Phantom-like Menace
12-01-2006, 11:26 PM
I know I was born and raised in the Southern United States, so there is more iced tea in my veins than there is blood, which means I probably think about this more than those of you who live in the North and outside the United States, but it really does tick me off.
If I want the convenience of a vending machine, I have four basic choices of beverage: soda; juice; water; or some kind of brown, slightly "off" lemonade that is labelled tea but is a rather unconvincing facsimile. So I find myself curious if the vile concoction of chemicals they throw into this stuff tastes so little like tea they have to disguise it with lemon, or if it is just a campaign to make people outside of the Southern US accept it as a drink, thereby making it less than acceptable to self-respecting iced tea drinkers.
The best bet is with green tea. The Arizona company makes a serviceable green tea with (you guessed it) lemon, but it's not an overpowering lemon flavor, although I've never seen it in a vending machine. The worst bet I've tried for green tea was Sobe. It's usually a bad idea to try their drinks, but it's an especially bad idea to try their green tea. Not only is there lemon in it, but there is mint in it. After taking my first sip, all I could imagine was them wringing out a piece of abc mint gum over the bottle to get that flavor.
But this leads me to the best bet I've found. I was in Wal-Mart late one night (the only twenty-four hour grocery I have access to), and I saw a product called Gold Peak Iced Tea. I was curious, so I grabbed their green tea. It was delicious! There was not a drop of lemon in it, and certainly no mint. I was in heaven. I purchased a bottle or two every time I found myself in Wal-Mart (the only place I've ever seen it), and I haven't seen any more of it in a couple of months. I looked on the Internet and discovered it's a Coke product that they put out earlier this summer, but I haven't found anything else beyond that. I figure it didn't do well because it didn't have that cursed lemon in it, and it got dropped.
So now I'm at work, bored, and trying to satiate my thirst with a bottle of Nestea. I'm being taunted by the description above the name: Sweetened Lemon Flavored Iced Tea. Yes, they felt they had to enlarge the size of the word lemon as though I couldn't safely assume it--like almost every single bottled tea I've ever seen--has lemon flavoring added to it. Of course, I figured a tirade about the subject was in order, and I could think of no better place to therapeutically complain than here.
If I want the convenience of a vending machine, I have four basic choices of beverage: soda; juice; water; or some kind of brown, slightly "off" lemonade that is labelled tea but is a rather unconvincing facsimile. So I find myself curious if the vile concoction of chemicals they throw into this stuff tastes so little like tea they have to disguise it with lemon, or if it is just a campaign to make people outside of the Southern US accept it as a drink, thereby making it less than acceptable to self-respecting iced tea drinkers.
The best bet is with green tea. The Arizona company makes a serviceable green tea with (you guessed it) lemon, but it's not an overpowering lemon flavor, although I've never seen it in a vending machine. The worst bet I've tried for green tea was Sobe. It's usually a bad idea to try their drinks, but it's an especially bad idea to try their green tea. Not only is there lemon in it, but there is mint in it. After taking my first sip, all I could imagine was them wringing out a piece of abc mint gum over the bottle to get that flavor.
But this leads me to the best bet I've found. I was in Wal-Mart late one night (the only twenty-four hour grocery I have access to), and I saw a product called Gold Peak Iced Tea. I was curious, so I grabbed their green tea. It was delicious! There was not a drop of lemon in it, and certainly no mint. I was in heaven. I purchased a bottle or two every time I found myself in Wal-Mart (the only place I've ever seen it), and I haven't seen any more of it in a couple of months. I looked on the Internet and discovered it's a Coke product that they put out earlier this summer, but I haven't found anything else beyond that. I figure it didn't do well because it didn't have that cursed lemon in it, and it got dropped.
So now I'm at work, bored, and trying to satiate my thirst with a bottle of Nestea. I'm being taunted by the description above the name: Sweetened Lemon Flavored Iced Tea. Yes, they felt they had to enlarge the size of the word lemon as though I couldn't safely assume it--like almost every single bottled tea I've ever seen--has lemon flavoring added to it. Of course, I figured a tirade about the subject was in order, and I could think of no better place to therapeutically complain than here.