Americans are entitled to do a bit of chest-beating upon learning that iced
tea - that amazing thirst-quencher - was invented on native soil. Snapple,
SoBe, AriZona and Nestea can all trace their history to a fateful day a
hundred years ago. A tea exhibitor at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition could
not entice a soul to try his steaming beverage. The sweltering heat drove
all visitors past his wares. Until he struck upon a solution. Borrowing
ice from a nearby ice cream stand, he created a beverage that would endure
for the next hundred years.
Unfortunately, some bad things happened along the way. The all-natural,
simple-to-make beverage had morphed into a mass-market concoction our
hapless exhibitor would hardly recognize. To see how far we've strayed,
simply glance at the list of ingredients on any iced tea product in your
fridge. Warning to the wise: be sure to brush up on your chemistry notes
beforehand. You'll be hard-pressed to decipher the contents otherwise.
Why all the mumbo-gumbo? Do these strange-sounding ingredients make tea
taste better? Unfortunately, not. Their role is preservation. Giving your
tea years of shelf-life, as it completes an arduous journey from factory to
warehouse to your fridge.
Snapple Bottle Image
More ominously, many tea brands are tea in name only. Long ago, they ceased
to be brewed from tea leaves. Powders and concentrates that aim to resemble
tea are the base ingredient now. But not the biggest one. That role is
reserved for corn syrup and caramel, rendering most iced teas on the market today
brightly-packaged, much-hyped, and sadly overpriced sugary water. A bit of
tea powder is typically thrown in to tap into the "tea is good for you"
sentiment. After all, allusions to the many health benefits of tea are an
important selling point for these products.
Sadly, they fail to mention a growing volume of research showing how empty
their promises are. It turns out that iced tea made from concentrate contains a
fraction of the benefits found in a tea brewed from fresh leaves. A sad
fact of life that no amount of ginseng or echinacea flowers or any other
exotic ingredient their marketing folks dream up will be able to reverse.
AnTEAdote Bottle
Does this story have a happy ending? Of course it does. Jostling for your
attention is a new product called
Anteadote,
an iced tea made with a
progressive bottling process that extracts oxygen, the cause of food
spoilage. With oxygen gone, so is the need to laden the product with
chemicals or preservatives. The result is a product that is as pure as any
tea freshly prepared.
Nor will you need a degree in chemistry to read its list of ingredients.
These are simply fresh tea leaves, filtered water and vitamin C. Its
authenticity goes well beyond taste, which is indistinguishable from a
freshly-brewed cup. More importantly, Anteadote delivers on the many
promising health benefits of tea, which include an ability to ward off
cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, weight gain, and more. Please view information on the many
health benefits of tea.
And when you next find yourself in a supermarket, confronting the dismal options on display,
remember that your choice of iced tea has now become much better.
