McDonalds Sweet Tea

Growing up early with a best friend from Texas, I discovered I loved sweet tea, which was ever-present in his fridge, and seeing as they had no pop, or even kool-aid, I had to settle for it. But one day Grandma had a heart attack and the sweet tea was no more. If I had been an LTHer back then, I’d have interviewed abuela on her death bed regarding her history and recipe for sweet tea. Alas, no time machine.

Granted, sweet tea is scarce at these latitudes. So, I learned to like regular iced tea, lightly sweetened. I even came to enjoy the undissolved sugar particulate that gathers in the bottom of the glass. It has become my beverage of choice when dining out if not drinking an adult libation (read:resto’s dry).

I always like lots of fresh lemon. I’ve asked for more lemon so many times, that when I order “extra extra lemon” my wife usually adds “he really means it.” I inwardly seethe when brought lime instead of lemon, and may even act out slightly, even at Topolobampo.

I don’t eat at McDonalds more than thrice a year, trither a quick breakfast, a new item, or a Big Mac Attack. Still, while driving, I rubber neck all potential places of victuals, looking for signs of something particularly new or tasty. Of late, I noticed McD’s pimpin’ sweet tea. I am attracted to this mostly by the pic showing a healthy chunk of fresh lemon. Mmmm. Seeing as how McDonald’s upgraded their coffee successfully, I was intrigued.

So I deliberately worked myself up to a craving for a Big Mac and made my way, lemming like, into the drive-thru lane. My tires bounced over some hoses that snaked from an access box on McD’s wall to the back of a truck. I was witnessing the changing of the grease and was fascinated, even honored. ‘Til the car behind me honked his horn.





I shouted-out a #1 with sweet tea and extra extra lemon. She asked how many lemons I want. I said depends on how they’re cut. She said pretty big. So, I said three or four, while inwardly wanting five or six. She said OK, why are you takin’ pics of everything? I laughed, friendily, and said I’m a nut. She laughed, too.

I proceeded to the next window where I carefully but obstuctedley observed a coffee cup of liquid poured over a cup with ice and lemon, signifying freshly brewed. I did not see a squirt of say, simple syrup. I returned to my hidden lair.



I examined the evidence. Lemon and ice, generous. Smell, tea and lemon with a hint of sugar. Taste? Darn good, at least better than the bottled or canned pre-sweetened tea. My mass spectrometer was down, so I could not analyze the precise chemical components. Even ever reliable Google was no help. My taste buds say cane sugar, no HFCS.

As to the food, the fries were cold so I only ate about five. I’m not much of a fry guy to begin with. The Big Mac was sloppily constructed with all the special sauce glooped in the middle. The meat patties forgot they were once cow. The lettuce and pickles were insipid in uninteresting intrigue. I liked the sesame seeds on the bun, but they could have been toasted. That’s my Big Mac for this year.

Would I order McDonald’s sweet tea again? No, if only because I’ve moved beyond the very idea of sweet tea. I’m just not that sweet. But, if they continue to stock generous amounts of fresh lemons, I will return to McDonalds sooner than I would have expected.

Welcome to McDonalds. Can I take your order?
Large ice tea, extra extra extra lemon.
He means it.
Anything else?
No.
He really means it.

-ramon

Do you think they'll just give me a cupful of lemons, no ice, no tea?

Have you seen the prices of lemons/limes these days? Not a bad deal - if just for the lemons!

I wish they had decaf, no sugar. I also drink tea, hot in winter, iced in summer. It is almost impossible to find unsweetened decaf tea anywhere other than my own kitchen. And speaking of things to drink that are almost impossible to find on the road, why is it so difficult to find seltzer water? Unflavored, plain old seltzer water. I like to drink that with a shot of lemonade in it, but if I don't stock up on the 2-liter bottles at Jewel or Dominicks, I can forget about finding it anywhere. And Perrier is not the same.

I like to add a shot of lemonade to the tea if it's iced, but if I could get decaf unsweetened at McD's I'd be there everyday. In fact, before I became decaf, I did used to get their iced tea. It was good.

(BTW - Lemons are uaually 2/$1 or 3/$1 at Butera & Jerrys.)

McDonald's sweet tea isn't bad. According to their website (not listed in nutrition info so you have to so a search for sweet tea) 32 fl oz contains 230 calories (59g sugar) and the ingredients are water, sugar, orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea.

I get my Big Mac's without sauce (the one or two times a year that I eat one). Aside from the fact that I don't find the sauce to be very "special", I get a freshly made burger. I hate to admit it, but a Big Mac is quite the guilty pleasure.

I must admit.. I am a recent addict of it, myself.


I went to fill my glass here where I work, and it's just plain ol' tea... Bleh.
(I hate equal and splenda with a passion.)

Sweet-n-Low, If I haaave to.

I’m afraid my trips to McDonald’s for iced tea have become a bit of a habit. I pull up to the drive-thru, order, “one medium un-sweetened iced tea – PLEASE ‘put in’ three lemons and three sugars.” I often feel guilty ordering nothing else (why?) but McDonald’s food gives me tummy rumblies and a profound longing for a simple life.

After twenty some tries, at some ten different McDonald’s, they’ve yet to get the order right, without repeated and persistent cajoling of the poor sod at window number two. Considering that McDonald’s is trying to go head-to-head with Starbucks, I hope they are doing better with the coffee. Listed are the mistakes, in no order.

Getting sweet tea instead of un-sweetened. This can be further compounded when they add in the additional sugar. Should have been a clue!

Getting only one lemon. I’ve learned to not only ask the server if there are three but to visually verify before pulling away from the window. It’s really kind of silly for them to “put in” since they don’t squeeze them anyway, but that’s how I like it, I guess. I certaintly wouldn’t mind it they charged me extra for the requested amount.

Forgetting the sugar. My gosh, the order screen said, the receipt says, so I’m sure the screen at the beverage center says “put in 3 sugar.” Why is this so often skipped? McD’s even has a nifty machine, where you put the cup under it, press “1, 2, or 3” and it dispenses one, two, or three something amounts of sugar. No stirring machine though.

Not enough ice. McDonald’s hot-brews its iced tea which then sits at room temperature (I believe). Thus, it needs more ice than a standard beverage. Too often, I have no ice after ten minutes, and we haven’t even hit the hot weather yet. Some seem to realize this and serve my medium iced tea in a large cup (which is huge!) so that I get the extra ice. But then, the ratio of lemon and sugar to tea is all wrong, and I have to start all over.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I’d say I’m almost there.

Yesterday, when I drove through, the attendant at the speaker was friendly and accent-free. Usually this portends a recorded greeting. I get mad when I am duped into answering it. I’m glad I didn’t sass ‘cause this time it was live.

“Would you like to try a free Southern Style Chicken Sandwich?”

I shuddered in horror, “NO!”

“Are you sure? You might like it. It IS free.

The cheap-skate in me took over, “Sure.” I felt even guiltier for some reason now.

Well, they gave me the iced tea in large cup which was nice, I guess. They remembered the sugar, but there was now not enough. And they only gave me one lemon slice. Thankfully, I just happened to have a lemon and sugar packets in my pocket. Don’t ask, I’m just funny that way.

As to the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich , it was edible, which was abetted by the fact that it is thankfully small. I don’t usually order fried items, not out of any mamby-pamby health reasons, but because most people don’t know how to fry. This was no exception: greasy in a bad way with no crispy bits.

The coating had the predominant note of black pepper and MSG. Not a terribly bad thing, in my book. Definitely KFC like in flavor. The white meat chicken was tasteless but tender. I don’t generally like pickles on a sandwich – they belong beside the sandwich – unless on a Cubano – and these were not good pickles. (I swear I remember that McDonalds used to use partially dehydrated onions and pickles. I’m sure it’s not true anymore, but they taste the same.)

The worst part was the bun. It was so sweet it overwhelmed the rest of the sandwich. Though the same circumference, I don’t believe the bun is the same as the standard McD’s hamburger bun. This may be better on their breakfast biscuit, but I don’t plan on further research into this topic.



My tummy is a-rumbling.

-ramon

I'm a huge tea fanatic. I brew my own, like to add different spices, herbs, etc. to change the usual taste of brewed tea.

I'm originally from the south and grew up on Sweet Tea, but now a days, I have conversed to the unsweet side.

I do have to say, I tried the sweet tea after reading this post yesterday and it was okay, but I think the lemon definitely improved the taste. I mean, it wasn't shabby, but I think my move to the unsweet side is why I am not a fan. As well, it was very hard to pass up the big mac, I'm not a fan, but seriously after reading this post, I was craving one.

The one nice thing, IMO, about McD's having sweet tea is that when I order unsweetened tea, I actually get tea. Every so often I'd pull away from the drive through only to find I'd been given Hi-C orange drink. Yuk!

I've successfully used either "regular" or "unsweetened" tea when ordering and they've so far gotten it right even though I've had to once or twice repeat what I wanted.

At least McD's is still brewing their tea rather than going with the concentrate syrup like so many other places. That stuff just makes brown water.

I thought the Southern chicken sandwich was awful. In fact, at first, I thought they'd made a mistake and given me a fish sandwich.

The sweet tea is very good, for iced tea in the North, though I was perturbed that no one in the McDonald's across from corporate McDonald's could tell me what it was sweetened with. It wasn't printed on on any of the nutritional information available in the restaurant, either. I called the toll-free number and sat through a recording about looking on the website till I finally got a human who looked it up for me.

She confirmed Fujisan's research that it's regular sugar.

The sweet tea is perhaps slightly sweeter than I might sweeten it if I were stirring in sugar myself, but not enough so that I'd go to the trouble of ordering regular tea with sugar on the side. With lemon (and they're real lemon wedges, not concentrate out of packets), it's just fine.

per an employee..they put 1/4 of a pound of sugar to every gallon of tea...thats too sweet even for sweet tea IMO

Head's Red BBQ wrote:per an employee..they put 1/4 of a pound of sugar to every gallon of tea...thats too sweet even for sweet tea IMO

How much volume is 1/4 lb? I normally go with 3/4 cup per gallon.
Jamie

Head's Red BBQ wrote:per an employee..they put 1/4 of a pound of sugar to every gallon of tea...thats too sweet even for sweet tea IMO

1/4 pound sugar = a little less than 2/3 cup (10 tablespoons or 30 teaspoons).

So that's less than 2 teaspoons of sugar per cup of tea. And you'd normally drink it diluted with ice and lemon.

I thought the Southern chicken sandwich was awful. In fact, at first, I thought they'd made a mistake and given me a fish sandwich.

They may have accidentally fried it in the fish fryer.

When I worked at McD's almost three decades ago, a new employee would occasionally do that with the hot apple pies. No one would know until they started coming back tasting fishy.

LAZ wrote:I thought the Southern chicken sandwich was awful. In fact, at first, I thought they'd made a mistake and given me a fish sandwich.

Mike G wrote:They may have accidentally fried it in the fish fryer.

It was actually more because of the overly damp texture of the chicken and the strong flavor of the pickles, reminiscent of tartar sauce.