China Mist Iced Tea

Jun 16

I’ve been jonesing - seriously, jonesing - for a decent drink lately. Its nearly summer now, and my daily five cup habit of steaming hot Twinings Earl Grey has been leaving something to be desired. The mercury’s rising, the sun is shining, and I’m realizing its time to enjoy a tall, frosty iced tea.

The problem: I’ve never, never, NEVER made iced tea at home that was half as delicious as some of the teas I’ve had at restaurants and cafes. I’m talking fresh brewed, sugar free, with a hint of mango or passion fruit… not overpowering, but just enough to give it that light, crisp tingle of flavor. The Californians do it best, really. I’ve never had iced tea so delicious as the stuff they serve in San Francisco and the Napa Valley. Its like every restaurant in the region read the same memo - “Serve Brand XXX iced tea, and all will be well with the world.”

Of course, I’ve yet to find out what this brand of tea is exactly. From time to time I’d pick up a new brand and give it the old college try at home. A few of them were passable. Most were simply horrible.

Well, I did some Googling and it seems there’s a brand I’ve yet to try that has quite a few rabid followers - China Mist. So I browsed through their site and placed a heft order for just about every flavor of iced tea they’ve got: Traditional, Prickly Pear, Mango, Passion Fruit, Black Currant and something called “Fiesta Fria”. Each box has four large sachets, each of which will brew 2 quarts of tea. (I also splurged on their teabag “Sampler”, which is two teabags each of about ten or so of their most popular flavors of hot tea).

We’ll see when they arrive if China Mist lives up to the hype….