What is 'iced tea' etiquette?
Iced tea etiquette is very simple. In a fine restaurant or at a banquet, they will serve you your iced tea with a longer spoon. The size of the bowl of the teaspoon is the same as the teaspoon next to your coffee, however this has a longer handle and the reason it has a longer handle is so that it can reach the bottom of your iced tea glass. It's OK to ask for iced tea at a business banquet. It's always alright to ask for any service in a fine restaurant, but wait until the waiter has served your entree before you ask him for personal service. So, here's how to put sweet-n-low or sugar in your coffee. You take the top off, you open it, you pour the sweet-n-low or the sugar substitute, what ever it is that you use, the Equal, the Splenda, and then you close it. And then you lay it back on your plate as a piece of garbage. Then, you pick up your iced tea spoon and instead of doing this, we do this and stir it at the bottom so that it doesn't make noise. Now, in this case, there is a doily at the bottom of the glass which fine restaurants do, simply for the purpose of absorbing the iced tea from your spoon so it doesn't wet your glass and make the bottom of your glass wet and then you can enjoy your iced tea. However, if there's not a doily and they don't bring you a little plate and you've got an iced tea spoon, you used your teaspoon, this is actually the only time one utensil cradles the other during a meal, to keep the table cloth from getting wet, and then you can enjoy your iced tea.
