The irrationality of the iced tea drinker

Of course not all iced tea drinkers are irrational. I am talking about the people who spend a lot of money buying iced tea in bottles. There has to be some criteria by which we measure the level of sanity and I am talking about a cost/benefit analysis.

It is easy to talk about the cost because that is the amount of money that it costs to buy iced tea in a supermarket. Nothing is absolutely expensive – it is only relatively expensive so we must make some calculation of the cost to provide the same product made in another way.

A bottle of iced tea from a supermarket in Australia is around $2.50 for 600 mls and contains upwards of 9 teaspoons of sugar. It is impossible to calculate what the cost of the tea ingredient in this is because it is hardly recognisable by taste. Some sources say that the health benefits of iced tea are 1/20 that in a regular cup of tea which is a third of the size so that is possible to say that 600 mls of tea made in a pot has 60 times the amount of health benefits. Why is the flavour so bad? In America most of the iced tea is made from concentrate made from Argentinian tea which must be the cheapest in the world. It serves two purposes – the first is to justify calling the beverage made from it as tea and the second is to give just a little bit of colour. Just as it is possible to make chicken soup by using racing chickens to glide over the surface of hot water, it must be possible to wave tea leaves over hot water and give the illusion of an infusion. The rest of the cost must come from the sugar and there are about 9 teaspoons in the bottle.

[bctt tweet=”Just as it is possible to make chicken soup by using racing chickens to glide over the surface of hot water, it must be possible to wave tea leaves over hot water and give the illusion of an infusion.”]

Most experts consider that the maximum sugar intake each day should be no more than 6 teaspoons per day. Anything in excess of that will lead to obesity and diabetes and other illnesses. With one bottle you are already over the daily maximum. How do you justify something that has no health benefit and is in fact deleterious at any cost?

The conclusion is that iced tea costs an enormous amount of money relatively to the cost of making it yourself and that any minuscule health benefits from the tea are totally negated by the damage to your body from the excessive sugar.

If you want to sit down in a restaurant and drink a bottle iced tea it will cost even more because somebody has to pay the rent and the wages.

There is no doubt that properly made iced tea from real tea can be made quickly and very cheaply from ordinary grades of tea. The best and quickest method is to use dust and fannings. It is easy to make a concentrate in 30 seconds and dilute it and then add artificial sweetener and lemon or lime juice or mint and pineapple to make a much more delicious drink than anything available in a bottle.

Take the opportunity to show what a genius you are and go and make yourself a cup of iced tea from real tea and enjoy it.

Featured banner illustrated by Tasneem Amiruddin

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