I've been sampling the local mass produced sweet teas at my local Wal-Mart. For those who don't know, Sweet tea is a Southern US kind of thing (In my experience anyway). Iced tea with lots of sugar/sweetener. For more details - If you wander over to FoodTV.com and poke around for the Alton Brown pages - he did sweet tea in one of his shows. He made a sugar syrup and used that in his tea.
If you go into a restaurant around here you are often given the choice between unsweet and sweet tea. Further south you don't usually get a choice.
It's VERY sweet.
There were three brands at my local.
Store brand "Ready to drink sweetened tea"
Ingredients: water, corn syrup, sugar, tea, caramel color, and FD&C Yellow #6
80 calories a serving (8oz.)
Mayfield "Brewed Sweet Tea"
(Mayfield is the local beverage/dairy place)
Ingredients: water, sugar, tea, caramel color, gum arabic, medium chain triglycerides, gycerol ester of wood rosin, brominated soybean oil, potasium sorbate (as a preservatice.)
(Doesn't that all sound delicious!)
90 calories per 8 oz. serving.
Milo's Famouys Sweet Tea (Apparently from Alabama (Milo's Tea Company
Ingredients: water, sugar, and custom blended teas.
90 calories per 8 oz. serving.
As for flavor?
The store brand was very bland. The Mayfield had the best "tea" flavor (must be all those chemicals - I wonder if they'll sue me for saying that?). Milo's was the sweetest with a mild tea flavor.
Cost? They were all under $2/gallon The store brand and Mayfield had the same price spread as their milk. (Mayfield is at least 10% higher than the store brand.)
What else is there to know? It's Milo's if you want tea without any non-tea chemicals (Though I suspect some of the Mayfield chemicals come from the tea they used. I'll have to find a chemist and ask.)
6:23:26 PM 
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