This southern specialty with international roots remains unchanged
When you ask around for the history of our famous iced tea, you’ll get a common answer: “that was before my time.” But most people do know, the tea is “ a proprietary tea blend, made exclusively for Chick-fil-A.”
Our Special Blend
We found our blend at Tetley, an English tea company founded in 1837. Specifically selected to produce a dark amber color and designed to pair with real sugar and lemon, our blend is sourced from estates around the world. It’s inspected daily by skilled tasters using organoleptic analysis, which is a fancy way of saying it’s brewed and tasted to ensure consistency.
“When it comes to iced tea, color and clarity are quality attributes,” explains Ronnie Osborne, Tetley’s tea buying and blending expert. “They are just as important as flavor.” Osborne is part of a team responsible for ensuring every glass of iced tea poured at a Chick-fil-A restaurant has the same color and flavor as the original blend selected more than three decades ago.
We use filtered water to make our tea so there’s no cloudy appearance once chilled. Just like we do with our THRIVE Farmers coffee and lemonade. Every Chick-fil-A restaurant uses specifically calibrated brewing machines to ensure our tea’s color, clarity, and flavor is just right.
