Sparkling Green Tea - 7 Reviews

Steaz has their heart in the right place, and for years they have been working at creating perfect harmony between soda and green tea. Unfortunately they are not quite there. I would never say any of their creations have been gross, and I had no problem drinking them, it's just that they never reach their potential. Tea pop should be the greatest thing ever, but they always see to fall short. The soda flavor is always far too light. I'd like to say that was because they were more concerned with the flavor of the tea, but that also gets lost most of the time. Take this drink for example; cola is one of the strongest flavors a soda pop can have, and there is no excuse for its weakness in this beverage. I want crisp, dark cola flavors. This tastes lighter than the most diet of diet bogus colas. The taste of the green tea is there, but it's muddied by the erythritol, which they used to sweeten this.

My final verdict is that while this is a completely acceptable beverage, it could be made much better if they either used cane sugar (it's a zero calorie beverage, so that won't happen) or make the cola flavoring stronger. I bet they could make it could even mask the sweetener. The tea flavor would probably be lost even more though. Let's get a team of scientists on this. I want this to be so good, and I know it can be.

I like sparkling beverages and I love green tea. I also prefer lower calorie beverages when it's due to less sugar instead of zero calorie sweeteners. That is where Steaz went wrong. This would have been great with just a pinch of sugar, or better off no sweeteners at all. A sparkling unsweetened tea would be wonderful. Instead they used Erythritol, which is normally an okay choice for zero calorie sweeteners, but they seemed to have used ten times the recommended amount. The fluid in this can tastes more like sweetener than it does blood orange or tea for that matter. It would be bad enough, but still somehow acceptable if the diet taste was only there when you sipped it, but it leaves a long lasting diet aftertaste that lingers for minutes after each sip.

Steaz took a swing for the stars, and they unfortunately struck out. Actually the more I think about it I can hardly taste the blood orange at all. It's truly a shame.

Somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains a thirsty scientist named Vigo has gone "mad." He was sick of having to choose between his two favorite drinks, which were green tea and root beer. He decided to take matters in his own hands. He would create a hybrid, a Frankenstein monster of sorts of beverages. He loaded up his ingredients on the platform. He was about to raise it into the storm brewing above when his assistant grabbed his arm and begged him to reconsider to think of how this would affect the future of the planet. The mad genius threw him off and yelled, "Back off man I'm a scientist!" With that he threw the switch and the platform was raised and instantly struck with lightening. If you know anything about science that is the only proper way to make an unholy alliance.

As the platform lowered Vigo scooped out a cupful in his chalice and took a big gulp. His mouth was greeted by three waves of flavor. At first it was just a nice sweet soda taste, it was actually almost a cola. Then a wave of weakish root beer flavor washed over him. It wasn't nearly as strong as he had wanted, but it wasn't bad at all. Finally as that faded away it was replaced with the bitter sting of green tea. He felt that his creation wasn't a complete success, but it was good enough to market to the public. He then vowed to spend the rest of eternity trying to improve upon his creation. It's a couple thousand years later and he still hasn't gotten it quite right. This is a nice hybrid, but it doesn't quite deliver as much as you would want it to in either the tea or root beer categories. Maybe someday Vigo will find a baby so he can return to the earthly realm and begin his work anew.

I had a flavor of Steaz awhile back and I've been turned off by it since I had one kind that wasn't good. It was a bad first impression and for that, I have taken a Steaz-free vacation. I don't recall what flavor it was, but I want to say that it had something to do with Acai.

This is completely different and actually good on top of the fact that there are no calories. It's like a crazy, alternate universe has emerged from the can. What an ignorant statement if I were actually serious. Like nothing that's good for you is good. Have you ever had corn? How about apples? Tacos grow on trees and guacamole doesn't, that's why guac is always extra.

It's been quite some time since I've had a solid and not something in liquid form, but for what I remember, the flavor is pretty good and honest. You get a sweet erythritol taste, but I've grown to like it so this entire can wasn't even shared by me.

Now all I can think of is a taco tree. I have a feeling that the window of opportunity between ripe and not ripe is very small.

Surprise, John! It's a celebration! You made it through initiation. I know this last month has been tough and we've been tough on you but you made it. Remember when Tim, the mailman, put an entire box of thumbtacks on your chair and then you sat on it? That was classic. Oh, do you remember when Carol, from accounting, put that eel in your sandwich and watched you eat it? I can't believe it. Then when she told you it was an electric eel and you started screaming; priceless. Ha ha, I just remembered when Bob, the night watchman, pulled his gun out on you when you were walking to your car. That dude, man, parts of me thought that you were going to cry, seriously, I thought you were going to cry.

So, in celebration of you making it through the hazing, we bought you this four-pack of Steaz grape sparkling green tea. It's pretty good. It tastes like light non-alcoholic champagne and since old man Dalrymple won't let us drink at work, this is the best we can do. It's good, though. It tastes like real concord grapes and although I don't get a lot of green tea taste, it's just the right amount of everything else to be awesome.

So you don't have to worry about us always eating your yogurt, putting Vasoline on your door handles, breaking your pencils, telling your wife you are at a "pay by the hour" motel when she calls, or any of that stuff. Welcome to First National Bank!

When I read naturally sweetened, I don't think that it's sweetened with a natural sweetener. That's why the first time I took a sip and got that eternally cool erythritol taste I was surprised. That taste sticks with you through the otherwise not bad taste of the blueberry and pomegranate, which in itself, isn't too distinguishable in itself.

It isn't the worst thing ever. It still has a bit to offer. It's a good/different diet alternative.

I'm pretty sure there is a basic human need to drink carbonation at times. I've gone through periods where I give up soda all together for awhile. I never actually last very long, because I get this weird feeling in my throat after a week or two and the only way to make that feeling go away is to drink something that has bubbles in it. This inevitably ends up with me drinking some sort of pop a few hours after the feeling's arrival. Sure I could just drink some soda water to “scratch” my throat, but there is something about it that I just can't stomach. Who knew carbon dioxide had a flavor?

I bring all of this up because in the past I always used to wonder why someone didn't carbonate iced tea. I love iced tea; some would say that I was a junkie for it. The idea of being able to get rid of that throat itch with some tea was always the dream. Then some companies finally came out with carbonated tea, and it just turned out all wrong. I don't know exactly what was wrong, but something was missing. I've even had some other Steaz sparkling teas and they didn't live up to my expectations. They are finally onto something with this raspberry one though. It's not 100% there, but it's leagues beyond the other ones I've had. It actually tastes like someone just added bubbles to some raspberry iced tea. I think the thing that seems off about it is that it is green and not black tea. I think this would be close to perfect if it were black tea, but I have very few complaints about its green brother. My only real complaint is it doesn't have that classic bitter green tea aftertaste. The sugar covers it up, which makes me question why they didn't go with black tea, since that aftertaste is what I love about green tea.

To sum things up: Throats get itches that need to be scratched by carbonation. Iced tea is awesome. Carbonated iced tea when done right is also awesome. Scratch your throat with some of this tea from time to time. You deserve it.