Bonnie: The South has always done ice tea right: freshly brewed and unsweetened, with your glass continually refilled. It’s somewhat like the North does with tap water. I’ve experienced this bottomless beverage service during my many visits there.

I like that fresh brewed unsweetened ice tea. But I don’t like tea with added sweeteners and flavorings—that includes most bottled ones — especially where sweeteners and flavorings are artificial. This is the main reason I’ve always avoided most bottled tea.

And then I tried Lipton PureLeaf Unsweetened Tea.

I wasn’t expecting a fresh brewed taste from a bottled tea, which is why it surprised me when I taste-sipped PureLeaf last year for a review in my syndicated column, Supermarket Sampler.

I was pleased to learn that most of this line is natural and is made from brewed tea rather than tea concentrate. I also prefer that it’s sweetened with sugar or honey, not high-fructose corn syrup — a man-made product I try to avoid when I can, as there’s a lot of controversy over its extensive use.

At the time I reviewed PureLeaf for Supermarket Sampler, I recommended the entire line with the exception of the two diet teas, which were sweetened with the artificial chemical Sucralose. That’s an odd additive for an otherwise all-natural line, I thought, and told Lipton, manufacturer of PureLeaf.

Lipton agreed with me. At that time, the brand manager told me that Lipton was thinking of reformulating those teas using natural sweeteners. And they did just that.

According to Stephen McDermott, PureLeaf spokesperson, “We are phasing out our diet products and launching two Lightly Sweetened products: Lightly Sweetened Green Tea with Peach and Lightly Sweetened Black Tea with Lemon, 40 and 35 calories per serving, respectively. These will begin to appear on the shelf in select markets around April 1.”

I’ll drink a Lipton PureLeaf Unsweetened Black Tea to that.

Bryan: As you may have realized last week, I love tea. Hot tea is great, but iced tea is my true love. The affair with iced tea began with my first job; I was a short-order cook serving the breakfast crowd. Snapple was in it’s heyday then and the kitchen’s fridge was full of it. Every morning revolved around a hot egg sandwich and an iced tea. I loved them all sequentially, going through a long raspberry phase before falling head over heels for lemon, and then my sweet peach.

Though I adored them, I was also a real-tea drinker. I love real-tea flavor, but Snapple (and most bottled teas) are bereft of even the subtlest of tea-flavor, and are completely overpowered by the large amounts of sugar and flavoring added. I slowly became a tea alchemist; at first, mixing bottled teas with water to try and mute the sugar, only to find an even more muted tea flavor. I moved on and started brewing my own tea so I could control the tea-type, strength of brew and the sugar levels. Though enjoyable, the only flavor I could consistently reproduce was lemon—just a drop of lemon juice does that. I craved variety (especially peach) and lost patience for the brewing and waiting process.

Slowly, I reverted back to an alchemy of watered down bottles until recently being handed a bottle of liquid gold; the new PureLeaf Unsweetened Tea. This is what I’ve been looking for—a quality brewed tea, bottled and tasty. No calories, no sugar, just real tea. Some people may be taken aback at first sip, as our palates are so used to sugar. You may end up adding a bit of sweetner, though you really don’t need it. This flavorful tea is a great drink on its own.

Eric: To be honest, I really couldn’t tell you what a good iced tea should taste like anymore. While growing up, I followed in many of my brother’s footsteps, but the Iced Tea Incident of 2002 ended my love affair with Lemon Snapple, and scarred me from trying an iced tea for a few years to come. It all started during my summers working on the beach in Connecticut. I was an iced tea junkie and would get my “fix” from my daily Lemon Snapple.

Those were the days before the modern alchemy of iced tea that markets itself to the consumer striving for a cure for ailments like their lack of concentration, memory loss, sore throat or even sexual inadequacies.

I used to drink so many bottles of Snapple that at one point, with the help of my just-as-addicted colleague, I stacked a Snapple pyramid next to my beach work station with a base of 15 bottles. This love affair with Snapple ended one sunny afternoon when the presence of a “finger-esque” object floating in my bottle smacked into my unsuspecting lips while I was drinking on the couch in my mother’s kitchen (SEE NOTE).FB_Snapple42.jpg This haunted me for years, until I finally built up the courage to drink tea again. I started with your basic hot tea and worked my way up to Lipton Iced Tea with Lemon. After slowly getting “back on the horse,” I was introduced to the Lipton Pureleaf Unsweetened Tea. Initially I was not a fan—the lack of sweetness threw off my perception—but pokern texas holdempoker spiel downloadonline games kostenlos pokerpoker umsonst spielendraw poker spielregelngratis poker im internetparty poker deposit codepokerroom bonusplay 7 card studparty poker gratispaty poker nettexas holdem poker softwarepoker com bonuspoker spielen ohne downloadtexas holdem strategieparty poker comstrp poker onlinetexas holdem online,giocare texas holdem online,texas holdem online gratispoker holdgioco poker scaricare gratisimparare a giocare a pokercarte pokerpoker game onlinepoker superstars gratisvideo poker on linemultiplayer pokerscaricare gioco pokerplay poker,play wize poker,play poker onlinefull tilt pokerplay poker on linecarte da gioco pokerpoker gamespoker online flashstrategie texas holdemdownload gioco pokergiocare poker on linegioco video poker gratisstrategia pokerchips di pokerstreep poker on linevc pokerstud pokergioco poker da scaricaregiochi 7 card studpoker on line in italianopoker sportivo onlinetexas holdem calculatempoker online gratis,casino poker gratis,poker gratispoker tour pcguida poker online after gaining respect for the taste, I realized that it was a healthier alternative to my former over-consumption of the sugar-laden formulas sold as Arizona and Snapple, and I would gladly keep a bottle in my fridge—but only to serve to my “Southern” guests.

NOTE — Bonnie: Before sending Snapple the bottle to find out exactly what the “finger-esque” object was, I had taken this photo of it. Little did I know that six years later, Eric would reference it in a blog we would be doing together.

After receiving the bottle, a spokesperson from Snapple had responded to us that Eric need not worry about it as it was just mold that can occur in any “natural product.”

They also had offered Eric $50 for his troubles— as long as he signed a waiver that he wouldn’t tell anyone about it. Obviously he didn’t sign, so we’re sharing.