That quintessentially simple beverage “Iced Tea”, consisting of Hot Tea made cold through the addition of Ice, seems to be an endangered beverage of late. I’ve had two recent encounters with something that was sold as “Iced Tea” but was thick enough to be pancake syrup. It was dispensed through what looked like one of those old stainless steel Iced Tea dispensers but what came out wasn’t Iced Tea.
In one case I got this beverage that was literally as thick as syrup. It sort of looked like tea… it didn’t much taste like tea though. Then today, at another restaurant, I filled my cup from the “Iced Tea” dispenser only to receive the same syrupy “tea”.
Now, I don’t know about other people’s version of tea… but in my experience concentrated tea has never been thick like a syrup. Dark and bitter… yeah… I’ve made really concentrated tea like that before… but it wasn’t thick like syrup.
So, this brings up the question… What non-tea substance is being used to make Tea Concentrate thick? What thickener are they adding? Wheat Gluten? Gelatin? What? And, if they are adding such things to tea… why can they still call it Tea?
