It's something I've had to hide my entire life, but it's time I come clean.

(Deep breath)

I'm a Southerner, and I don't like sweet tea.

I know, I know. I've had to pretend to sip lady-like on the brew for years. There's no getting away from it around here. Whether it's a business meeting, ladies luncheon or friends on the front porch, you can bet your bottom dollar, there will be tea. Always cold, always sweet — any season of the year, someone is putting a glass of sugary sweet iced tea in your hand.

My short defense as to why I don't like tea is that it's just too dang sweet! I feel like I'm drinking liquefied chocolate cake, minus the chocolate. Which I know for some of you would be heaven, but I'm more of a salt lover and don't really crave sweets, unless you count the time I was expecting my first child and ended up baking seven cakes in one day while licking every spoon and bowl in sight. But that was 40 pounds ago. Let's don't dwell on that.

Now that I've returned to sanity, I thought I would just try to drink unsweetened tea, but found it to be too bitter. I've tried adding a tiny smidgen (or “teeninesy” as one southern friend says) of sugar, fake sugar (yuck) and a bevy of other flavorings, but nothing works.

My Mother always said:

"No coffee or tea

Before you are twenty

But water and milk

You need to drink plenty."

She recited that almost every day of my early life as she poured me a big glass of whole milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, until I broke free for college and discovered new beverages.

Since I don't drink tea, I rarely make it either. Tea drinkers have their own formulas down and can make it without even measuring. I have to count each tea bag and carefully measure water and sugar to the last grain, but still, since I don't like it, I can never really tell if I got it right or not.

And since no one in Baldwin County can legally have a guest walk through their door without a big pitcher of cold sweet tea waiting in the refrigerator, I've learned to turn to my friend Milo for help.

In the name of Southern Hospitality, a Belle's gotta do what a Belle's gotta do.

So when I've said the obligatory, “Y’all come see us sometime,” and they take me seriously and respond with, “Okay, how's about next Tuesday afternoon?” Or when I invite people over for dinner, I first trot myself down to the Piggly Wiggly and pick up a gallon of the popular Milo's Iced Tea.

Then I bring it home and pour it into my crystal pitcher.

There you go. I just made tea.

Let me rephrase that. I just made tea (go into that pitcher).

I'm not trying to trick anyone; it's just that it would be totally tacky to plop a big plastic jug on the table. It would be the equivalent of bringing The Colonel's fried chicken to the church's dinner-on-the-grounds and leaving it in the bucket! What kind of savage do you think I am?

Milo’s headquarters are in Bessemer, Alabama and first started as part of the Milo hamburger chain. The popularity of the tea grew until the tea side split from the burger side to concentrate on wider distribution methods.

Now, I know I can’t be the only one who uses Milo’s at their house, because Piggly Wiggly always stocks quite a bit of the Southern brew. Who else out there uses my tea “recipe?” I’ve been told that many tea drinkers love Milo’s so much that even the most capable tea makers often let Milo do the brewing.

If I could somehow convince other non-tea drinkers to confess their southern sin, then perhaps we could all get together sometime and sip our iced waters on the porch together in kind of a support group.

I’d provide lemon and fresh mint, but no sugar. And I‘m sure we’d still be the sweetest group in town.

Leslie Anne Harrison is a contributor to the Southern coterie website and blog, Fairhope Supply Co., www.fairhopesupply.com.