ice tea

Iced tea is the cold drink people reach for when they want tea flavor without the heat or the tannin-heavy ritual of brewing a hot cup. By our assessment, it is strongest when it stays close to tea rather than turning into syrup: black tea with lemon, green tea with fruit, or plain sweetened tea over ice. The obvious limit is that many bottled versions lean heavily on sugar, so the drink can stop feeling like tea and start feeling like soft drink. In practice the appeal is the chill, the lighter body, and the fact that it can be sipped fast on a warm day. Compared with soda it is less sharp and often less fizzy; compared with hot tea it gives up warmth and that immediate brewed smell. The Astrina catalogue lists ice tea under en:iced-teas, and that is exactly the category it lives in.