
Most definitely where I come from in Central Virginia there was little evidence of actually listening to issues, party lines and one’s previous voting history drove a lot of who would win elections.
Comment by magq — October 7, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
@#38 Allen Kamp
Of course voting has some dependency on culture! Communists don’t have a popular political following in America, because we live in a capitalist culture, for example. Political parties are organized on common goals and ideals, which I’m sure somehow fall into what makes up a culture. It’s not really that profound.
Comment by BAT — October 7, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
Rhodent – Cary is much more ‘Northern’ because of the massive influx of Yankees as the Triangle has grown over the last two-three decades. The same thing has happened in Charlotte, and Atlanta, and many other places in the South.
Comment by Derek L. — October 7, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
I’ve been in South Carolina 30 years and nearly every fast food chain I’ve ever been in has offered unsweet tea as a choice. It’s not that nobody down here drinks unsweet tea, it’s that the vast majority of people prefer it sweet. Personally I drink it sweet, unsweet, and hot (both with and without honey/sugar). it just depends on what sounds most refreshing at the moment.
Gim (Comment #8): you’ve got it backwards. You have to sweeten the tea while it’s hot.
“Iced tea”, much less “Ice Tea”, is almost never heard anywhere down here; it’s almost a dead giveaway that you didn’t grow up in the South, no matter whether you like your tea with sugar or not.
Comment by Ryan Hauck — October 8, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
[...] This map was showcased last year at the Worlds Fair, and now at Strange Maps. [...]
Pingback by The Sweet Tea Mason-Dixon Line « Sophismata — October 8, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Since you are such a flaming liberal, how about a map of Bitter Clingers distribution?
Comment by Cappy — October 8, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Sweet vs. non-sweet tea. Ridiculous. The Southern-ness marker is hush puppies, not sweet tea.
Comment by Robert Maxwell — October 9, 2008 @ 2:01 am
I would submit that a good marker of Southern-ness occurs when you simply ask for “tea” at a restaurant. Real Southern restaurants will immediately bring you a glass of sweetened tea. No asking about hot tea, no asking about unsweetened tea.
Comment by Festus — October 9, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
Pingback by Best of the Buzz : Dining News Elsewhere: Future Food Policy, Gastrosexuals — October 10, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
Pingback by Boston : Dining News Elsewhere: Future Food Policy, Gastrosexuals — October 10, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
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[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
Pingback by London : Dining News Elsewhere: Future Food Policy, Gastrosexuals — October 10, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
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[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
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[...] – Sweet tea is one of the defining differences between Northern and Southern culture. [Strange Maps] [...]
Pingback by Washington D.C. : Dining News Elsewhere: Future Food Policy, Gastrosexuals — October 10, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
THIS IS NONESENSE!
Virgina is SOUTHERN!
With the exception of the immediate DC suburbs and Hampton Roads Virginia is Culturaly Southern and NOT the North and NOT Mid-Atlantic
The James River is not the line- if you want to get down to it the Rappahnock is- although you can find pockets of Southern in Loudoun and Faquier County- as well as Prince William
Virginia is NOT the North!
And Richmond is actually more Southern in flavor than Nashville or Atlanta or Charlotte could ever hope to be!
Comment by Meade — October 13, 2008 @ 5:34 am
I wander where the North/South line would fall if you mapped where Dr. Pepper is available as compared to Sweet Tea.
Comment by Ed M — October 13, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
@Meade (post #54)
Maryland lays south of the Mason-Dixon line. Just curious, but is Maryland Northern or Southern.
Comment by bourgoises pig — October 17, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
Well, if you want a really interesting discussion, you could plot this out as a line separating east from west – East Texas from West Texas. You tend to get sweet tea most places in East Texas, but unsweetened tea predominates most places in Dallas – and you don’t get sweet tea west of Dallas, much. (If your waitress asks “sweet or unsweet” you’re in East Texas.)
But you’d never figure that out looking at McDonald’s. (You couldn’t tell either by looking at most Tex-Mex places, which pretty much just have unsweet.)
Just got back from Barbados, where they serve iced tea unsweet, but with simple syrup on the side (sugar packets don’t do so well in humid tropical climates).
Comment by BlueDuck — October 20, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
Northernmost restaurant I recall being able to get sweet tea at was a Shoney’s on the Balt-Wash Pike, circa 1988.
I’ve found that in general, the sweetness of sweet tea tends to decline as you move north. While I live in Atlanta, I prefer my tea Raleigh sweet.
Comment by FSG — October 22, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
McD has rolled out sweet tea across the US already in advance of their new specialty coffee program set to launch in April 2009
Comment by timx — October 24, 2008 @ 11:34 am
[...] Booyor, you might be interested to see the map of Tea as a North/South Litmus Test. [...]
Pingback by Booyor’s BLOGgh! » I love maps — November 7, 2008 @ 4:47 am
[...] War “memory.” Well, this isn’t exactly Civil War “memory,” but the Tea as a North/South Litmus Test sure as heck has something to do with Southern preference when it comes to sweet tea! And, [...]
Pingback by Sweet tea is not an issue of “memory,” it is REAL! « Cenantua’s Blog — November 19, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
The boarder is the potomac river, west virginia is not part of the south since 1863 when the turned coat against the great commonwealth of Virginia.
Comment by Charles Chenault — November 26, 2008 @ 1:37 am
[...] 317 – Tea As A North/South Litmus Test « Strange Maps Map showing the Sweet Tea Line! (tags: south maps sweettea heh) [...]
Pingback by Being Amber Rhea » Blog Archive » links for 2008-11-29 — November 29, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
I was a little suspicious of this map when I saw it a few years ago. How do you map sweet tea consumption in the 18th Century?
I’m not surprised that it’s a fake, so many of these food survey maps are. And, by the way, Charles C., West Virginia is part of the south. It was Richmond that betrayed WV to northern troops during the Civil War, they sent only 800 rifles and one lone Colonel to defend WV. Lee realized his mistake too late. The largest Confederate cavalry unit at Gettysburg was from West Virginia, Jenki’s Brigade.
Comment by Bob A. — January 23, 2009 @ 6:29 am
PS. A typo, that last name should be “Jenkin’s Brigade”.
Comment by Bob A. — January 23, 2009 @ 6:31 am
[...] pretty much a wash. In fact is fails the "Sweet tea" test. Especially in North Virginia. 317 – Tea As A North/South Litmus Test Strange Maps http://www.qando.net/ – Quick Hits Is Virginia a "Southern" State Now? The [...]
Pingback by Swastika - Page 3 — February 6, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
[...] Our favorite maps, perhaps, are the ones that make some sort of sociological statement. Like the one showing the usage of various generic soft drink terms in the United States or depicting the North-South divide based on where ice tea is sweetened. [...]
Pingback by Cool Blogs: Strange Maps | Spot Cool Stuff: Websites — April 24, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 5:28 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:52 am