Tea Town

Kruse with a study of sweet tea geography trends: McDonald’s has been selling its so-labeled and specifically pitched product called Mickey D’s Sweet Tea for a while now in select markets on the East Coast and particularly in the South. Here’s what’s interesting about this: Hernando County has not been one of those markets.

Mickey D’s Sweet Tea is sold in Ocala. It’s sold in Orlando. It’s sold in Perry and in the Panhandle and even in Naples and New Port Richey.

But not here.

Here, then, in the form of a drink offered, or not offered, at McDonald’s, is another, potentially meaningful way to get at something of an answer to what has been a longtime question: What is the South and what is the North here in Florida? And here in Hernando?

What can Mickey D’s Sweet Tea teach us about where we live?