Turn a can of iced tea around in a Sri Lankan shop and look for a small coloured circle: red, amber or green. Sri Lanka's sugar colour-coding rules, first introduced in 2016 and replaced in 2022, require ready-to-serve drinks to carry one. A June 2026 gazette tightens the bands once they take effect: red will be above 8 grams of sugar per 100 ml, down from 11, amber covers 2.5 to 8 grams, and green means under 2.5.
That circle is the fastest quality check in the shop, and it is where we would start looking for the best iced tea in Sri Lanka. Do the sum on a drink at the red line: 8 grams per 100 ml is 20 grams in a 250 ml can. The WHO's stricter target for free sugars is below roughly 25 grams a day. One can gets you most of the way.
Our view is simple. If sugar is the first thing you taste, it isn't really iced tea. It's a sweet drink with a tea accent.
What makes an iced tea worth drinking
Tea you can actually taste. Read the ingredient list. Tea should be there by name, and near the top. A black tea base gives body and a little bite, which is why it carries lemon and peach so well. Green tea is lighter and more floral, and it suits jasmine.
A sugar level you chose. Amber is a reasonable middle ground on a hot afternoon. Green is where the tea itself has room to speak.
Flavour that sits on top of the tea, not instead of it. Lemon, peach or jasmine should lift the cup. If you can't find the tea underneath, the flavouring is doing the tea's job.
Canned or home-brewed?
Both have a place. They answer different moments.
| Canned iced tea | Home cold brew | |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | Set by the maker; check the colour code | Entirely up to you |
| Caffeine | Varies by drink; check the can | Can be lower; depends on the leaf, strength and steep time |
| Effort | Open and drink | Five minutes, then overnight in the fridge |
| Keeping | Shelf stable until opened | Brew what you'll drink in a day or two |
| Best for | On the go, a cold drink in the car, sparkling variety | Full control, a jug for the family, a clean tea taste |
A simple Ceylon cold brew
Cold brewing is about the easiest iced tea there is, and the most forgiving. No boiling, little risk of a stewed, bitter cup, and no waiting for hot tea to cool.
Ceylon cold brew (makes 1 litre)
- 4 Ceylon black tea bags, or 8 to 10 g of loose leaf (about 4 heaped teaspoons)
- 1 litre of cold water, filtered or boiled and cooled
- A lidded jar or jug
- Put the tea in the jar and pour over the cold water. Stir once.
- Cover and refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours. For green tea, 6 to 8 hours is enough.
- Lift out the bags or strain the leaf. Don't squeeze the bags.
- Taste it before you sweeten it. If you want sugar, dissolve it in a splash of warm water first; granules sink in cold tea.
- Serve over ice with a slice of lime.
Variations: a few slices of fresh ginger in the jar; a stick of Ceylon cinnamon; or a couple of cloves for a gently spiced jug. For a proper iced clove tea, see our clove tea recipe.
Why it tastes smoother: cold water pulls some compounds out of the leaf far more slowly than hot water. In a Japanese study on green tea, green tea steeped in 10°C water for one hour gave around 20% of the EGCG and around 50% of the caffeine of a two-minute hot brew. That was green tea and a one-hour steep, not black tea overnight, so treat it as a direction, not a promise.
For the leaf itself, our pick for cold brew is a bright high-grown Ceylon, the sort Dimbula is known for. Low-grown teas give a darker, stronger jug if that's how you like it.
Our canned iced teas
We make our own range of sparkling iced teas. They are lightly sparkling, and we make them lightly sweetened, at about 1.4% sugar. Our cans are 355 ml, so at that level one comes to about 5 g of sugar (1.4 × 3.55).
Here is the range, described plainly so you can pick by taste:
- Lemon Blast: black tea with natural lemon flavouring. Crisp, and the closest to a classic lemon iced tea.
- Peach Sensation: black tea with natural peach flavouring. Softer and fruitier.
- Mango Tango: black tea with natural mango flavouring, for a tropical cup.
- Raspberry Sparkle: black tea with natural raspberry flavouring. Tangy and bright.
- Magic Moment: black tea with natural strawberry and rose flavouring. The most floral of the black tea flavours.
- Jasmin Green: green tea, lightly sparkling. Light and fragrant.
- Matcha: matcha with sparkling water, sweetened only with agave. Earthy rather than fruity.
If you want tea first, start with Lemon Blast or Jasmin Green.
If you like lighter, tea-led drinks, we wrote about the rise of botanical, low-calorie ready-to-drinks.
A few quick answers
Why does my home-made iced tea go cloudy? That haze is called tea cream. As strong black tea cools, theaflavins, caffeine and other polyphenols clump together, and research on black tea creaming found that stronger tea and added calcium both make it worse. In practice that points at strong brews and hard, calcium-rich water. Cold brewing tends to sidestep it, because the tea never has to cool down.
Does iced tea have caffeine? Yes, if it's made from tea leaves. How much depends on the drink and how it was brewed. Cold brewing can carry less, but a long, strong overnight steep narrows the gap.
Where to find ours
Each flavour above links to its own page. In the US, we've partnered with Mr. Checkout Distributors to bring our teas and beverages to American shelves.
Pour one over ice, or put a jar of cold brew in the fridge tonight and compare them tomorrow afternoon.