Iced tea is a drink that you can enjoy at any time of the year—although, for obvious reasons, it’s much more pleasurable to sip on during the hot summer months as a means to cool off and rehydrate. What’s better than grabbing a bottle and walking on the beach, going for a hike, or heading to a picnic in the park? It’s more interesting than water, but it’ll still keep you hydrated. The team at Eat This, Not That! wanted to sample 10 different popular iced teas brands to find the best-tasting one you’ll want to grab this summer. We chose to sample each brand’s lemon-flavored tea because when we think of iced tea, we all agreed that’s the most widely liked and popular flavor.
Now, discover what we deemed the best iced tea from our taste test. And for more, don’t miss these 15 Classic American Desserts That Deserve a Comeback.
We graded solely on flavor. Our main goal was to choose something that actually tasted like tea (and not sugar water). To keep the taste test even, we only picked the lemon flavor from each brand. We selected our top three favorites out of 10 different iced tea brands:
- Joe Tea
- Snapple
- Arizona
- Honest Tea
- Pure Leaf
- Tazo
- Sweet Leaf Tea Company
- Gold Peak
- Turkey Hill
- Steaz
And our top 3 were…
Eat This, Not That! Verdict
For a few taste testers, Turkey Hill’s lemon iced tea was their top pick among the iced tea brands we tried. In fact, it brought back fond memories.
“I liked the sweetness here,” said one taste tester. She also wrote that it reminded her of swigging on iced tea while sitting on the porch in the summer. Another taste tester said that it had the perfect amount of sweetness, and doesn’t leave a bad aftertaste as some flavored teas tend to do. While some editors were pleased with this tea, others were not as impressed.
“Just tastes like sugar,” one taste tester said. Another shared, “Basic flavor; nothing memorable and tastes rather artificial.”
As you can see, we have a wide range of preferences in the office. However, this one won the hearts of quite a few, which is why it made the top three.
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Eat This, Not That! Verdict
Many of us agreed that Pure Leaf’s lemon tea met our expectations of what we would prefer a glass of lemon tea to taste like. One taste tester described the taste as lemony and herbal. “It makes me feel healthy when I drink it, like I am one with the earth,” she said.
Another wrote, “Tastes the most like real tea of the ones I tasted; sweet without being too much.”
Overall, we appreciated how this lemon tea variety actually tasted like tea, rather than sugary water with a hint of tea.
Eat This, Not That! Verdict
Finally, the best iced tea was Tazo lemon ginger. The ginger is what scored this tea first place—the kick of spice was gentle yet noticeable. One taste tester was shocked that it was pre-bottled.
“Pleasantly surprised,” she penned. “The ginger is subtle and refreshing; tastes fancy and not what you would expect from a bottled iced tea.”
Other taste testers said the tea was very pleasant to drink, not overly sweet, flavorful, and had a clean finish.
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