Summer Drink

The warm weather has really picked up here, hitting 30 almost everyday. One of my favorite summer drinks has to be ice tea but such sentiment of mine is not shared by my fellow Argentinians unfortunately. You won't be able to find it anywhere (well, except in Chinatown, but isn't that like everything else? Can't find something, go to Chinatown, they should have it! lol) You thought with the very hot weather here, refreshing ice tea would be a booming business already but that's actually very far from the truth. I was told that big companies like Lipton, had tried to bring it to the market but everyone had failed miserably.

When it comes to non-alcoholic drinks, the Argentines drink a lot of pop, juices, water or flavored water con gas or sin gas (carbonated or non-carbonated) and all these beverages can be easily found in every Kiosko (corner store). Since I don't like carbonated drinks, I left with water and juices to choose from, and sometimes you just don't want plain water. Flavored water is too fake for me so juices it is. From having only a mere 4 -5 choices of juices here, I have to say that we N. Americans are really spoiled with the unending choices of products back home. I'm not complaining though because I always just like it simple, apple juice with the occasional orange juice.

Sometimes I do find the juice too sweet so I've started mixing it with water. And guess what, the juice brand Cepita (by Coca Cola) have just released these new products that are just like that! 3 flavors of fruit juices (not fake flavoring) mix with water and sugar: manzana (apple), pera (pear) and pomelo (grapefruit). After having seen the TV commercials for the 50th time, I finally picked one up on a hot afternoon and it was exactly what I needed, something natural tasting, just the right amount of sweetness, refreshing and cold! Despite that I'm still missing my ice tea on-the-go, I can now officially announce that I've found my summer drinks!!