Fuze - 15 Reviews

Without fail, low calorie aka diet drinks always sit in my “to-drink” pile the longest. By pile I mean three cupboards and a drawer in the fridge, but it's much more entertaining to think of is as a giant pile of drinks next to my desk with bottle precariously placed, so that everyone is in constant fear of it crushing me to death. People would probably insist that I start wearing a Medic Alert bracelet. Alas, I am far too organized and they are in cupboards, organized by drink type.

This has been sitting around for probably 8-9 months now. It's just been hanging around like an old ghost trying to frighten me into drinking it. Finally I gave into the fear and today was the day of ingestion. It's not as bad as I had anticipated. The use of actual juice in here probably helps. This is supposed to be a cranberry and raspberry juice, but it also contains apple, black carrot, black currants and a whole mess of vitamins. The result is a fruity beverage that tastes vaguely like berries, that also has a bit of a cranberry dryness to it, but doesn't really taste like the suggested flavors. There's some sucralose in there, but it's not bad enough to ruin the drink. It's also borderline creamy, which is odd. I mean it's not like there is milk in it or anything, but it has that certain smoothness to it. For a company that makes mediocre teas, it's no wonder that they also make mediocre juice/vitamin drinks.

Hey buddy, even though you look completely worn out, why don't you pop on over to the fuse box and open it up and see if you can figure out why the lights are working? I'm just kidding you brother, I just have the switch turned off. I'm trying to toughen up my eyes by reading in the dark. With the appending apocalypse you gotta be ready and you can bet your sweet ass that within two years electricity won't exist. I don't want to be that fool that can't read anything in the dark when that comes to pass. Seriously though check out the fuse box and get yourself one. Oh I'm sorry, I call my fridge the fuse box, because m I don't want to be that fool that can't read anything in the dark when that comes to pass. Seriously though check out the fuse box and get yourself one. Oh I'm sorry, I call my fridge the fuse box, because my mom keeps it stocked with Fuze drinks. She's been raggin' me about how I need to lose weight so she buys me the low calorie “Slenderize” ones. I don't know what she's talking about. These three bills will help me to stay alive at the end of the world. While all you skinny folks are withering away I'll be eating my own fat and prospering.

Oh man, you should have grabbed the blueberry raspberry one. It's actually got a bunch of juices in it. Okay it's mostly apple juice, but there are a bunch of other fruit and vegetable juices in it, even though they make up less than .5% of the ingredients. It tastes like a berry drink that is heavy on the blueberries, but the sucralose in it gives it a weird taste. It doesn't taste overly diet, but it's done something to the juice that makes it taste a bit off. Everything mixed together gives you a bunch of vitamins and minerals. It's pretty rad. I know my mom just thinks I'm fat, so she buys it because of the low sugar content ,but all that Super Citrimax and Chromium in my system is really going to come in handy when the world…€¦well you know where this is going. Prepare yourself brother!

This falls under the category of iced tea that doesn't taste like tea. It's sugar water with flavoring that is similar to tea. There is no way that “tea powder” could result in a beverage that actually tastes like real tea. This falls in the same category as Nestea and Brisk. Actually it tastes like someone made some tea at home from a powder mix and combined it with some Brisk. I'm sure that a majority of the consumers out there will like this just fine, but over the years of writing for Thirsty Dudes I've become a low level tea snob, and this really just doesn't cut it. I mean it's perfectly drinkable, but it's nothing like what I want an iced tea to be.

So as you probably don't know, Coca Cola no longer works with Nestea. They don't bottle it, they don't' distribute it, it's as if their partnership never existed. I wonder who plays the role of the jilted lover in this scenario? Coke needed to fill their iced tea slot, so they are now working with Fuze.

The thing is that I think there was some vats of Nestea's green tea and honey in some factory and they just slapped the Fuze label on it. As my ladyfriend pointed out, it tastes basically the same. It has that quasi bubble tea taste from the honey and the…€¦well green tea. It's really sweet, and if a true tea smith who used monkeys to gather their tea from the side of mountains tasted it they would sip and weep for how much of a bastardization it is from what green tea traditionally is. I say let them cry. I love real deal green tea, but this is gas station fodder and you can't hold it up to the same standards.

Black tea is the old man. White tea is the young buck. Green tea is the grandpa. Red tea is the teenager, confused on what to do with life. Bad haircuts, ill fitting clothes, questionable taste in music, and so much more. It's like a midlife crisis but done as a young kid so it's like a quarter life crisis. You date people younger than you and people are starting to talk. You started to see this strawberry and that's not a traditional thing for tea to do. It's a kid flavor and you should be on your way to become an adult tea. You should be seeing other red teas but you aren't a conformist. You do what you want. You are your own tea. You are going to date that strawberry because she's got a great shape and is fun to be around. Together, you make a decent tea. You are sweetened but aren't done the right way because you, like always, cut corners and went the corn syrup route. It's alright because people that are just like you are fine with it. It smells good thanks to your younger girlfriend but you're really letting her do all the work. You're just sitting back, like you always do. You know, as I think about it, I agree with your black tea father. Use real sugar and don't mess with no fruits. That's how to let a man shine.

More melons. I want more melon in my life. I want it in my diet all the time and I want it in more drinks. I love it. It's been done pretty poorly with the exception of the Calypso Triple Melon. This is close to a really good execution but something inside of this bottle is killing the perfection that I so desperately desire. I will blame it on the sugar as none of the fruits in this drink have the sharpness that I'm getting. I don't get the watermelon but I do get the strawberry and the melon and those are the two that I really want. I can taste things trying to get through like a goat trying to get through the fence at a petting zoo to stick its wet nose in your pocket to get the feed you just aren't giving to him fast enough. Oh, those rectangular pupils get me every time. I forget and then the twice a year I spend time with them; there they are, filled with 90 degree angles. It's just unnatural, but goats eat cans and boots so it's fine. Goats. You guys are alright.

Fuze went a bit overboard and tried to mix ten million flavors together, and by ten million I mean six. There is a lot of text in this ingredients list and since most of it is fruit juice concentrate one would think that this would be a decent drink. Then you look at a different spot on the label and realize that there is only 5% juice in here. That's a lot of different juices to use to make a drink that is 95% other junk. It shows in the flavor too. It tastes thin and cheap. It tastes like generic fruit drink. These are not things that I look for in a beverage. This could have been in a giant gallon jug at a gas station and I would not have batted an eye. Okay, I would have because it isn't as thick as those beverages, but you get the idea. Sorry Fuze, you have not won me over with this one.

With all of these half and halfs popping up lately you would expect the companies to pay more attention to their mixture in order to make their product stand out. Fuze apparently didn't think that was very important. When I drink a beverage such as this I want a strong tea as well as a strong lemonade flavor. All this delivers is a mediocre tea flavor that would fit in well amongst the generic gas station crowd and a lemon flavor that is just slightly stronger than your everyday lemon tea. It's average in every way. At least they didn't put milk in it like they do a lot of their drinks.

Two things: A. Why did they add sucralose to this when there are both sugar and crystalline fructose up near the top? B. Why does Fuze feel the need to add skim milk to their drinks?

In answer to A I've read that small amounts of sucralose and other zero calorie sweeteners help to enhance the natural flavors of a drink. I'm called bull on that. What it does enhance is the terrible artificial diet flavor. It's really unnecessary.

The reason for the second question isn't so clear. Perhaps the CEO just likes slightly milky drinks. It reminds me of when I was little and I would mix all the drinks in the fridge into a “power drink.” In early trials I would mix in some milk, then I realized that it was kind of gross, and I started to exclude it. It would sometimes curl when mixed with juice. I'm surprised that doesn't happen in here. Adding milk to a drink always gives it a slight melted ice cream flavor.

Let me sum up this drink for you. It would be a decent juice if there weren't sucralose in it. It's too bad that it has the terrible diet flavor to it. Why add that flavor when there is still 42g of sugar in the bottle? Oh and while we're at it, they should have left out the milk as it makes it weird and creamy and melted milkshake like.

An open letter to the beverage world,

Folks, don't you think you've beaten it into the ground? Perhaps we should just let it die in peace. Peaches are great. Mangoes are wonderful. When you combine the two they make a nice couple. You know the kind that will date for a few years, eventually get married and go on to have a nice respectable family. Everyone likes to know a couple or two like that, but no one wants to be surrounded by nothing but couples like that. It leaves one feeling like something is wrong with them for not being a part of such a wonderful couple. Then the non peach-mango will get desperate and try to pair itself with anything to be like the happy couples. That just isn't good for anyone. Am I making any sense? Of course I'm not. My point in that it seems every drink company out these days has a peach mango option. It's been overdone and it's no longer exciting. It used to be one of my favorites, but I no longer look forward to reviewing drinks of this flavor. I know you folks have more in you, so be creative. Match up some other fruits. I bet a passionfruit/dragonfruit would make for a wonderful wedding.

Sincerely,
Jason & The Thirsty Dudes.

ps. This actually has a decent peach/mango flavor to it, but for some reason they decided to add sucralose along with the sugar and crystalline fructose in here and you catch hints of it. I have no idea why they added it, but one serving still contains 42g of sugar, so it obviously wasn't to keep the calories down. Also if I didn't know there was milk in this I don't know if I would realize it was there, except for a little extra creaminess. Knowing it's in there grosses me out a little. I'm going to guess that 95% of this drink is all water, sweetener and milk. Take a second to think about making that in your kitchen. You wouldn't want to drink it then, so why would they put it in here? I don't see what it's there for at all. Take it out and maybe this drink would have gotten 4 bottles. As it is Derek is off crying because a cow was raped to make this drink. Fuze, why did you have to go and make Neulando Calrissian cry?

I don't hate Subway. I should let it be known. I enjoy a nice chicken teriyaki sub on honey oat with pepper jack, olive, onions, and banana pepper with their chipotle southwest sauce. That's my sub. I also typically get the Fuze tea and was pretty stoked when they partnered up. Problem is, sometimes the people that work there "forget" to make the tea so I'm stuck with Coke or something. Look, Coke. I don't hate you, but when my mouth wants real brewed tea, it doesn't want cola. Black and white, buddy. Black and white.

Today we, the company, all went to Subway and was greeted by a man, possibly and probably homeless, smoking a cigarette which he generously blew in our face as he exited the restaurant. As I looked around in disgust, the patrons on their lunch break had the same face I had on. Together as one, we all would enjoy subs from that moment on. I got my sub and was greeted not by the typical green tea, but by a new and fully stocked raspberry green tea.

As I gleefully filled my over-sized cup, the culprit smoker came back inside and had a cigarette in his mouth and his hands to his mouth, as if to spark up another one. The guy that cashed me out spent 20% of the time looking at me and essentially blindly scanned my card, told me my points, got me cookies, and handed everything to me while 80% watching that dude...ready to make an executive decision to boot him out of there for lighting up another cigarette.

I left, took one sip, and forgot about everything that had happened because this tea is great. Real nice raspberry flavor, not too sweet, and long lasting flavor. This was a delicious treat that I would be privileged to enjoy for twenty-six, uninterrupted ounces. I would make this a regular purchase if all Subway's had it. You hear me giant conglomerate Subway? Make this a standard until something better comes out. I love it!

Tropical punch might trump fruit punch. Fruit punch is a mystery blend of fruits that I'm convinced no one knows except for the manufacturer. Tropical punch has pineapples and banana and mango and passion fruit and more. This drink even splurged on a stockpile of dragon fruit, which I give them all the credit in the world for.

This drink has a little bit of a diet taste to it but you can actually taste most of not all of the fruits. It is kind of fun to drink and try and pick out each of the flavors as they come along.

This is a good diet beverage and I will recommend it to anyone who wants to give it a shot.

This tastes diet. It really tastes like there's artificial sweetener in it, but nope, just sugar. It has a faint raspberry taste, but that diet flavor, just takes over. Maybe that's what camu camu tastes like. I had never even heard of it before I saw this drink.
It does have a bunch of vitamins in it, but the health benefits from those are worth dealing with the flavor to me.

How do I describe you, Fuze Black and Green Tea with Acai Berry and "these" essential vitamins? Floral? Clearly, the first thing you taste is the Acai, which has a fruity, almost flower spell and taste to it. It's not bad as much as it is...confusing.

As the days progress and I spend more time looking at beverages, the FDA is really insistent that we cram as much Acai down our gullets. Acai is two years ago's pomegranate. Remember when they couldn't leave that poor dude alone and it was in everything? Have you ever had a real pomegranate? They're wonderful. Wait, we were talking about Acai. Let's get back to work.

Do I like this...I still don't know. I personally don't care when vitamins are in my drinks. Sure, thanks, but I don't eat like an idiot so I get vitamins in my meals so I don't need people filling my otherwise healthy tea with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and experimental fruit.

Sidetracked again? What's wrong with me? Am I chronically unsatisfiable? Possibly/probably. I was stricken on day one with an analytical and skeptical mindset so I always think that things can be done better/faster/more efficient so when someone comes in and starts dumping some new foreign fruit unbeknownst to me down my throat by the 18.5 fluid ounces load, I can question it, can't it? 3. There. You want my review? Here it is:

It's a fruity, floral tasting drink with a sweet, bitter green tea aftertaste.

I like most Fuze tea. When I heard that Subway was getting it, it got excited and started eating way too much Subway.

This tea is nice. It has the initial bitterness of the ginseng but the genuine aftertaste of honey.

You can get this stuff everywhere and anywhere and for under $1.50 so give it a while and let me know what you think.