Pure Leaf Iced Tea

I was recently in the Plattsburgh with my husband and friends for some State side shopping. We decided to have a picnic at the beach so stopped at a Stewart's convenience store because I thought they'd carry Stewart's sodas and I wanted to try one of the flavours we don't get in Montreal. The answer was they didn't carry ANY Stewart's sodas.

You can see why I was confused.

So in my disappointment I took a Pure Leaf™ Iced Tea instead. The selection was small (4 flavours) and I went with Raspberry (I don't drink anything that says "diet" so that knocked out two choices immediately).

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Picnic purchases done I got back in the sweltering car and we continued on our merry way to the beach. Once we'd found a shady spot and spread out our blanket I cracked my ice tea open.

The smell was sweet and raspberry heavy but I could still make out the black tea bite.

The taste was overwhelmingly raspberry and nectar sweet making it hard to taste much of the tea flavour. There was a hint of astringency, but whether that was from the tea or the citric acid added to "provide tartness" I can't say. 

I'll admit I was disappointed as it uses real brewed tea (though I have no idea of the quality of this tea anyways) so was hoping to be able to taste it. None-the-less it is one of the better ready made ice teas I've had as it left no aftertaste and did somewhat quench my thirst. My major complaint was the incredible sweetness of the drink, but there are apparently 10 flavours; 2 of which are labelled as not too sweet and 1 is unsweetened so maybe I'd prefer those.