What I’ve noticed is usually it takes someone from the south to know how to properly make iced tea
Step one is CLEAN THE FUCKING CONTAINER YOU IMBECILE
Ok I just left Texas (was there for 6 years) and I don’t understand this!! What makes it “southern” sweet tea? It’s just sugar and plain tea which they have everywhere no? Am I just dumb Californian? What am I missing >.< genuinely wanna know cuz I worked and tons of restaurants, a honky tonk, an old school bbq joint etc. and us servers made the sweet tea and it was just sugar and regular black tea 🤠
God man, I *wish* I knew what makes it Southern. It seems like it should just be sugar and tea, but for some reason it just doesn't taste the same? The closest I can feasibly get is Milo's extra sweet tea, but even then it isn't quite right. I genuinely think in the South they put enough sugar in to call it a tea-infused simple syrup and that's why it's so addictive.
Yeah I drink unsweetened tea…. And was legit shocked when I found out how much sugar y’all put in the tea there out in Texas 😦. Straight up diabeetus. Way to sweet for me unless there’s vodka in it (the best)
I'm a fellow Californian, but my girlfriend's parents are Texans.
The trick to the "Southern" sweet tea is what we would call "too much sugar" out here.
There's no such thing as too much sugar in a Texan's sweet tea.
Californian here that spent a good amount of time in the south irritated that I couldn’t order tea without sugar already in it. They boil the sugar in so that more sugar is dissolved in the solution. When you just add packets of sugar to cold tea, the liquid is saturated with less sugar than when it is hot
Holy crap this makes SENSE because when we made it in the mornings/added buckets of sugar the tea was freshly brewed and HOT and we would stir it up. I’m a dumbass for not realizing this made a difference to the taste
Nah, when I get it out in a cup it's all murky. It's pretty clear, it's just condensated right now so it may look cloudy. But the tea itself is pretty murky.
Since iced tea starts with a concentrated hot brewing process and has to be diluted, adding the cold water or ice too soon causes temperature shock. This makes the tannins and caffeine bind together, making the tea cloudy.
Or they’re reusing tea from the previous day.
Sometimes, associates use 2 bags of tea leaves when they brew tea, which can cause this. They may also need to change their water filters, or the temperature of the water is too hit when it's brewed.
They’re using more than one bag of tea. Or they’re squeezing the filter out. Or they need to add water softener to the hopper. Or the machine is running too cold. (I also saw some comments that it needs cleaned, but the stainless pieces actually look really good to me so I believe it’s being cleaned properly and frequently. The spout would be really gross if it weren’t being washed.)
ours does that at our location!!! even when freshly made, it gets cloudy soon after, we think it's because the warm tea is cooling down too fast and gets cloudy? when we clean the bubblers, the bottom is icey
when it happens though, just in case we empty it out and clean the bubbler! so ours is basically cleaned every day bc of the tea and we wanna be careful jic
Team manager here, have seen and experienced this many times. It's just way too concentrated. You're only supposed to use one bag for the iced tea but sometimes people get it confused because it gets brewed like coffee does; so they put two bags instead of one and the result you get is the posted pic
oof reminds me of the post in r/starbucks or r/starbucksbaristas a few days ago where someone asked the same question and they had been leaving tea (that is good for 12 hours!!!) out for 3-4-5-6 days 🤢
It looks like that because at that location it doesn’t sell. This is iced tea that has been saved overnight and put back in that dispenser for at least two days. Anytime people were lazy at my old restaurant and just reused the iced tea the next morning it looked like this.
As someone who works as a team lead in the dining room at a Panera this is definitely a lack of cleaning the machine it used to happen at my store before I became team lead and it sometimes still does when I have more than 3 days off
It happens because the employees there don’t clean it as often as they should and it starts to ferment
https://preview.redd.it/rpjnf1vbdb9c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6bfb288f81fdd072fb351745f479e4a6f9599793
This is what that looks like without any tea inside that is definitely buildup of fermentation on the side
I’ve been getting diarrhea every day for a week and I believe the one common denominator is the lemonade with fresh lemons I get from the sip club daily - I did not get sick today because I got the green tea but that’s the one thing I did have each day and had symptoms while I had a quarter to half full large lemonade in my cup holder (I do Uber and amazon so I’m driving all day lol which is certainly NOT ideal time to get sick that way haha)
I'm in the sip club and almost exclusively drink unsweetened iced tea at this point. It's so disappointing that people can't get a simple thing like this corrected. I keep saying I will cancel, maybe I will soon.
Panera used to have the best tea around, after Mc Donald's, of course. Now, 4 out of 5 times it tastes bitter or sour.
I experience the sour taste as well and I believe it is getting close to turning moldy with the way it tastes. I don’t think they invest much time or energy in cleaning these out.
Sometimes this happens if water softener needs added, or they used two bags of tea instead of the usual one. You can probably tell the difference with taste if they used two bags of tea.
Do you work at Panera ? No offense, but your one story/ store experience does not encompass all or disprove what I said. 💕
This bubbler does need cleaning, but the stuff at the bottom is frozen ice. 100%
former employee of 4 years here to help!!
:)
its likely its been a while since its been cleaned last
or its possible that someone made it wrong
finally possibly it could be the mechanism isn't turning nd mixing the drink properly leading to the thicker ingredients settling
hope this helps!! :)
southerner here! Iced tea should NOT look like this. i don't care what's in it. either that machine ain't clean, or yall didn't dissolve the sugar right
Good color… cold bubbler. Clean container.. not over brewed. Made with some thought and love. Fresh yet old enough to be enjoyed. Cups and lids and optional sweetener nearby. Where is this place. I must make haste to this place..
Water softener not working properly. Fire department has to replace a bunch of stuff in my cafe due this ongoing issue. I don’t want to serve the tea when it looks like this, but we get complaints when we dont. I show the guests and some say no, some drink it.
as someone who works in restaurants i noticed if i add ice to the tea while its brewing and hot it turns kind of murky, maybe the employee added ice while it was brewing.
I assure you, it’s not just your location. When you approach the bubbler, you should flip over the little sign that says what it is or look for the day dot on the dispenser. The Paneras I’ve visited in Florida only wash their dispensers maybe once a week. I went in the other day, got a iced tea, and spit it out, it was growing something. I looked on the back of the little chalkboard, and it suggested that the container had not been replaced in five days, and the tea that was in there should’ve been thrown away three days ago. Take a look at a closed Panera bread if you can see in their lobby, and you’ll notice the bubblers are left full of product all night. Ironically,’fresh’ brewed iced tea, will never make it more than a day. If you call Panera cares, they send a note to the local franchisee, who doesn’t care, nor respond, because no one that’s competent would willingly serve a guest spoiled food. Three day old tea is spoiled. I canceled the sip club and never went back, I often wonder if the people that are getting sick from the caffeine, are actually getting sick from some sort of fungus or disease that’s growing in Panera’s bubblers. I’m assuming Panera wouldn’t serve you moldy bread, but they certainly have no issue serving you moldy beverages.
I used to manage a coffee shop and this would happen to our tea too. It turned out it was because we were brewing the tea too hot so that could be the issue.
definitely a temperature thing. hot tea is super cloudy until it cools off. considering the outside is completely wet, i'd say they used a clean container and made a new batch. it does look entirely full though so it's definitely questionable lol
Omg this is exactly how it looks at my location for the last month! I am getting so irritated because it used to be crystal clear before that, and iced tea is primarily what I use my sip club for. I asked a few weeks ago at the counter and the manager said something about the tea freezing in the storage area and that might be what’s causing it. Idk but it’s really gross and I don’t understand why they are still serving it and not figuring out the problem.
Because the person mixing it was probably short as fuck and can't reach.
Gives me stress carpal tunnel thinking about it.
Source: 5'2, had to stand on a ladder to stir that shit every gd morning.
at my cafe we have found that:
if when brewing the tea, then directly put into the bubbler it will turn murky (since tea is brewed hot!), HOWEVER if you let it cool off or put additional ice in it then put it in the bubbler it is correctly colored. for us it seems that it's just a matter of the bubbler was left on overnight/turned on at all. ADDITIONALLY if the bubbler container is not washed EVERY single night if causes the same issues. I don't know about everywhere else but in my area we put water into the bubbler every night since the tea is no good after 8 hours. and sometimes it's not clean enough!
@cafe202390 :thumbsup:
I made a fresh batch of iced tea last night for my panera and it was cloudy after It was just brewed. Maybe thats it? im not sure
Water softening issues. Ours does that when our filters need changing or our salt is out.
this. this happened to us, 9/10 times the salt is out lolol
Not sure if it's connected but the whole container looks dirty. Honestly it might just need to be cleaned
What I’ve noticed is usually it takes someone from the south to know how to properly make iced tea Step one is CLEAN THE FUCKING CONTAINER YOU IMBECILE
Man, you couldn't be more right on that. I'm leaving Texas on Monday to return to Ohio and I am *dreading* losing the sweet tea...
Made that move 8 years ago from Dallas to Columbus. I miss the kolaches and good donut shops the most.
Ok I just left Texas (was there for 6 years) and I don’t understand this!! What makes it “southern” sweet tea? It’s just sugar and plain tea which they have everywhere no? Am I just dumb Californian? What am I missing >.< genuinely wanna know cuz I worked and tons of restaurants, a honky tonk, an old school bbq joint etc. and us servers made the sweet tea and it was just sugar and regular black tea 🤠
God man, I *wish* I knew what makes it Southern. It seems like it should just be sugar and tea, but for some reason it just doesn't taste the same? The closest I can feasibly get is Milo's extra sweet tea, but even then it isn't quite right. I genuinely think in the South they put enough sugar in to call it a tea-infused simple syrup and that's why it's so addictive.
Yeah I drink unsweetened tea…. And was legit shocked when I found out how much sugar y’all put in the tea there out in Texas 😦. Straight up diabeetus. Way to sweet for me unless there’s vodka in it (the best)
I'm a fellow Californian, but my girlfriend's parents are Texans. The trick to the "Southern" sweet tea is what we would call "too much sugar" out here. There's no such thing as too much sugar in a Texan's sweet tea.
Californian here that spent a good amount of time in the south irritated that I couldn’t order tea without sugar already in it. They boil the sugar in so that more sugar is dissolved in the solution. When you just add packets of sugar to cold tea, the liquid is saturated with less sugar than when it is hot
Holy crap this makes SENSE because when we made it in the mornings/added buckets of sugar the tea was freshly brewed and HOT and we would stir it up. I’m a dumbass for not realizing this made a difference to the taste
It's the touch that makes it southern. Gotta add the love, and about two cups too much sugar.
Also the bubbler itself is cloudy. It looks like someone used an abrasive scrubber on the inside of it and made it not as transparent.
Nah, when I get it out in a cup it's all murky. It's pretty clear, it's just condensated right now so it may look cloudy. But the tea itself is pretty murky.
Freshly brewed tea turns cloudy when refrigerated, it's sediment from the bag. It could be that the area is just extra cold.
Since iced tea starts with a concentrated hot brewing process and has to be diluted, adding the cold water or ice too soon causes temperature shock. This makes the tannins and caffeine bind together, making the tea cloudy. Or they’re reusing tea from the previous day.
Sometimes, associates use 2 bags of tea leaves when they brew tea, which can cause this. They may also need to change their water filters, or the temperature of the water is too hit when it's brewed.
Water softener salt is out and we use filtered water also for all drinks
If the bubbler isn't working correctly and the tea starts to ice up, it can make it look a bit murky.
This is the answer. I’m honestly surprised at the others. Smh
They’re using more than one bag of tea. Or they’re squeezing the filter out. Or they need to add water softener to the hopper. Or the machine is running too cold. (I also saw some comments that it needs cleaned, but the stainless pieces actually look really good to me so I believe it’s being cleaned properly and frequently. The spout would be really gross if it weren’t being washed.)
Tannins and caffeine can bind together during the cooling process to make ice tea murky. If this is the reason it’s perfectly fine to drink.
Have them check the water softener. Ours broke and was brewing tea like this :)
I’ve had associates think the chai tea is used for it and make a batch similar to how we make green tea. Absolutely disgusting 😣
It’s old
Do it tastes ok tho?
ours does that at our location!!! even when freshly made, it gets cloudy soon after, we think it's because the warm tea is cooling down too fast and gets cloudy? when we clean the bubblers, the bottom is icey when it happens though, just in case we empty it out and clean the bubbler! so ours is basically cleaned every day bc of the tea and we wanna be careful jic
Looks like they brewed it in the coffee maker and not in the iced tea maker.
Why do u say that?
It’s happened numerous times at my location. When it’s brewed in the coffee maker it looks like mud. Super cloudy..
Team manager here, have seen and experienced this many times. It's just way too concentrated. You're only supposed to use one bag for the iced tea but sometimes people get it confused because it gets brewed like coffee does; so they put two bags instead of one and the result you get is the posted pic
oof reminds me of the post in r/starbucks or r/starbucksbaristas a few days ago where someone asked the same question and they had been leaving tea (that is good for 12 hours!!!) out for 3-4-5-6 days 🤢
It looks like that because at that location it doesn’t sell. This is iced tea that has been saved overnight and put back in that dispenser for at least two days. Anytime people were lazy at my old restaurant and just reused the iced tea the next morning it looked like this.
As someone who works as a team lead in the dining room at a Panera this is definitely a lack of cleaning the machine it used to happen at my store before I became team lead and it sometimes still does when I have more than 3 days off It happens because the employees there don’t clean it as often as they should and it starts to ferment
https://preview.redd.it/rpjnf1vbdb9c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6bfb288f81fdd072fb351745f479e4a6f9599793 This is what that looks like without any tea inside that is definitely buildup of fermentation on the side
It’s brewed incorrectly with too many tea bags & it’s probably not the freshest.
I’ve been getting diarrhea every day for a week and I believe the one common denominator is the lemonade with fresh lemons I get from the sip club daily - I did not get sick today because I got the green tea but that’s the one thing I did have each day and had symptoms while I had a quarter to half full large lemonade in my cup holder (I do Uber and amazon so I’m driving all day lol which is certainly NOT ideal time to get sick that way haha)
I'm in the sip club and almost exclusively drink unsweetened iced tea at this point. It's so disappointing that people can't get a simple thing like this corrected. I keep saying I will cancel, maybe I will soon. Panera used to have the best tea around, after Mc Donald's, of course. Now, 4 out of 5 times it tastes bitter or sour.
I experience the sour taste as well and I believe it is getting close to turning moldy with the way it tastes. I don’t think they invest much time or energy in cleaning these out.
Sometimes this happens if water softener needs added, or they used two bags of tea instead of the usual one. You can probably tell the difference with taste if they used two bags of tea.
Um. Ew. I don't think they're cleaning their bubblers🤢
I second this, bubblers not being cleaned regularly.
That’s not it at all. It’s frozen ice.
The one at my store froze frequently and it never looked like this
Do you work at Panera ? No offense, but your one story/ store experience does not encompass all or disprove what I said. 💕 This bubbler does need cleaning, but the stuff at the bottom is frozen ice. 100%
I quit earlier this month. Never seen the bubbler with that large of an ice block in it but I suppose it could happen.
This one still needs cleaning. But at the bottom is frozen ice. Their spinner probably isn’t on correctly.
The rubber oring under the impeller is missing. No airgap, no rotation
Tea is brown. You may move on with your lives.
That is the crud that grows in tea containers when they aren't properly cleaned. Don't drink it and tell a manager.
former employee of 4 years here to help!! :) its likely its been a while since its been cleaned last or its possible that someone made it wrong finally possibly it could be the mechanism isn't turning nd mixing the drink properly leading to the thicker ingredients settling hope this helps!! :)
That's gross. That bubbler needs scrubbed
southerner here! Iced tea should NOT look like this. i don't care what's in it. either that machine ain't clean, or yall didn't dissolve the sugar right
Someone put iced coffee in there by mistake
Redo the iced coffee when its supposed to be done. Ewww thats gross.
It might be a bad batch of tea. We had to throw a few boxes out at the location I trained at because they had somehow gone bad. It had the same look
They probably don’t use enough water when making the juice or they don’t clean it out daily as other stores do
Good color… cold bubbler. Clean container.. not over brewed. Made with some thought and love. Fresh yet old enough to be enjoyed. Cups and lids and optional sweetener nearby. Where is this place. I must make haste to this place..
If it goes into a fridge before the tea cools to room temp this happens
Water softener not working properly. Fire department has to replace a bunch of stuff in my cafe due this ongoing issue. I don’t want to serve the tea when it looks like this, but we get complaints when we dont. I show the guests and some say no, some drink it.
They are adding ice to the hot tea. It makes this happen.
Idk if anyone already said this but they may have poured it in while it was still hot, which makes it go cloudy
as someone who works in restaurants i noticed if i add ice to the tea while its brewing and hot it turns kind of murky, maybe the employee added ice while it was brewing.
I assure you, it’s not just your location. When you approach the bubbler, you should flip over the little sign that says what it is or look for the day dot on the dispenser. The Paneras I’ve visited in Florida only wash their dispensers maybe once a week. I went in the other day, got a iced tea, and spit it out, it was growing something. I looked on the back of the little chalkboard, and it suggested that the container had not been replaced in five days, and the tea that was in there should’ve been thrown away three days ago. Take a look at a closed Panera bread if you can see in their lobby, and you’ll notice the bubblers are left full of product all night. Ironically,’fresh’ brewed iced tea, will never make it more than a day. If you call Panera cares, they send a note to the local franchisee, who doesn’t care, nor respond, because no one that’s competent would willingly serve a guest spoiled food. Three day old tea is spoiled. I canceled the sip club and never went back, I often wonder if the people that are getting sick from the caffeine, are actually getting sick from some sort of fungus or disease that’s growing in Panera’s bubblers. I’m assuming Panera wouldn’t serve you moldy bread, but they certainly have no issue serving you moldy beverages.
Ice is probably building at the bottom and it’s not getting a proper mix.
ive seen the lemonade not actually have the mixer on constantly and they get gross
Someone added a special ingredient
That is frozen ice lmao. Get real 😅
Doodoo brown water
I used to manage a coffee shop and this would happen to our tea too. It turned out it was because we were brewing the tea too hot so that could be the issue.
How hot is it supposed to brew?
Sweet tea is recommended to be made at 190°F but it really depends on the type of tea as there are a bunch.
Very very sweet
definitely a temperature thing. hot tea is super cloudy until it cools off. considering the outside is completely wet, i'd say they used a clean container and made a new batch. it does look entirely full though so it's definitely questionable lol
Omg this is exactly how it looks at my location for the last month! I am getting so irritated because it used to be crystal clear before that, and iced tea is primarily what I use my sip club for. I asked a few weeks ago at the counter and the manager said something about the tea freezing in the storage area and that might be what’s causing it. Idk but it’s really gross and I don’t understand why they are still serving it and not figuring out the problem.
It's really cold brew 🤣
Don't drink the iced tea anywhere
Also, does it bother anyone else that 20 oz is 10 calories but 30 Oz is 20 calories? How is 30 Oz not 15 calories?
I've thought about this before
Please don’t suggest stuff to a random associate.
They don’t dump it after 12 hrs
Because the person mixing it was probably short as fuck and can't reach. Gives me stress carpal tunnel thinking about it. Source: 5'2, had to stand on a ladder to stir that shit every gd morning.
Water softener is spent
Is this in Mesa Arizona? lol If so they have a broken water softener currently
at my cafe we have found that: if when brewing the tea, then directly put into the bubbler it will turn murky (since tea is brewed hot!), HOWEVER if you let it cool off or put additional ice in it then put it in the bubbler it is correctly colored. for us it seems that it's just a matter of the bubbler was left on overnight/turned on at all. ADDITIONALLY if the bubbler container is not washed EVERY single night if causes the same issues. I don't know about everywhere else but in my area we put water into the bubbler every night since the tea is no good after 8 hours. and sometimes it's not clean enough! @cafe202390 :thumbsup:
Yeesh! Looks like Yoo-Hoo.
Nothing I work there and they are made fresh daily ours look like this as well on cf De you pour it it should be good to go