Product Review: Valu Time Iced Tea Mix

In an effort to save money grocery shopping, we decided to try the Valu Time Iced Tea Mix that is sold at Giant Eagle. I buy a lot of items that are store brands or off name brands that are just as good as the name brand products so I had faith in this Valu Time Iced Tea Mix with natural lemon flavoring. Besides how different could iced tea mix really be?

The nutritional facts on the Valu Time Iced Tea Mix state that there are 80 calories per 8 ounce serving with 19 grams of carbohydrates. This is 6% of your daily value on a 2,000-calorie diet. The ingredients are sugar, citric acid, instant tea, caramel color, natural lemon flavor, and artificial color red 40. Pretty standard stuff as far as instant iced tea mixes go. The instructions on the can tell you to invert can and shake well before using.

The Valu Time Iced Tea Mix is priced at $4.19 a can and claims it will make 28 quarts. I generally make 2 quarts at a time and used the recommended 12 tablespoons. It was weak so I put in 16 tablespoons or 1 cup. The flavor was better in my opinion but I left the deciding factor up to my husband who is the main iced tea drinker in the house.

My husband was not impressed with the taste of the Valu Time Iced Tea Mix. He said it was strong enough but the flavor was not that great compared to the others we normally get. The Valu Time Iced Tea Mix left a slight aftertaste and the lemon flavor was almost non-existent. We normally have Lipton or 4C Iced Tea Mix and the Valu Time does not compare to them at all. My husband asks that I never buy the Valu Time Iced Tea Mix again.

Both the Lipton and the 4c Iced Tea mix have a scooper included where as the Valu Time Iced Tea mix does not include the scooper. After everything considered the Valu Time Iced Tea Mix is not such a bargain. You have to add more of the Valu Time mix to make it strong enough bringing the value down and the flavor is not comparable to other iced tea mixes. That is truly a disappointment considering that I use many other Valu Time products and I am completely happy with them.