Not Arizona Or Pure Leaf: The Best Bottled Sweet Tea Brand You Can Buy

Sipping on a cool glass of refreshing sweet tea while you relax on the porch is a Southern tradition, which is why many locals have their own tried-and-tested recipes. You can even use sweet tea in barbecue sauce or employ it as a base for a cocktail (just remember to add sugar to your sweet tea while it's still hot!). That said, if you haven't got the time to mix up a gallon-sized pitcher of the stuff to stash in your fridge for later, there are plenty of store-bought options that are equally as good. Brands like Arizona and Pure Leaf produce high-quality sugary brews, but it was Milo's famous sweet tea that secured the top spot in our ranking of 9 popular sweet tea brands.

This beverage beat the other contenders because it actually tasted homemade. It was balanced and had both earthy and bitter notes, but wasn't too sweet. It tasted natural, without the artificial undertones that were present in the other teas we tried, and had a potent quality to it. While Pure Leaf came in a very close second and had an almost identical flavor, Milo's was slightly more hearty and characterful, which made it worthy of ranking at number one. If you can get your hands on Milo's sweet tea, go for it. Otherwise, Pure Leaf is a perfectly acceptable substitute.

Made with filtered water, pure cane sugar, and fresh-brewed tea, Milo's sweet tea doesn't contain any preservatives or added colors. In contrast, some of the other brands we tried, such as Swiss Premium, include a caramel color and additives to help maintain freshness, which may explain their artificial taste. For instance, the loser in our taste test was Great Value sweet iced tea from Walmart because it had an artificial flavor and chemical-like quality that hung around in the mouth. Milo's sweet tea, however, is all-natural and tastes as such. 

Additionally, the brand has almost a thousand five-star reviews on its website. One reviewer said, "This is it! Milo's Sweet tea is exactly everything I want in my sweet tea. From the first sip, it brings back every summer memory- working in the garden, kids swimming, cooking out, etc- and cooling off with ice cold homemade sweet tea. It tastes exactly like our own. It's just those 3 simple natural ingredients. Perfection!"

Meanwhile, Reddit is home to more fans of this sweetened brew. One shopper claimed that their family buys it often, while another said, "It's three ingredients and tastes like tea you can make at home. No funky taste from preservatives or odd sweeteners. The sweet tea is a bit too sweet for me but my family loves it. I'll buy sweetened and unsweetened and mix the two to my liking."