Almost all the commercial iced tea I can get also has way too much citric acid (not even real lemon juice) and hardly tastes of tea at all, more like sweetened battery acid. The only exception is the entirely unsweetened variety. And apart from the Japanese and Taiwanese imports which require a trip to the local H-Mart, all the green tea comes with disgusting ginseng for some unknown reason.The only sweetened tea I can tolerate is the Snapple peach flavor, which has an authentic “fuzzy” effect that most other peach-flavored things fail to replicate, but which also has essentially no flavor of tea.
Pretty much all non-Japanese bottled iced tea is awful. The Japanese stuff is delectable, though.
I used to like that Lipton diet Green Tea.
I also used to be an idiot. I tried that stuff again recently and, seriously, wth was wrong with me.
Snapple diet peach tea is delicious diluted 1:3 with seltzer.
Well if you like ocha, green tea. In the USA I am sure English tea is more common.
My sister suggested I try Hintt. She says it doesn’t just say natural it tastes natural which would be a change. I can’t find it locally so far.
They make black, white, jasmine, matcha, and oolong iced tea also. All of it is awesome.
https://www.itoen.com/ready-to-drink/teas-tea/unsweetened?limit=all&p=2
https://www.itoen.com/ready-to-drink/traditional
Yeah I know. I was there for a bit. You’re going to get ocha as a default, and I’ve heard from Europeans and Southerns the English tea is not what they were looking for. I found it all ghastly.
Southerns expect liptons sweetened until syrupy. I didn’t know europe had a real iced tea culture.
If you’re buying tea out of a plastic bottle in Japan or Korea or a few other countries actually, it’s clearly not iced. There are a number of countries that seem to enjoy hot tea, not just England.
But I was talking about iced tea, not hot. I haven’t been to Korea but I saw iced tea all over Tokyo. Don’t know how popular it was compared to hot, but they did stock it at 7-11.
I like an Arnold Palmer when it’s properly made. The canned versions are egregious.
If you have access to a Chinatown, Seasons and Yeo’s make some pretty good cold tea-drinks, but most of them are basically sodas, sweetness wise.
In England, if you want iced tea, you just make it fresh. Or buy the Japanese stuff.
You literally linked to plastic bottles of ready to drink tea. I lived in Japan for awhile. I have a general idea of what is available. Tokyo is a good example but it also caters to foreigners, including visitors from Asia.
I’m just saying if someone is looking for “good” English tea, Japan’s style might not be what they had in mind.
Ahh, did not know that.
It’s certainly different than earl grey poured over ice, sure.
Homemade or forget about it, agree.
They do it in the Middle East as well. Korea does Iced Tea. Southeast Asia too.
Most of the Middle East also goes hot Chai…when it’s like…120 degrees F. So…you know…to each their own.
I find it incredibly fascinating how similar except not that similar some things are between various countries, like… tea… When I grew up, tea was just tea, still gross but tea. As I got older and aware I began to realize what a broad category tea actually is, especially the ones that don’t even have tea leaves in it.
My dad likes to tell the story about how his (New England) ancestors used to say that you should drink hot soup on a hot day, to try to equalize the temperature inside and outside your body.
Climate, availability (historically) and cultural taboos/preferences (including religious in that category). In my experience/observation, that is what drives food/drink/cuisine in places. Insert modern availability into the equation, and it adds to the selection, filtered through the same lens in my first sentence.