Thai Iced Tea is symbolic of Thai food in the U.S., and is served at every Thai restaurant that I've been to in the States. Fortunately, this deliciously sweet and creamy drink is also easy to make at home with Thai tea mix, sugar, and a your choice of milk product. We have these ingredients in our pantry at all times, but I've realized that we don't normally make Thai Iced Tea. When I sat down and thought about the reasons why, I think it mostly boils down to convenience. It's just so much more convenient to grab a bottle of ready-to-drink Thai Tea from the fridge.
With this realization in mind, I set out to test all of the pre-made, ready-to-drink Thai Teas in cans and bottles that I could find in local stores to determine which brand tastes the best.
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Where can you buy bottled/canned Thai Tea?
In years past, I had to go to Southeast Asian stores to find bottled or canned Thai Tea. More recently, I've found that pan-Asian stores such as Ranch 99 usually carry at least one brand. And just in the last month, I noticed that my local Walmart had a whole shelf full of bottles. I'm so glad that it's becoming easier to find this delicious drink!
For this taste test, I ended up with 7 different types of pre-made Thai Tea that I found in local stores: Kimbo, Tropics, Dragonfly, Honeybee, and 3 versions of Taste Nirvana (small bottle, big bottle, and can). Taste Nirvana also sells a Real Thai Tea Latte that I wasn't able to find in local stores. Tasco, V Fresh, FOCO, Sunlee, and Lucia are other brands that I have seen online but wasn't able to find in local stores.
What Ingredients are in bottled/canned Thai Tea?
After purchasing these 7 different kinds of bottled and canned Thai Tea, I first investigated the ingredients labels. I was somewhat surprised to see that only one brand, Taste Nirvana, listed brewed Thai Tea as the first ingredient. All of the other brands included "Thai tea extract" and water instead.
All brands included sugar, with Taste Nirvana specifying "natural cane sugar". The sugar content ranged from 26 to 35 grams per serving, which is roughly the recommended daily allowance of sugar for adults according to the American Heart Association.
All brands that I tested also included non-dairy creamer which was specified to include glucose, palm kernal oil, and casein. Taste Nirvana also included full cream milk powder. All brands also included FD&C yellow dye No 6 for that characteristic terracotta color. Taste Nirvana also included soy lecithin and unspecified "flavor" as the last two ingredients.
Which brand of bottled/canned Thai Tea tastes the best?
To answer this question, I enlisted the help of hubby and a small group of close friends. I first poured small samples of each tea into clear sample cups. We immediately noticed differences in color, with Dragonfly being the lightest (light tan) and Kimbo being the darkest (dark brown). Taste Nirvana was the most terracotta orange color of all of the samples. Dragonfly had a few small white bits of particulate matter floating on top of the tea, which I assume were some of the non-dairy creamer that had come out of solution.
Then we began our taste test, using blindfolds so that the appearance of the teas wouldn't influence our taste buds. After each sample taste, everyone gave a rating on a scale of 1-10 and wrote their other thoughts and comments down. Once all seven samples had been tasted, I compiled the results as follows:
Five of the seven samples were deemed to be quite pleasant, and reminiscent of Thai tea that you would be served in a Thai restaurant. Only two brands, Honeybee and Kimbo, were universally given low ratings, with most comments reflecting that these two brands had a prominent off-putting "sour" or "lime-y" flavor.
The Top Three Brands
The top three brands were Taste Nirvana, Tropics, and Dragonfly. Since three of our samples were from Taste Nirvana (small bottle, big bottle, and can), I was curious if they would all receive similar ratings, and fortunately they all did! The canned Taste Nirvana was felt to be slightly milkier than the bottled Taste Nirvana, but all three Taste Nirvana samples were given very high ratings, with comments like "good balance of sweet and bitter" and "tastes JUST like Thai tea". Tropics was found to be sweeter than Taste Nirvana, and Dragonfly was found to be milkier than Taste Nirvana, but overall both were rated highly.
I'm so glad we took the time to do this Taste Test. With ready-to-drink Thai tea in bottles and cans becoming more available in my local stores, it's nice to know which ones match our preferred taste. Now having Thai tea with our Thai meals really can be as quick and convenient as opening up the fridge 🙂
I'd love to hear your experiences with bottled and canned Thai tea! Which brands do you like the best?
billybobjoe
what is the loose leaf plz tell escuse tty
Don Liponi
Rachel:
As an archaeologist, but for the Native Americans, you accomplished something here that much of archaeology fails to do, you included the culture who is responsible for the cultural artifact [the tea]. Where science fails, is it only looks at the artifact, because we cannot know the sacred or meaning of the artifact without asking the culture and it may be ineffable to us. Few of us can understand why tea is more than water and leaves. From your writing, we know the people who brought us this gift are helping us relate to them by pointing us in the right direction. It might seem implicit, but this makes your writing honest and gives respect to the culture, again is the right way to go about being gracious and unifying. I bet I can find 20 similar pieces written without any verification or inclusion to the source culture. Legacy and tradition are far more important to the rest of the world than they are here. I hope you will continue to integrate cuisine to this heritage as it helps everyone. I have not looked at your recipe list yet, so ignore me if I missed something in the photos, but if needed would you add a few vegetarian dishes. We have to make both so that everyone can eat something. OK, again, I know this is a bunch of hot air, but I liked your refreshing approach.
Edna Reyes
How much is 1 box of Thai Tea Drink
admin
Hi Edna, one bottle/can of ready-to-drink Thai tea is typically between $1.50 to $3.00 USD, depending on the brand and size.
yourspiced
Lovely and comprehensive article. Will love to read these food blogs patiently and make my own writings better.
I write my own food blog and the learnings from this article will surely allow me to become better.
Mike
You can make your own Thai tea by boiling the tea in a large sauce pan and letting it simmer and then sit until cool before you pour it through a strainer. It's so easy to make your own that you could easily prepare a gallon on the stove top with a big enough pot. Thai tea sitting in your fridge actually gets better over time. I use sugar free French vanilla creamer to make a low cal version that taste as good as any Thai restaurant! You may need to find a local international market to buy it or order it from Amazon. I never see Thai tea in my local grocery stores.