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Iced Tea

Tea Wars Part II

by Jeremy on April 8, 2010 · 0 comments

Not too long ago, I tasted and tested numerous Arnold Palmers with the hope of finding the best.  After an exhaustive search, I regrettably came to the conclusion that Tazo was the winner with their Black Tea and Lemonade.  After further review, however, I just can’t get over the fact that Tazo wants me to buy a 13 oz. beverage when standard size for these bad boys is 16-20 oz.  So I pretty much stopped buying it, and in the interest of integrity I feel the need to write about three different iced tea beverages that have won my heart, and that offer a size more agreeable to a writer for a blog called “Epic Portions.”  Take your shot glass size and sell it at Starbucks, Tazo, I’m ending our short but tumultuous relationship.  I have moved on, and like Hef, I have three to love now.

Sweet Leaf Organic Sweet Tea

Sweet Leaf Original Sweet Tea

One day, I was at my local Kroger at the “Nature’s Market” section, and was looking for Sweet Leaf’s Half and Half.  Sadly, they were out, so I chanced on their Sweet Tea.  Not normally a sweet tea drinker, I not only found that I liked their Sweet Tea, but it is better than their half and half.  This is my new go-to iced tea, and it is fantastic.  Operating out of Austin, TX, Sweet Leaf Organic’s Sweet Tea is their original concoction.  It gives you all the flavor of the tea with just the right amount of sweetness, not masking the tea flavor but enhancing it.  Many of you responded to my first post on this topic with disapproval of high fructose corn syrup, or “100% Natural” Peace Tea’s use of sucralose.  What I can say to you, gentle reader, is try this beverage!  You will not be disappointed.  Even the cute hippie girl cashier at Whole Foods commented on how great it was when I bought it the other day.

Honest Tea Half and Half

The good people at Honest Tea were kind enough to point out to me that they have an Arnold Palmer set to come onto the scene after reading my previous tea-related post.  In the interest of fairness, they sent me a bottle of their new Half and Half for yours truly to sample.  I can report to all who are interested that their Half and Half is close to perfection.  If you are unfamiliar with Honest Tea’s products,  let me say that if you have issue with syrupy sweet beverages, you will find Honest Tea’s Half and Half right up your alley.  Honest Tea tastes like tea, with a hint of flavor in the background.  They applied the same formula to their Half and Half, and it works quite well, with the sweetness from the lemonade half working with the tea flavor, and not overpowering it.  I am looking forward to the arrival of Honest Tea’s Half and Half on the shelves at my local food chopper.  They even have a cool new bottle.  Until that day arrives, if I have a craving for Honest Tea I will have to be satisfied with…

Honest Tea Peach White Tea

HonestTea Peach White, heaven in a bottle.

I was looking for the new Half and Half in the cool bottle when I saw Honest Tea’s Peach White Tea on the shelf.  When done right, the addition of peach to a beverage is exquisite.  And Honest Tea has done it right, this drink is a little slice of heaven.  True to form for Honest Tea, the tea flavor stands out, but the peach is subtle yet vibrant.  Drink this and compare it to Peace Iced Tea and tell me which one is 100% Natural.  No competition.

Heading into summer, it is nice to have new drinks for the journey.  All three of these are the best of the best.  Do yourself a favor, ditch Arizona or Peace or Lipton and give one (or all) of these a shot.  You can always go back, but I bet you won’t.

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Tea Wars, or Finding the Perfect Arnold Palmer

by Jeremy on February 21, 2010 · 10 comments

After reading John’s post about Peace Iced Tea, I decided to give it a try (you will get no stupid give peace a chance puns out of me.) I discovered, much as he said, that it was superior to Arizona and the $0.99 price was also quite nice. I then thought that it should be my mission to do some tea research of my own, specifically the wonderful half lemonade half iced tea concoction known as the Arnold Palmer. Over the past two weeks I’ve had more tea than Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady on a trip to Mexico. It has been a labor of love; it is difficult to screw up the Arnold Palmer, even at its worst it is still pretty delicious. Mixing iced tea with lemonade is magic. On top of that I owe the beverage a lot for helping to end my cursed addiction to Diet Mountain Dew.

First a few words about sweeteners. I already railed against high fructose corn syrup and will not use this post to do it again. It is simply a fact that an Arnold Palmer sweetened with HFCS just doesn’t taste quite right, and has a thick finish. Not what I’m looking for in a supposedly refreshing beverage. I’ve also tried many sweetened with sucralose, which is the primary sweetener in Lipton Diet Tea; pretty mediocre stuff if you ask me. Our friends at Peace Iced Tea combine the use of real sugar with sucralose to make a lower calorie version, highly superior to the diet teas.

What is sucralose, you ask? It’s the artificial sweetener used in Splenda. According to Wikipedia, it is 600 times sweeter than table sugar. Sorry Peace Iced Tea, you can say you use “all natural ingredients” but I’m not buying it.  You can plaster your can with all the hippie symbols you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that you use an artificial sweetener coupled with sugar for your tea. The use of sucralose and its unholy level of sweetness would explain why Peace Iced Tea leaves an unpleasant aftertaste in your mouth. Not awful, just not what one would hope for out of a true sweet lemon tea, as they call their Arnold Palmer.

So whose version of the Arnold Palmer is best? I found some really great ones out there, Nantucket Nectars Half and Half is outstanding, as is Sweet Leaf Organic Half and Half and Honest Tea Lori’s Lemon (even if the name is a little too cutesy for me.) It is with some regret, however, that I have to admit that Tazo Black Tea and Lemonade is the best version I found. I normally don’t like philosophical messages on my tea unless Sartre makes an appearance, but I suppose I can drink it without looking at the idiotic feel-good quotes.  I also am not a fan of Starbucks (they bought Tazo a little over ten years ago), but I will let John’s spot on rant about them be the definitive word on Starbucks instead of launching into a predictable anti-Starbucks diatribe.  I just have to assume that the original founders of Tazo came up with the current recipe and Starbucks was smart enough to leave it alone.

So there it is, Tazo Black Tea and Lemonade rocks. The only drawback is the 13 oz. bottle, but hey, I suppose I don’t need to drink any more than that anyway.  Have a different opinion or feel like I’ve missed something? Let me know, I’d love to do more tea research, it was good times.

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