Bottled Iced Tea: Inko's Honeydew White Tea

The third bottle of bottled iced tea I purchased and consumed today was by far the one that pleased me most.  Unlike Inko's White Peach, the Honeydew White Tea is not too sweet.  There's some sweetness, but it is tempered by the flavor of honeydew melon.  I can taste the tea in this one, mingling nicely with the rounded green flavor of the melon, and without excess sugar.

So far Inko's is 2 for 3 on its bottled teas.

Bottled Iced Tea: Inko's White Peach

Inko's White Blueberry Tea was pretty good.  The White Peach is merely mediocre.  It suffers from the common failing of being too sweet, more like a tea-flavored fruit punch than actual white tea put on ice.  The flavoring isn't even noticeably peach-like or fruity.  It's simply sweet.

I'm disappointed and will not be picking up a second bottle of Inko's White Peach.

Bottled Iced Tea: Gold Peak Unsweetened

At last!  A bottled iced tea whose primary defect is not being overly sweet.  Gold Peak Unsweetened has the sharp bite of true black tea, the nicely bitter tang that clears your palate and refreshes.  In short, it's bottled tea that tastes like tea, not like whatever the trendy flavoring du jour happens to be.  Unfortunately, it's not particularly good black tea.  It's got one note, without any of the complexities that a good black can have even when iced.

Several local diners and restaurants are now also carrying it in carafes.  In that form, it has a little more character than the bottled form, but just a little.

That being said, if you want a bottled tea that tastes like actual tea without needing to spend a fortune, Gold Peak Unsweetened does the job.

Bottled Iced Tea: Gold Peak Green Tea

My quest for a bottled tea that rises above adequate continues without success.  As I suspected it would.

Gold Peak Green Tea is sweetened, which is less than optimal, but at least it's sweetened with sugar instead of HFC.  It's about medium sweet -- less than Snapple and far far less than the average "sweet tea."  The sweetness is fairly mellow, but it still cuts out anything resembling the taste of green tea.  All in all, Gold Peak Green Tea falls under the heading of "adequately drinkable"

Adequate Commercial Iced Tea

When I am desperately thirsty and/or needing caffeine, my threshold for iced tea is not high.  If it is cold, liquid, contains caffeine and doesn't taste like slightly diluted fructose syrup, I'll probably drink it.  As thirsty and in need of caffeine sort of defines my morning state, I drink a lot of commercial iced tea in the summer.

Commercial teas that meet my threshold of adequately drinkable can be found at Dunkin' Donuts, Panera and (yes really) Starbucks.  They get the job done without actively offending my palate.  Not that this is high praise, of course.

Good iced tea has to be made in smaller batches.  I've yet to find a mass-produced tea, even one that is brewed with leaves, that is truly flavorful and satisfying.