Mixing a gallon of sweet tea and setting it in my refrigerator to chill overnight made me think about the conveniences of modern society. What was once a delicacy for elites who benefited from trade routes carrying sugar carved out of the labor of enslaved people and tea harvested from far-off lands is now an everyday convenience.
Within less than four generations, sweet tea went from being a luxury in parlors and plantation houses to a staple made with prepackaged tea bags or grabbed from a gas station cooler. The pace of change is staggering, but so is the bounty of resource abundance in America. It’s easy to forget how new this comfort really is, and how deeply tied it is to the contradictions of American history.
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