Can I save overly sweet iced tea powder somehow?

Ben84

I mail ordered a huge 3 Kg tin of iced tea powder to get me through the summer without lugging all those heavy bottles back from the store and spending a fortune on them as well. Seemed a bit of a risk to buy the huge tin, but reviews online were very positive and the potential savings in money and convenience pretty large. So, I took a chance. Now, ~£20 and a few days later it turns up and things aren't going well because it's hideously sweet. Tastes like it would be decent enough if it was just a bit less sweet however, so is there something I could do with it? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

pretz_2

have you tried adding lemon juice to it? just a thought as i know when something is sweet you add acid.

carebabe

make an ordinary brew with tea bags and mix in with a batch made with iced tea powder. this might make the taste more acceptable to you.

Ben84

pretz wrote: »

have you tried adding lemon juice to it? just a thought as i know when something is sweet you add acid.

Thanks, that helped. I added the juice of half a lemon to the jug and it is notably improved.

I also checked the tin and found it is 95% sugar. Fortunately I like iced tea quite dilute so only used one tablespoon in a litre, but the tin suggests five heaped tablespoons to a litre! I may give up trying to drink this stuff on health grounds. Plus, at 1/5th dilution suggested, it's going to make about 165 litres...

Ben84

carebabe wrote: »

make an ordinary brew with tea bags and mix in with a batch made with iced tea powder. this might make the taste more acceptable to you.

Thanks, I'll give that a try later. As I recall, cold black tea is fairly bitter, so it might just balance out.

arkonite_babe

yes cold black tea is bitter but if you add a pinch of baking soda to the black tea it takes the bitterness away. Don't ask me how, it just does. Oh and it is literally a pinch for about 2lts of liquid!

I make about 2lts of sweet tea as follows

boil kettle
in a heatproof jug pour in water
add 6 tea bags and a pinch of baking soda
quick stir and bring out tea bags when at my desired strength
sweeten to taste with sugar/stevia/sweetner/honey as you like
chill and drink as is or with ice

hope this helps

Ben84

arkonite_babe wrote: »

yes cold black tea is bitter but if you add a pinch of baking soda to the black tea it takes the bitterness away. Don't ask me how, it just does. Oh and it is literally a pinch for about 2lts of liquid!

I make about 2lts of sweet tea as follows

boil kettle
in a heatproof jug pour in water
add 6 tea bags and a pinch of baking soda
quick stir and bring out tea bags when at my desired strength
sweeten to taste with sugar/stevia/sweetner/honey as you like
chill and drink as is or with ice

hope this helps

That did help a lot. My previous attempts at iced tea have been foul, but I figured I'd try again as this method is new to me. Usually the tea goes opaque and exceptionally bitter when it cools, but this time I used Sainsbury's gold label tea bags and it went that slightly red colour iced tea usually is and stayed clear. Didn't seem bitter either and was quite good, but I put in the pinch of baking powder anyway to see what would happen and suddenly it tasted like I wanted it to. Anyway, some lemon juice, a little sugar, then I chilled it and it tastes very good.

As for the powder that started all of this, unless there's some new non-food use for it, I think that just has to go. The more I taste it the more I never want to taste it again. Pity to bin something that cost almost £20, but it ended up with my finding out how to make good iced tea myself so I kind of got what I wanted (supply of good tasting, lightweight and cheap iced tea for the summer) anyway.

arkonite_babe

:T I'm glad it worked for you!

kittycat204

I found this recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-ice-tea-clone-copycat-of-lipton-ice-tea-285512
found orange pekoe tea from whittards. make it all the time now. drink it hot or cold. don't stick to this recipe, just tea bag, less sugar, and juice of half a lemon.
hope this helps.

Ben84

kittycat204 wrote: »

I found this recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-ice-tea-clone-copycat-of-lipton-ice-tea-285512
found orange pekoe tea from whittards. make it all the time now. drink it hot or cold. don't stick to this recipe, just tea bag, less sugar, and juice of half a lemon.
hope this helps.

Thanks for the link. The lipton ice tea in the plastic bottles is pretty good so making something like that would be nice. I'd agree though, this recipe does seem to have excessive sugar and I doubt there is that much in the version they sell here. I made mine with three teaspoons of sugar per litre - but how bitter or sharp the tea itself is probably decides how much you add as much as personal taste.

wondercollie

Don't bin it. Take it into work and leave it on the kitchen counter with a help yourself note tacked to it. Anything I leave there (with or without a note) disappears.