By Ruel S. De Vera
Associate Editor
EVERYONE needs to remember their first time. Drinking iced tea, that is. This beguiling cocktail of the good and the bad, the real and unreal, the pedestrian and the unexpected, really is a drink that escapes easy classification. It’s both thick and thin, sweet and sometimes tart, smooth and yet filling, something to long for and look forward to and then is finished so quickly you didn’t notice; yes, it’s a lot like romance.
Even what to call it is a matter of some dispute as the term “ice tea” had gained wide acceptance. While it is acceptable, it isn’t as accurate, as prevalent or as evocative as the term “iced tea,” which means tea with ice, after all.
It’s a pretty safe bet that whoever it was who first mixed ice cubes with tea (most likely in India or China sometime before the 19th century) knew immediately this was going to be a pretty good drink. The variety of tea doesn’t even really matter but the key is the presence of ice, and lots of it. It might, however disturb some people to find out that sweetened iced tea is a much later creation, a very recent one, in fact.
But for me, iced tea was a discovery that came with many other things during college in the early 1990s. At a time when it was a rather hard to find drink in restaurants, an iced tea stall appeared in our cafeteria, serving up a very subtly sweet and clear iced tea that we fell in love with. That stall stayed in our cafeteria for several years until it was driven out by the fact that all the food stalls had started serving iced tea as well.
Since then, I’ve been driven to distraction looking for good iced tea wherever I was in the world. The United States is a strange case. Even just a few years ago, ordering an iced tea at McDonalds meant a gigantic, frosty cup of tea which was unsweetened and—believe it—seemed to consciously resist any attempt to sweeten it, no matter how many ounces of sugar and honey is dumped into the thing. It was really cheap though. I kept running into that problem, in both East and West Coast, a strange thing considering that all the iced tea served in the South is so sweet, it’s basically sugar with a straw. Now, many restaurants offer a sweet and unsweetened iced tea, many of them still rather bland. That’s a bit of a conundrum, consider that it is also in the States where I discovered my favorite form of iced tea evolution: Nantucket Nectars Half & Half, which is a ridiculously good mix of iced tea and lemonade, all natural and awesome.
Every country now has its own way of taking iced tea. In the Philippines, our iced is uniform in two things: it’s wildly sweet and lemon-flavored, which is a very accurate description for Nestea. Nestea is so dominant that it has practically become shorthand for iced tea in some cases. It’s available in bottles as well as in powdered form, which explains its occupation of household pitchers and individual Coleman jugs. Its ubiquity, particularly as the bottomless iced tea of resto vintage, and dominance has led to the fact that it becomes the default iced tea. Plus, Nestea’s kalamansi flavor is pretty good and Nestea’s brand new Real Leaf iced tea in Honey Lemon flavor is wonderful.
The chase for the choice iced tea thus leads to restaurants and cafes, with the overwhelming majority carrying Nestea and the rest bravely and innovatively coming up with their own iced tea derivation. Here are my five favorites:
1. My all-time favorite iced tea is, like many of our fondest memories, anchored to things that no longer exist. The iced tea in my college cafeteria and the patiently prepared concoction at the much-missed Prospero’s are simply the stuff of legend. The fact you can’t have them anymore makes them all the more desirable.
2. The iced tea at the original Penguin Café in Malate was a murky treat, all blend and somewhat creamy, inviting thoughts of everything for vanilla to mocha. Good stuff. This I also found in the iced tea of the defunct Eyrie Café in Katipunan. The closest approximation would be the iced team at the Good Earth Tea House.
3. The iced tea at Cibo is the perfect refreshment after a day at the mall. Tall and sweating, this lemon-infused (you really can tell) is a treat I begin thinking about the moment I actually set foot in the mall. And it’s really tall.
4. Kitchen used to serve a refreshing Pandan-infused drink called Leaves of Grass that I thought was the closest thing to an indigenous iced tea. The repeat trips to the bathroom due to the cleansing effect was worth the amazing taste of this drink.
5. The getaway version of iced tea that lives forever in my head is a summer wonder. All the fruit shakes at the amazing Jony’s Beach Resort in Boracay are works of art, but the tall drink of frozen water (with infused flavor) that is the frozen iced tea is the stuff of dreams.
Which are yours?
Read all about the newest iced tea on the racks on the August 2, 2009 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.
How Do I Iced Tea?
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One iced tea variant that really brings back bad memories is the powdered iced tea offering of Magnolia.
I'm not sure why, but there have been many occasions that I ended up doubling over in pain after drinking the Magnolia iced tea.
The worst was when I felt my kidneys were about to burst after drinking a few glasses of the stuff. I successfully conducted a trial and error experiment to prove to myself the pain was a result of my drinking their product.
I also had a few other individuals try the Magnolia Iced tea and ended up with the same results.
Let me tell you, peeing blood and passing hard mineral deposits through my urethra is an unforgettable experience I would not like to experience again!
Iced tea is still my drink of choice. The best Iced Teas are usually the ones with the most natural ingredients. More real tea, more real lemon and honey will definitely hit the spot!
My all-time favorites are Wendy's, Almon Marina's, and Chocolate Kisses' versions of iced tea.
However, special mention must be made for Oody's tanglad/pandan iced tea which is equally refreshing.
Mine's the most common iced tea in the Philippines -- Nestea. :)
I-bottomless mo! haha!
hello! atenean ka? hehehe may iced tea kasi noon sa ateneo na brewed and sobra sarap. I would consume around ten cups a day. namiss ko tuloy yun.
I tried the same thing when I was in Austin, Texas a few years back, and I can't drink it! :)
Try Lipton lemon iced tea. It tastes better than Nestea. :)
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But for me, iced tea was a discovery that came with many other things during college in the early 1990s. At a time when it was a rather hard to find drink in restaurants, an iced tea stall appeared in our cafeteria, serving up a very subtly sweet and clear iced tea that we fell in love with. That stall stayed in our cafeteria for several years until it was driven out by the fact that all the food stalls had started serving iced tea as well.
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One iced tea variant that really brings back bad memories is the powdered iced tea offering of Magnolia.
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