Totally Unsolicited Testimonial

I grea up in a Southern household, which means that we drank iced tea with every meal. My mother always had a big pitcher of it chilling in the fridge. It wasn't sweetened--my father was a diabetic--but I loved "sweet tea," that peculiarly Southern concoction where sugar is one of the main ingredients. Arizona Ice Tea does a nice "Southern sweet tea" variant, although the only place I've ever been able to find it is in the cooler case in gas station food stores.

These days, I tend to avoid sweetened teas for the same reason I don't drink soda very much--the bottles are just delivery systems for sugar. But, I still have a hankering sometimes. Diet teas are mostly nasty--with chemical aftertastes that make you wonder just what is in there besides tea and water. (And really, I can't get my thrifty grandmother's voice out of my head when I look at the prices of tea bags versus the prices of a SINGLE bottle of already-made tea.)

But now I have discovered Sweet Leaf Tea's DIET sweet tea. And it's really good. So good in fact that the first time I drank one, I had to look at the label again to make sure I wasn't quaffing the real deal. I don't know anyone at Sweet Leaf. They didn't send me any bottles. But I am happy to spread the word.