I’ve been drinking Crystal Light Peach Iced Tea for at least five years now, and I love it. But! I think they changed the recipe recently, because I’m noticing that it tastes very different.
It’s not just that my taste has changed…I’ve noticed the difference in the new larger canisters (the ones where one sleeve makes two quarts), but the smaller cannisters (1 sleeve=1 quart) still have the old flavor. I assume that there are more older small cannisters on the shelf and that the store just hasn’t reached the point where they have to restock with new recipe smaller cannisters yet.
When I first discovered the difference, I thought maybe I just had mislabeled packaging, that they’d somehow accidentally sent peach packaging through some other flavor (the new flavor is much “thinner” (there doesn’t seem to be as much depth to it) and tarter…I don’t really like it anywhere near as much), but popping a second cannister and having it be the new flavor as well kind of put the kibosh on that.
So, am I going crazy? Or has anyone else noticed this?
I drink it every day and I’ve noticed that it’s weaker just in the past few weeks in the newer containers. I’ve been adding about a quarter less water. I thought it was just me!
Have you tried the canisters of Arizona peach tea powder? It tastes much more peachy and less sweet but it’s about a buck more expensive so I usually settle for Crystal Light.
My SO just asked what was wrong with the tea too. He said it was sour and didn’t taste like peach anymore. He thought I’d cheated and bought the generic brand.
I was hoping there was just some mistake in that one production run. If this is the new recipe, I’m done drinking it. It really doesn’t taste like peach (or tea!) at all any more.
I drink Wal-mart’s Peach Iced Tea or Lemon Iced Tea. Sometimes enjoy walmart’s bomb pop limeade. Their kiwi-orange-banana aid is pretty unique. Really superior pink lemonade.
My pantry is stocked full of Wal-Mart drink mixes. I love the peach iced tea, as well as the straight peach flavor. And the orange-banana-strawberry flavor is da bomb.
I asked if the recipe had changed on the Kraft message boards last night, and a moderator just answered it.
So the semi-official answer is that they haven’t reformulated. It’s possible there was just a bad run. I’ll let my fellow peach tea drinkers know if there’s any follow-up.
So strange - the last batch I made had a weird bitter taste to it. I thought I just hadn’t rinsed the soap out of the container enough (to be honest, I actually thought it was because I had switched to Palmolive Oxi, and was used to the old taste of Dawn!)
I’ve noticed product changes for the worse in several brands and it seems to me they almost always deny they’ve made any changes. Once I noticed the list of ingredients was totally different and they still claimed it was the same formula… so I guess YMMV!
If it helps any, I’ve found that the small canisters (where the individual sleeves make 1 qt.) aren’t affected (yet). I can verify that any of those small canisters that have a sell-by date on the bottom on or before April 2012 are the old flavor.
I like the stuff. No sugar, makes our crappy water taste better? Sign me up!
What I don’t like, however, is that they apparently put tons of food coloring into their mixes. If you get that stuff on anything, even once it’s diluted with water, you’re never going to be able to wash it clean. I don’t need anything neon-colored, thanks. I really wish they’d just stop artificially coloring their stuff.
Don’t they have some sort of vitamin water type additive? I would have thought that would be clear. I see them in the store. They come in the water bottle size packets? I have no idea if they’re clear though.
Formula for Crystal Light Peach flavor has changed;
"In January 2014, we reformulated some of our CRYSTAL LIGHT Flavored Drink Mixes. We removed Vitamin A and Vitamin E from the ingredient line to better meet our consumer’s expectations of the product(s). The removal of these additives also offers a cleaner ingredient line.
Our staff works very hard to provide the best tasting and satisfying products to the preferences of most consumers. Your opinion about the product is important to us as well and I will share your comments with our product development staff.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts."
That was my email response from Kraft regarding the change in flavor of Crystal Light Peach tea. Bleh!
I actually haven’t had the Crystal Light in about six months now. I started brewing my iced tea at home and it’s about 1000x better than CL ever was in the first place.
