If you’re like me you wonder why glass companies would have sold special pieces just for iced tea. Do people drink enough iced tea to warrant a special stem? And why isn’t there a special glass for sodas or lemonade?
Elegant glass companies made their beautiful vintage stemware long before soda became a daily drink. I will show my age here. When I was a kid my mom bought one large bottle of soda each week and it was a treat for us five kids to divide that soda among all of us. (A large bottle held about 40 ounces.) We had a rule that the person who poured the soda was the last one to pick their glass.
A few companies did make special pieces for lemonade, usually these were tumblers with handles. Companies made iced teas as a matter of course in their stemware patterns.
Iced tea tumblers are larger than a traditional water tumbler, holding about 12 ounces, and some look more like goblets with long bowls and short stems. This Rose Point ice tea is a good example. It is on Cambridge Glass’ line 3121, which is their largest and most often found Rose Point stemware. Can you see the round ball near the bottom of the stem and the little glass curlicues that hold the ball? That’s line 3121 with its sets of three curlicues around the stem.
Bill, of Affordable Accoutrements, showed off his Rose Point stemware in his recent Tablescape Thursday post. You can see how great this etched crystal looks with china.
We bought several pieces of Rose Point, including ice tea tumblers and water goblets, for our personal use. We use the ice teas for ice water and the goblets for wine, or put iced tea or soda in the tumblers and water in the goblets. It works either way and we enjoy using ours on Sundays or when friends come over. Using vintage stemware makes the meal special.