SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, Pa. — On National Iced Tea Day, we paid a visit to a Schuylkill County staple that's known more making delicious iced tea: Guers near Tamaqua.
"We started out young, we learned the business and just tried to keep it going, trying to keep a local market and have good service," said company president Danny Guers.
Guers has done just that for nine decades by serving generations of families in this part of Pennsylvania. The Tumbling Run Dairy in Blythe Township, which has been in the Guers family since the company was founded in 1930, started as strictly a dairy, but about 30 years later, it added another drink to the production line.
"Iced tea was a thing that came around in the 1960s, and it really helped the dairy industry, helped our business. We had the equipment to run it, for processing and it was a huge plus. It took off," Guers said.
Guers is synonymous with the coal region and the family-owned and operated business has taken pride in the community that it serves. It sends its products out to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, convenience stores, and grocery stores within a 35-mile radius and employs 45 people from the surrounding areas.
"You got to go back years. We grew up on Guers milk in schools, people growing up in the 1950s and '60s," said production supervisor Craig Lowthert. "That's what you drank in schools, and that's what you learned to live on."
Guers just released its raspberry iced tea, and soon, it will be coming out with a diet decaf version.