Bottled tea

I am a known tea drinker. That much is obvious from the very fact I run a tea blog to the 3 gallon tea dispenser in my fridge.
When out on the road, I still enjoy tea. I mean really, I drank Pepsi when I was in college, the backseat of my AMC Javelin was a testiment to the fact as there was bottles (anyone remember glass bottles?) to the aluminum cans (anyone remember pull tabs?), my floors was littered with those and my books.
However if tea was bottled way back in the late 70's I would have had those in there instead.
I live in the South, (Thank the Goddess) were sweet tea rules. You don't have to ASK for it in restaurants, it is just given. I have seen snooty Yankees send their tea back asking for plain (GASP!).
There are many sweeteners in todays markets, I use Stevia or just plain sugar when out. (I keep a tiny bottle of stevia in my purse for the RARE occasions a restaurant has only plain tea.

If any of you have read my other blog (see the Saphyre Rose on the left) you would know I have a disease that I do not need to speak about on this blog as well, but the medicine that I take to control it makes me have a very dry mouth. Couple that with my love of tea and you could say I may drink a lot of bottled tea when travelling.
Normally, I stick to Lipton bottled tea and drink Nestea only when I have to. I don't always care for lemon in my tea. Lipton gives you lots of flavor options.

This past weekend we were at my favorite organic grocery store, "Earth Fare". My hubbers think they should call it "Witch Fare" because so many of my lot hang there! It was there that I was tempted to try a new bottled tea. (It could have been the 85 degrees we had that day as well).
The tea is called "Sweet Leaf, The Original Sweet Tea". This stuff is MY homemade tea in a bottle (Though mine is a bit stronger). It tastes like tea without the taste of preservatives because there are NO preservatives in the tea.
It states right on the bottle that is sweetened with real cane sugar and tastes like homemade...it DOES! A true southern tea.

YUM!
What makes me laugh at these prepackaged drinks are serving sizes. This 16oz bottle supposedly holds 2 servings! I walk around my apartment with a 20oz glass in my hand most of the time! Where do they get these "servings"?
I had a bottle of SO-BE Liz-Blizz last week and as I was draining the last dregs from the bottle I happened to notice (upside down) that there were 2.5 serving in this bottle. When I added the calories per serving together I nearly fainted. WHOA! I guess we will stay away from Liz-Blizz for a while!

Back to Sweet Leaf...I think if you can get a bottle to try you should do it. On their website is a map of the states and the maps say exactly where they sell the bottles of tea. I clicked on SC and found the exact store where I bought my bottle!
In fact, the website shows them to have 6 different flavors and varieties of tea. I guess I am going to have to go back to Earth Fare and do more investigating.
Oh, the things I have to do for my blog!

Brightest Tea Blessings!