Mashed Exclusive Survey Reveals The Least Favorite Iced Tea Brand
It may be common knowledge that iced tea is a popular drink in the U.S. but did you know tea is right behind water in consumed quantities? According to Tea USA, in 2019 Americans consumed over 3.5 billion gallons of tea with 75-80% of those gallons being iced tea. While the origin of iced tea might surprise you, the projected growth of the tea industry may also come as a shock. The U.S. beverage industry is worth $146 billion dollars (per Zippia) and World Tea News reports that the U.S. iced tea market is expected to grow by 7% over the next eight years.
There are so many mistakes you can make when making your own version of iced tea at home, so why not try one of the countless varieties available at your nearest grocer? Ready-to-drink teas are growing not only in sales but in variety due to health-related trends (via PR Newswire). With the market expanding, now is the perfect time to try one of the fan favorites, but be aware of the varieties of tea consumers choose least — which has been revealed in an exclusive Mashed survey.
AriZona takes the popular vote but which iced tea is least favored?
Mashed recently conducted a survey asking 599 participants to judge the taste and preference of six popular bottled teas. The brands in the survey include Gold Peak, Lipton, Brisk, Gold Leaf, Arizona, Pure Leaf, and Milo's. Even though Gold Peak is owned by Coca-Cola, the country's second most profitable beverage corporation, participants chose this variety of iced tea least, showcasing an 11.85% approval rate. Interestingly, Mashed ranked Gold Peak #25 in its list of 33 popular iced tea brands ranked worst to best. The reason for the low ranking is mainly due to Gold Peaks' high sugar content. Whether or not this was a factor in its poor performance on our survey is unclear.
As for the other iced tea brands, Pure Leaf also came in at a low approval rating of 13.36%. Milo's came in second place with 19.37% of the votes, Brisk Ice Tea garnered 17.53%, and Lipton received 16.69% of the votes. The number one selection for best-tasting ice tea went to AriZona with 21.20% of Mashed participants choosing the popular brand over the others. Surprisingly, AriZona came in #16, smack in the middle of our popular iced tea list.