Green Tea

Lipton’s bottled green tea with citrus flavoring, (diet style), is my favorite summer drink. I buy it by the case and drink numerous bottles of iced tea throughout the day and evening. Lately I’ve heard on the TV news that many cities are banning the use of plastic bottles for water because they damage the environment and overwhelm the land fills. The cost of producing and delivering them requires exorbitant amounts of energy and money. The same applies to the bottles used for my tea. The bulk of my own garbage consists mainly of empty plastic bottles; consequently, I’ve decided not to buy any more bottled tea. I’ll go back to brewing tea the old fashioned way.

I switched to green tea several years ago when it became a ‘must’ for good health, but I grew up in a household that only used Orange Pekoe. I remember a green tea incident caused by my younger sister, Adeline when we were around 8 or 9 years old. Mom used to let us take turns telephoning in the grocery order for home delivery. I never deviated from the list, but Adeline often added items. I don’t remember a fuss being made over the fact, probably because the items were of little consequence like the tin of corned beef she ordered because she wanted to taste it.

On this particular day, disregarding Mom’s tea preference, Adeline ordered a large box of green tea instead of the usual. The groceries came in the last delivery of the day and it was too late to re-order. There was a lot of fussing and fuming because no one liked green tea, iced or otherwise. That box of green tea remained in the cupboard for years and I doubt a cup was ever brewed.

In those halcyon days of my early childhood we had deliveries of all manner of goods. Groceries were delivered twice daily. The morning delivery was around 11 if the list had been phoned in by 10 and the afternoon delivery around 4 if the list was called in by 3 pm.

Milk was delivered to the front door step every morning. There was a standing order of so many quarts and so much cream, but when extra whipping cream or milk was needed, a note was left sticking out of the empty milk bottles which were put outside at night for the milk man to pick up the next morning. A farm woman delivered eggs and chickens.


The doctor made house calls whenever someone was sick or had an accident. In case of accident, the doctor came as quickly as he could, but if there was illness, he would see the patient on his daily rounds, or according to the seriousness of the illness. The doctor had patients scattered throughout the farming area as well as residents of the town so we never knew exactly when the doctor would come, only that he would.

The cleaners had pick up and delivery of laundry and dry cleaning although my family only sent the dry cleaning out to be done. The laundry was done at home.


The mail was delivered to the house twice a day, morning and afternoon. When a letter was ready for mailing, someone would ask if the mailman had gone by, hoping to get the letter in the mail that day.


A daily newspaper came every afternoon, but the printer had an advertiser paper with household items for sale, that was delivered once a week.

Ice was delivered every other day. A sign in the window would let the ice man know how much ice was needed. All the neighborhood kids liked to chase the ice truck and beg slivers of ice. It was great fun to chew gum and ice at the same time but the gum was often accidentally swallowed. The iceman always predicted dire happenings and gave warnings about chewing ice and gum at the same time, but he never seemed too worried and continued to give tiny chunks of ice to all the kids.

We even had a candy delivery. There was a woman who came regularly to take orders for butter brickle she made herself and would deliver on the dates Mom chose.

At the beginning of cold weather, the folks always had two large wooden barrels of apples delivered. They would last thru the winter and I made many trips to the apple barrels when Mom wanted to bake some for supper or they were wanted for after school munchies.