Archibald Candy, better known locally as Fannie May (not to be confused with the mortgage underwriter) has announced its plan to shutter its West Loop candy factory and sell the retail outlets to an owner who will likely offshore production. As a result, 625 manufacturing jobs will disappear.

The city points out that Chicago still has over 100 candy and confection-making companies, providing a $4 billion boost to the city’s economy. Brach’s, by far the largest manufacturer, recently completed its shutdown of its giant West Side factory — one of the last major factories in denuded West Garfield Park/Austin. Owner Barry Callebaut has moved production to Mexico, where American sugar price supports don’t artificially raise the price of candymaking. The sugar supports pay off Jeb Bush’s sugar plantation friends in Florida, corn-syrup distillers like ADM, and corn growers across the Plains, so they’re a great deal for Washington; problem is, America gets stuck with icky corn syrup instead of real sugar in everything, and our food suffers for it.

Meanwhile, tea sellers have caught on to the power of sugar. Of all the articles on the tea boom, this is the first I’ve seen which has caught on to the sugaring up of tea thanks to bubble tea and bottled Snapple tea — but also following Starbucks’ charge into the realm of sugar and spice (oh, and a little bit of burnt coffee). None of the various holiday-theme-flavored coffees and Frappuccinos that Starbucks trots out over the course of a year taste anything like coffee, but that’s the point: Trixies and other middle-American consumers guzzle them down, since sugar in copious quantites can hide whatever drug is hiding beneath (caffeine, or, in the case of flirtinis, grain alcohol).

An aside: Paul Fussell, in Class, writes:

The ultimate class bifurcation based on drink… cuts straight across the center of society, unmistakibly dividing the top classes from the bottom. I’m speaking about the difference between dry and sweet… To a startling degree, prole America is about sweet… Sweet alcoholic drinks are favored by the young and callow of all classes, a taste doubtless representing a transitional stage in the passage from the soda fountain to maturity.

The mystery owners behind the unnervingly well-capitalized Argo Tea, plopped right at Lincoln Park’s most conspicuous corner, are exposed with their plan: to convert half-caf-Frap-guzzling Trixies nationwide (starting in Lincoln Park, naturally) to tea with “Carolina Honey Breeze, a blend of honey, tea and lemon, and Tea Squeeze, a mix of hibiscus iced tea and lemonade.” Even the WASPy Yankees over at Nantucket Nectars mix their iced tea with sugary lemonade, creating something vaguely akin to the sweetened Lipton or Luzianne served by the pitcher all over the South. Kudos to the Trib’s ever-astute Susan Chandler for picking up on this.

And kudos too to John Wallace of the local Aion Tea & Antiquities: “I find people are looking for something that isn’t a cookie-cutter franchise environment. The environment is really important.” Sure, but for my buck, I really like the Zen appeal behind Wild Lily Tea Market and TeaNY. Tealuxe ain’t bad, even if I haven’t been to one in years; the East India Tea Company theme is kind of cute, and the brass tables at Harvard Square are a nice touch.

Want to find a tea house near you? Try TeaMap.