The Battle of the Bottled Teas

Tea is absurdly easy to make, so why do so many of us buy bottled iced tea? Well, maybe we’re somewhere (such as work) where we can’t make it. Maybe we’re home, but at this time of year we can’t bear to turn on a burner, boil water, stand around while the tea steeps and then wait for it to chill.

Maybe the idea just sounds good when we want a soft drink that isn’t as sweet as a soda. It’s true, sweetened tea generally has about half the calories per ounce of a non-diet cola. That advantage is reduced somewhat when you consider that tea is usually sold in 16-ounce bottles while sodas come in 12-ounce cans, but it’s still usually the difference between 90 calories and 140. And there are sugarless bottled teas.

Whatever the reason, the supermarkets are giving us a lot of choices these days--it’s not hard to find four or five brands in a single store. Some are available in several flavors (in the case of Snapple, make that dozens), while others are just plain tea.

To evaluate the styles of several leading brands, this tasting concentrates on the most common flavor, lemon. The brands are arranged in order of increasing sweetness.

Tejava Premium Java Tea: Dark color, tea flavor is relatively strong but not very distinctive. Bitter tasting because, unlike the others in this tasting, it has no lemon flavoring or sweetening (you could add your own, of course). Imported from Japan, it is the only brand not sold in the usual American 16-ounce size. The 11.8-ounce bottles are also sealed with a crown cap requiring a bottle opener, rather than a screw top. No calories.

Snapple Lemon Flavored Iced Tea: Like all Snapple flavors, this has a murky, unfiltered look. Neutral tea flavor, very slightly sweetened. The effect is of a soft drink (or rather, because it’s not very sweet, a flavored mineral water), rather than a tea, with a faint astringency.

Nestea Natural Lemon Flavored Iced Tea: Moderately sweet, good balance of acidity, closest to the usual home-made iced tea. Medium tea aroma, cleanest lemon aroma.

Kona Ki Lemon: Slight tea aroma; citrus aroma has an odd, faint, candy-like note. For dieters only--it has the chalky taste of an artificial sweetener. No calories.

Mistic Iced Tea Naturally Lemon Flavored: Very faint, slightly “burnt” tea aroma. Dominant flavors are sugar and lemon, giving the effect of lemonade with a little tea in it. For tea drinkers who don’t really like tea.

Twinings Ceylon Blend Iced Tea Sweetened/With Lemon: Best tea aroma. But sugary sweet. Has 100 calories, compared to the 90 calories of most other brands.