Is iced tea against the Word of Wisdom?

Question: I've been looking for new ways to have a healthier diet, and I keep coming across iced tea. From everything I've looked at its very good for you and doesn't cause problems from withdrawal if you stop drinking it. I know that the work of wisdom specifies not to have strong drinks or hot drinks and that regular tea is against the word of wisdom, but I don't see why iced tea would be. It has caffeine, but so do coke and pepsi and they aren't specifically prohibited by any church leaders. I don't want to disobey the word of wisdom, but I'd really like to start drinking iced tea if it isn't prohibited.

Answer:
I’m not sure I can give you a definitive answer although I have been asked this question a number of times. There seems to be some commandments that are given just to see if we will be obedient. There are others that the Lord gives which (according to His infinite foreknowledge) will cause us grief in the future but He hasn’t as yet revealed all the reasoning behind the commandment. For example note what He revealed in D&C 89:4: “Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation—“ We didn’t know in 1833 the harmful effect tobacco would have on the human body. In fact it wasn’t until the 1980’s when it became so obvious that the tobacco companies could no longer deny it, that efforts to control it by legislation started to take place. So 150 years before wise men discovered the connection, the Lord warned and forewarned us to avoid it.
As of this point (and I haven’t done any recent research on the subject since I completed my doctor’s degree) I read one article that said scientists have identified 98 toxins in tea that are more harmful than caffeine. I was just relaxing from my intense research and happened upon the article. I can’t even tell you where it is—I just made a passing note of it. So right now I don’t know why the Lord said no tea but I’m going to follow His almost 180 year old counsel warning us to stay away from it. I don’t doubt that sooner or later “scientists” will discover what the Lord knew and forewarned about so many years ago.
If you are really interested, why don’t you dig into it and see what is being said nowadays. If they are still taunting it as “harmless” then I would suggest you wait and see for another few years and sooner or later science will catch up. In the early ‘60’s when I was growing up, marijuana was taunted as “the harmless drug.” All the fun and escape from mortality and virtually no ill side effects. It took many years before scientists discovered that it is not only a gateway drug leading to the hard drugs but in and of itself is very dangerous—especially to the offspring of those who smoked pot. I was grateful that we had living prophets who said to stay away from illegal drugs even though (at that time) scientists hadn’t discovered anything wrong with them. I remember being mocked for avoiding something so innocent as marijuana.
Just a few years after my mission (when I was doing student teaching in psychology—my major) I took a group of student to Evanston, Wyoming to a rehabilitation center. We went into an auditorium and a group of young people (the same age as the students I was teaching) were brought in. They were just as normal and happy as any teenager. We laughed and joked with them wondering all the time where the inmates were that we were supposed to meet. Then all of the sudden one young man freaked out. He went to the cinderblock wall and put his nose on the mortar between the cinderblocks. Then he followed the seam along until he got to a doorway. He started to wail like a caged animal. One of the students we were talking with got up and took him and put him on the mortar seam on the other side of the doorway.
We were shocked to silence. We asked what was going on. One of the kids we were talking to said they were all from the same LDS ward in Ogden (where I was student teaching). Just for kicks they had gotten some LSD to see what it was like. Evidently the stuff was too pure for their non-drug taking bodies. They had all freaked out. Most of the time they were as normal as they had been before but without warning they would freak out and do some terribly bazaar thing. We asked how long it was going to last. Sadly they said that nobody knew and that they might be there for the rest of their lives.
What had been a noisy, happy group of high schoolers on the way up to Evanston, was a totally silent ride home. Most of the students I was teaching were LDS. The prophets had sternly warned them against drugs and specifically LSD since that was then the experimental drug without any lasting effects. One mistake and these kids (the inmates) didn’t get a second chance. I don’t know what happened to them, but I will never be the same after that experience. No Russian roulette with the counsel of living prophets or the commandments. Even if I don’t understand, I will follow their counsel until it becomes clear to all that they really are “seers”—or see ers who can see things in the future that are not obvious to us (see Mosiah 8).
So how is that for a non-answer answer? I suspect it won’t be too many years before many of the things that God has asked us to accept on faith will be proven by science.

Bro. Bott