Tea - Best Restaurant Iced Tea

When I'm at home, I like to supplement my hot tea intake with a little bit of iced tea, especially during the warmer months. Makes sense. Since I make my own, I know exactly what goes into it and I can make it to taste. This is a good thing.

In a restaurant, it's a whole 'nuther ballgame. Restaurant iced tea is something of a crap shoot and a lot of times I just don't bother. The so-called tea one is served in these situations ranges from merely acceptable to barely palatable to some kind of liquid dreck "brewed" from a powdered mix of ingredients that barely resembles tea to something that tastes like it's been siphoned from a dead dog's bladder after said canine has had a chance to lie in the sun and ferment for a few days.

Which is why I'm pleased to named my personal pick for Best Restaurant Iced Tea. Yeah, I know. You've been waiting on the edge of your seat.

Pita Jungle has several locations in the Phoenix area. It's a casual place with a sort of hip Mediterranean feel and cuisine - and some killer iced tea. Actually they serve two types of iced tea, but if you're like me you wouldn't dream of wasting your time with berry. Go straight for what is commonly known as "regular," though last time around I heard someone describe it as passionfruit.

Passionfruit it may be. I can't quite place the flavor and I wouldn't know a passionfruit if it came up and bit me on the ankle. All I know is that this is a quite tasty mix of black tea with some faint fruit flavor and nary a trace of bitterness. An iced tea so fine, I'd venture to say, that I sometimes leave this establishment feeling distinctly waterlogged.

So, if you ever have reason to be in the Phoenix area and, more specifically, in Pita Jungle, you know what beverage to order. Just hope that they haven't run out. It's been known to happen.