These are all DEFINITELY my first choices, but unfortunately, fresh produce is tough to come by where I live. I do add a squirt of (bottled) lemon juice from time to time.

Good god. Where do you live!?

If/when you do have access- why not stock up and freeze the goods into ice cubes?

I live in the middle of an Idaho wilderness area. We get groceries delivered once a week by small aircraft, from a really terrible grocery store with no refrigerated produce section. Red Delicious apples are standard. Eggplant, kale, and red peppers are too exotic to stock.

I am weeping for you. I thought I had it bad growing up in AK where we had to have everything barged in. Eek! Would it be too hard to get lemons on the regular?

I *think* I can get lemons. I have to pay a weight surcharge for my groceries, though ($0.30/lb), so I usually just grab a bottle of lemon juice whenever I'm able to make it out.

I will check next time I do my grocery order!

Hm. I've been using up some iced tea packets someone left here and they are starting to grow on me. Any personal suggestions? I don't want to have to add sugar, so nothing too bitter. Anything cold-brewing would be good.

I have to fly out next week, so I'll have the chance to do some decent shopping in Boise. Now's the best time for me to start listing high-quality foods. :)

Thanks!

Sun tea. You put the bags in a jug of water and leave it in the sun. Works even if there isn't much sun. Drink over ice -- you have ice, don't you? The best tea bags for your purpose are Red Rose, a common supermarket brand even in Idaho. I like them much more than I do Lipton for some reason.

If you can bring frozen food back on your flight, load up on frozen berries, which you can flavor your tea with. Actually, in the Idaho woods you ought to be able to find some wild berries, huckleberries maybe. Mash 'em up and macerate them.

Also: canned frozen juice of various kinds -- there are a lot of different flavors nowadays, mango and whatnot. They'll survive a few hours out of the freezer, too -- they'll go mushy, but you'll be good. Dilute twice as much as they say, they'll go farther and taste fine. Especially in tea.

Yep, whenever I go out, I stock up on frozen berries and frozen juice cans. We mostly use it for smoothies, though. :)

Huckleberries are higher-elevation than we are here, unfortunately.

Yep, we get mail. I've thought about getting something like this for a while, since I do like sparkling water. I don't know if it would be a good fit for our current living situation, but maybe someday soon. Thanks for the recommendation!