In the South East, they bring you sweetened (usually far too sweetened for my tastes) iced tea. This is amazingly universal.
I live in NC and have been probing the border for years.
For “nicer” restaurants, the universal sweet tea boundary seems to be precisely at the NC/VA border.
Ordering tea and getting hot water and teabags in return is my restaurant pet peeve. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bother unless I know they’ll actually bring me a pot of already-brewed tea.
Why?
I’m from the US and I don’t order hot tea in a place that might do this. I wouldn’t trust them to make it, either, though. My reason is that the water they’d bring just isn’t going to be hot enough to steep with.
I love black tea steeped in water that started close to boiling when the tea was added and poured (or teabags removed) before the bitter tannins get too strong. Even cheap black tea can be decent if it’s brewed well.
If they bring me a pot of water, it probably came from the hot water thing on their coffee maker and it already started not hot enough even before they put it in a non-insulated metal pot. If it were hot enough, I’d actually prefer to put the bag in myself so I know when to take it out.
On average, folks in my country have never even had hot tea brewed well, and I think that bad tea is worse than bad coffee.
If I’m in, say, an Asian place, I’d be more likely to order tea since I reckon the staff are more likely to know how good it can be and how to make it.
Because I don’t want to have to prepare my own drinks; that’s why I came to a restaurant instead of eating at home.
Do you also need someone to pour it in your mouth?
I don’t think it’s bizarre to expect that my food be in ready-to-eat condition when it’s served, why should drinks be any different?
Calling dropping a tea bag in a cup of hot water “preparing a drink” is a bit of a stretch
You’re getting downvoted, but I can relate (even if I never drink tea while out.). It isn’t much work to let it steep, then take the tea bag out, but it’s not about the literal work, but the brain energy involved. My short term memory is trash, so I often forget about drinks; I had to learn to enjoy lukewarm or cold coffee, otherwise I would rarely drink coffee.
For me, the water is always too cold to properly steep tea from by the time they bring it.