FIRST IMPRESSIONS ON THE FIRST...

my FIRST IMPRESSION of ICED TEA

all my life my dad has had a cup of iced tea attached to his hand.

the soundtrack of my childhood includes the tea kettle whistling on the stovetop,

which means the tea pitcher was getting low.

he drinks iced tea from sun up until sun down.
he takes a cup with him in the car wherever he goes.
he even sips on it in the car on the way out-to-eat,
where he is guaranteed to order the same drink.

i don't care for iced tea.
my dad still loves me and claims me as his own.
often times when we prepare to sit down for dinner my dad will get the drinks ready.
like clockwork he asks me, "leaper, what do you want to drink?"
and each time i answer the same as i have the past 25 years, "water."
i've often wondered if he asks with a glimmer of hope i will one day say "tea" instead.

many years ago, at sixth grade softball practice my future best friend wondered:
was coach lynn was constantly holding a cup of beer or tea?
it seems on hot days in texas the ice in iced tea melts fairly quickly leaving a beer-colored liquid in the cup.
she would watch to see if i ever took a sip of his drink, which would assure her it was tea, not beer.
i never did, but i promise you it was tea.
we love to laugh about this story now.

i'll never forget the first time my dad visited evan and i shortly after we moved to austin.
he was shocked to discover we didn't have a pitcher perfect for making tea and immediately made a trip to a nearby store, returning with lipton family sized tea bags and a designated tea pitcher.
he christened the white countertops in our newlywed apartment with temporary tea stains and for the first time i began to pay attention to this process of making tea that had happened in my midst all my life.

the next time he came to austin, i attempted to have a pitcher of tea ready for him in the fridge.
he was grateful and very complimentary of it.
but it didn't go unnoticed to me as he slightly diluted my beginner's concoction.
and so because of my ridiculous fear of failure, i didn't attempt to create the perfect tea again.
instead each time he comes to town i have the supplies ready for him to make his specialty.
i thoroughly enjoy the smell of freshly made tea on these visits,
and the way it looks sitting on the shelf of our fridge for a few days.

this was our pattern until this january when something came over me.
it had been five years since my last attempt to make tea,
but while he was here i requested a lesson from the expert.
dad assured me i didn't need a lesson and could definitely handle the making of his favorite drink.
but at my request, he gave me a tutorial and i became an attentive student who took notes.
i recorded the step-by-step directions as he insisted i could remember them without writing it down.
since then i have made several pitchers of good old fashioned tea.
and i've heard they taste just as good as if the master himself made them.

in one of my favorite movies of all-time, the parent trap, susan says,

"all my life, when i'm quite grown up i will remember my grandfather

and how he always smelled of peppermint and pipe tobacco."

as for my dad i will always remember how he smells of freshly mowed grass and tea.

dad and graham, who loves stealing sips from his poppa's tea glass

dad and his two brothers, a brotherhood of tea drinkers

my dad with his dad, two generations that love their snow cones, ice cream and ICED TEA