Sweet Tea

Has anyone tried Arizona Sweet Tea? I know it doesn't really compare to made from scratch, but it tastes pretty smooth nonetheless.

http://www.arizonabev.com/csr/prodtypeitem.asp?item=1611&cat=1

Thanks, I am looking for a good Sweet Tea. I will give it a try. But I like my tea without Lemon.

quote:

Originally posted by BigGlenn

Thanks, I am looking for a good Sweet Tea. I will give it a try. But I like my tea without Lemon.

I'm not a fan of lemon in tea myself. This tea is very mild with a nice level of sugar sweetness.

It's been a while since I went looking for sweet tea, but I found that most of them were tolerable as long as you had ice to pour them over. They occasionally had them at work and I'd get one when I was trying to cut back on carbonated drinks.
I agree with the absolute absence of lemon. What they consider lemon flavor and what I consider lemon flavor are two widely different things.

I buy the Diet version of this and it's quite good.

I've tried the Arazona tea, and I don't like it. The best and closest to "Real" sweet tea is Tradewinds Extra Sweet Tea. Lipton does not do a bad job either on their "Southern Style" sweet tea.
Matt

"Bojangles" has the best sweet tea for a chain.

For those in the mid-atlantic states Harrisburg dairies makes a good sweet tea. It tends to be most available at local mom and pops.
I purchase it at Bests Fruit Farm on Route 46 in Hacketstown NJ

For those in the Southeast, Publix supermarket sells an acceptable sweet tea (as well as an unsweet version) in gallon jugs.

Food Lion up in DC area also sells Sweet tea in jugs that is pretty good.
Matt

It is not physically or chemically possible to have good iced tea, sweetened or otherwise that comes from a source besides your own boiling water, sugar, and tea bags. And the serving of store-bought tea is a misdemeanor in the Carolinas or Georgia.

I have been looking for on online source for Arizona Sweet Tea because no one in Seattle carries it. We can get the Green Tea, Plum Tea, Black Tea with Ginseng, and the Teas with Lemon or other fruit flavors but we can't get plain old tea with sugar. For sweet tea in Seattle it's Lipton or make it yourself.

I make tea the lazy way. I put 10 tea bags in my pitcher. Add water. Wait. That is it. It is kind of like sun tea, but you don't really need the sun. It takes a few hours, or overnight. Sounds simple and it is, but the tea is pretty good, and you can't get any easier. I use splenda to sweeten. I usually keep a saucer over the top.

I make my own sweet tea these days and it takes very little time to do it. But if I am in a rush, the Publix supermarket chain here in Florida makes a good sweet tea, almost a little too sweet even for my sweet tooth.

John

What brand of tea bags do you use? I have found lately that Lipton, Red Rose, and Tetley's all have a tendency to make my mouth feel dry, where as bottled tea does not.

Best bags for iced tea are Luzianne - think it's generally available throughout the country. If in South, try Red Diamond.

Sweet Tea...

Sweet Tea...

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen



Sweet Tea...

Ditto, especially with Q

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Posted - 05/27/2005 : 15:25:39
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I make tea the lazy way. I put 10 tea bags in my pitcher. Add water. Wait. That is it. It is kind of like sun tea, but you don't really need the sun. It takes a few hours, or overnight. Sounds simple and it is, but the tea is pretty good, and you can't get any easier. I use splenda to sweeten. I usually keep a saucer over the top.

Through college, I had a summer job working maintenance in a chemical plant. For lunch, I'd take a 1/2 gallon insulated jug, the night before fill it with hot water out of the tap, some tea bags, then take it to work in the morning and put it in the lunch room fridge, and by lunch it was perfect.

I still use Lipton's for my sweet tea. Works fine for me.

John

Being diabetic I don't drink sweet (sugar) tea. For years I've used 6 lipton bags to a gallon of water. Put it out in the sun for a couple hours and add sweet n low. I drink a gallon in about a day.5

MikeS.

To answer your question, (remember I am lazy), I don't use Lipton, because I don't like unwrapping each individual tea bag. I use what is on sale. Tetley, usually.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeSh

Being diabetic I don't drink sweet (sugar) tea. For years I've used 6 lipton bags to a gallon of water. Put it out in the sun for a couple hours and add sweet n low. I drink a gallon in about a day.5

MikeS.

Sweet tea is sweet tea--don't matter what you sweeten it with. Although, as I said, the Publix stuff isn't bad in a pinch, I generally make my own with whatever decaffinated (caffeine put me into atrial fibrillation once) tea bags I can get (usually buy 'em at Wal-Mart) and sweeten it these days with Splenda. I use to use Sweet 'N Low but my dad recently died of bladder cancer and I've read there's an association between bladder cancer and saccharine which, in the research, seems especially strong in people who drink lots of drinks sweetened with the stuff. Hence, although it may be too late for me as well, I've gone off the Sweet 'N Low and onto the Splenda.

I have never gotten the hang of sweet tea.

I thought all tea was the same, but when I saw a line of people buying gallons of home made tea at The Beacon in Spartunburg I had to wonder ...

quote:

Originally posted by CarolinaBill

Best bags for iced tea are Luzianne - think it's generally available throughout the country. If in South, try Red Diamond.

Sadly, no Luzianne in New England. I wish! I'm pretty much stuck with Red Rose, which does an entirely passable job.

Actually brewed up a pot over the weekend after we came back from Stillman's Farm with a ton of plants for the front yard and stoop. (My chile seedlings didn't stand a chance this year, it having been so cloudy and rainy all spring, so I got some lovely ancho, jalapeno and cherry plants, which are thriving.) After we planted them all, I went in and made a simple syrup infused with two stalks' worth of the front stoop mint and a tablespoon of Penzey's lemon zest. Steeped a dozen Red Rose bags in a quart of just-off-the-boil water for five minutes, and poured that and another quart of water over ice, followed by about a half-cup of the syrup. Just right.

Stored the leftovers in a Mason jar in the fridge, as you do, and I just bolted the last three cups of it down, since I have a lot of writing to finish tonight.

Mother would run hot tap water into a clean quart mayo jar until it was as hot as it was going to get, then trailed 3 A & P Our Own teabags into the water for 15 minutes. This is then poured over some ice and 1/4 cup sugar placed in a pitcher. Stir in the sugar, then add cold water to fill and stir again. It never, never clouds. I was 50 this past spring, so, of course, I now know my mother was a genius! If only I could get that A & P tea again.

Good tea is all in the brew.
Most tea bags are trash.(Think its just tea leaves right?)
Tea leaf quality.
Water temp.
Don't submerge the bags too long.

I refer to one major-marketed tea as "floor sweepings," but I think there's such a thing as tea that's too good to make into iced tea. Most Americans never taste such teas, though. A British vessel on which I sailed used the floor sweepings brand, so I bought teas while on shore tours. Ironic, isn't it? Let me add water quality to your list, 1chef. Brew that tea, any tea, at home, and make a superior beverage for a fraction of what bought tea costs.

This is my first post, hello to everyone. Arizona Sweet Tea is about the best canned tea I have had, but still not real tea. After 30+ years I still crave the taste of my grandmoms sweet tea. I have never been able to make it the way she did. I remember she always used Lipton that had to be stranied, not in a bag. It was the very best I have ever had. I do however, make a decent sweet tea with Luzianne tea bags. I find making sweet tea is a lot like bbq,it varys from person to person.

My mother-in-law lives in Charleston,SC and they grow tea on James Island, it is the best, I put 10 large bags of tea in my basket of my coffee pot, add some water(small amount with splenda) in the carafe, and put the water in the top of the pot, like you were making coffee, make it strong, then add cold water to the pitcher that I pour the tea into, the tea is grown in Charleston,SC "American Classic Tea"
Classic Tea Gardens, really good.