What makes Nestea so delicious? Can I make it at home with stevia?

January 2, 2023 7:51 PM

Nestea is so much yummier than water. I like the way it kind of coats the mouth in flavour. But it's pure sugar. Can I make my own at home with Stevia? How? Note: I want Nestea (this or this), not the kind sold in the US, and not U.S.-style iced tea or "sweet tea", which just tastes like cold tea with lemon and sugar (yeah, I know that's what it is). Also acceptable but not as good: Lipton Brisk or maybe Snapple Iced Tea, though I haven't had that in years. Lemon only. Raspberry/peach etc. need not apply.

I love tea, but iced tea should not taste like tea. It should taste like cold sweet fresh stuff that coats your tongue with it's cold sweet freshness.

posted by If only I had a penguin... to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

Nestea's ingredient list is:

FILTERED WATER, SUGAR/GLUCOSE-FRUCTOSE, CITRIC ACID, CONCENTRATED TEA FROM TEA LEAVES, POTASSIUM CITRATE, NATURAL LEMON FLAVOUR

It is probably the added citric acid that is giving it the mouthfeel you like. Citric acid contributes a "wet mouth" feeling in soft drinks and is added because it gives a refreshing satisfaction. You can buy powdered citric acid from amazon for very little and you can experiment with adding it to your home made tea drinks.

Otherwise it is just lemon flavoured black tea with a lot of sugar in it (100 mg/litre). You could try using stevia for a sweetener, but it will ultimately taste different. I might try cutting the sugar with stevia in different ratios if a straight replacement doesn't work for you.

You could certainly make at home, but it will take some experimenting to get it to taste the way you like. You might try using lemon flavouring from the baking section of your grocery store rather than real lemons as well. That might result in something closer to Nestea and, certainly, more reproducible.

I would do this as a fridge tea and would stir your sugar/sweetner into the drink once it is poured into your glass.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 8:32 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Have you tried Crystal Light Iced Tea? Uses aspartame so much lower in sugar. We switched to it to get off of sodas and now go through about a pitcher a day!
posted by platinum at 10:26 PM on January 2, 2023

100mg/l would be something like a fiftieth of a teaspoon for two US pints. I think those units are wonky. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10-100g per litre, not that I've checked their recipe. I believe stevia is a lot sweeter than sugar - most sweeteners are - but if you're replacing X sugar with Y sweetener you'll need a ballpark figure to work with, and I think your ballpark is higher than that.

Lemon zest is differently lemony and a lot more potent than lemon juice; it has lots of the essential oil in it (limonene, says my high school chemistry). It's also not very water soluble, since it's a fatty substance, so you might need something to act as an emulsifier; but if you want something to be emphatically lemony to the nose then you might find a way to fold that into your recipe. Citric acid is more a simple sharp taste, not lemony of itself.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 11:04 PM on January 2, 2023

To me stevia does not taste like sugar. But not all sweeteners are equal. Try the lot before you give up. The only sweetener I like is erythritol.
posted by koahiatamadl at 1:29 AM on January 3, 2023

I make my own ice tea and my son says it tastes like shop bought.
I use cheap tea bags (4 per liter, i let it steep less than the recommended time only 2 to 3 minutes it will depend in the brand), very little stevia (like a 1/4 teaspoon per liter or less) , store bought lemon sirup (enough to make it taste of lemon, again depends on brand) and finally sweeten to taste with Xylitol while the tea is still warm. Then chill.

Stevia has quite a distinct flavor, too much will dominate unpleasantly. Xylitol also has a flavor, hard to describe. If you taste it pure it feels cool in your mouth (cool as in cold). The lemon sirup i buy is made with real sugar. I think the reason it tastes like storebought is letting cheap tea bags steep only a very short time, and combining sirup, stevia and xylitol. I use lemon sirup not fresh lemon to avoid a cloudy appearance.
posted by 15L06 at 5:00 AM on January 3, 2023

Seconding forbiddencabinet. You definitely want to switch out the lemon for citric acid completely or partly. Once I started doing that with my iced tea it started tasting like what you are describing. Also, stevia tastes okay with any tart beverage, like tea, so I would try that first as a sweetener.
posted by nanook at 5:27 AM on January 3, 2023

I would use a blend of sweeteners rather than just Stevia. Try monkfruit, allulose, or erythritol.

And I would suggest using lemon extract from the baking aisle, which is already in solution with alcohol (like, in the same way that vanilla extract is) rather than lemon juice or oil, with something like TrueLemon as a alternate (should dissolve and stay solved). It's pretty powerful stuff, so start with drops not spoons, and I wouldn't taste-test until you've first locked in the sweetness level. You still want to plan to shake your container before serving.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:45 AM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

How much is that froggie in the window is correct, my unit above is wrong. It should be ~100g/L. That 'm' must have shifted when I was scaling the thing up from the 341ml nutritional label since nobody is making that amount of nestea at home.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 4:59 PM on January 3, 2023

If the citric acid doesn't do the trick, and what you're looking for is more body/viscosity, you can try adding glycerol. It is kind of an anti-allulose in that it has a lot of water-thickening power but extremely low sweetness.

This technique is from the cocktail world, where it was used to mimic the body of alcohol in non-alcoholic beverages.
posted by Maecenas at 6:02 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]