When I first heard about Trader Joe’s Cold Brew Iced Tea, I wasn’t expecting tea bags. I figured it’d be another version of the concentrate and already pre-brewed for you. With lemon powder, lemon juice and lemon oil on the ingredient list, I thought, well, this is either gonna be great or a totally sour disaster. The good news is, it’s pretty darn good.
You know how bad hot brewed iced tea can be when it’s made in one of those Bunn brewers… oversteeped, bitter…blech. You need the lemons just to make it drinkable. You don’t have to worry about any of that here. It does have dried cane syrup on the ingredient list, but I didn’t find it sweet at all. Just totally drinkable on its own. BTW, it’s also marked vegan. So assumably whatever the process is for making the cane syrup, it’s not the same as for standard granulated sugar.
The first time I made it, I followed directions and did two tea bags with 8 oz of cold water, steeped for 5 minutes. Good, but not quite strong enough for me. So the second go was 3 tea bags, 12 oz of cold water, steeped for 7 minutes. I think that’s the sweet spot for me, knowing that it’ll get a little bit diluted by ice. I didn’t add any sweetener, though you could. The lemon slice is really just for presentation. It didn’t really need it.
Trader Joe’s Cold Brew Iced Tea is a win for me. Will I buy it again? Definitely. And while it’s not as cheap as a box of Lipton’s probably is, I think I like the results better. And with a run of hot days ahead in the Pacific Northwest, I’ll be living off iced coffee and this iced tea for the next little while.
Check out some other We Tried’s from Trader Joe’s:
Ginger Lemon and Tangerine Sparkling Probiotic Beverages