What Makes Iced Tea Taste "Off"?

[12BottleBar]

Iced tea is my go-to drink whenever I'm out. I'm a cocktail blogger but much more persnickety about my tea.

About 50% of the time, iced tea will have a funky "off" taste. If you know what I'm talking about, maybe you know the answer to my question: where does this come from? Overbrewing, a too old supply, lousy leaves?

Thanks.

[runwestierun]

Iced tea gets bacterial growth very quickly. I will never hold a batch longer than 24 hours. However, if you are at a restaurant that keeps their tea until it's sold, it can taste funky that way. I encounter that "bacteria" taste a little more than occasionally when I eat out, and when I do, I switch beverages right away and tell the waiter the tea tastes "off". I don't know if that is the taste you are referring to, but it is certainly one way that iced tea gets funky.

[Kat Tanaka Okopnik]

Half the time, they'll be using the same barely-washed equipment to make coffee. So you've got a combination of mineral buildup from their tap water, and tannins and other goop from the baked-on coffee dregs.

When I was working at a sandwich place for a while, I was the only cook who bothered really cleaning the coffee stuff thoroughly. (Actually, for one English customer who'd come in, I'd make her tea by melting icecubes (which were made with filtered water) in the microwave, in a scrupulously clean cup.)

I've also seen some pretty grotty holding containers for iced tea, that end up having a sneaker odor.

[Doodad]

Even at home, ice tea gets what my Mom always called "stale." It just does not keep. Agree with the 24 hours bit. But, we are in the South and it gets consumed.

[Lilija]

I know that funky taste, sun tea gets it within 12 hours, if it's not refrigerated right away, and even if it is, still goes weird in 24 hours. What I'm wondering is with that slightly off flavor, it tastes a little fermenty to me, but is it safe? I don't really mind that twangy fermented flavor, if it's very light.

[andiesenji]

Sometimes it's the water. Some municipal water has a lot of additives because the purification system is not efficient and they don't want to spend the money on upgrades to produce drinking water that has fewer chemicals.

These chemicals can interact with the compounds in tea and over time the chemical composition in the tea actually changes into other compounds. I recall that on a much earlier thread someone posted some results of research.

Some cities, New York among them, have excellent water processing and actually use fewer chemicals than many smaller municipalities taking water from the same sources.

The water in parts of Los Angeles is okay while in other parts it is awful. The west end of the San Fernando valley, where I worked for almost forty years, has really bad water. If you turn on the tap and after it has run for awhile, fill a glass pitcher and let it sit, it will at first appear cloudy and within a few minutes the stuff will begin to settle on the bottom. It is disgusting. Complaints to the Metropolitan Water District brought someone to test it and we were told that the water was "okay to drink, we don't have to make it look pretty, just make sure there are no toxic chemicals or pathogens in it."

We used Arrowhead water - a lot of it.

[12BottleBar]

Fermented is exactly the term I would use. What's strange to me is that the same place can have two pictures that taste different -- one being fine, another off. This lead me to think it wasn't the water. I have been places where someone accidentally dumps a pot of coffee into the tea, but that's pretty noticeable.

I'd love to pinpoint whether its old tea, cleaning, or whatnot, so I can tell the place exactly what the problem. Usually, they just look at me strangely.