Iced Tea - 901 Reviews

It is a little known fact that in the offices of Blue Buddha they have a giant statue of the Buddha. I know that probably doesn't sound all that interesting, but I think you will change your tune, when I tell you that the insides of the statue are hollowed out, in order to make room for…€¦get this…€¦an iced tea dispenser. How cool is that? Oh you're offended? Well let me tell you this friend, iced tea is the key to my enlightenment, and I'm sure the Buddha is cool with me achieving it any way that I can. The gross part about all of this is that the only place they could think to have the tea come out of was the nose, everywhere else just made a mess. They are professional people, who entertain clients in their office, and a messy Buddha just wouldn't cut it.

So you're interested in trying their hibiscus raspberry tea, well then you'll step right up to the ole' enlightenment dispenser, place your cup under the nose, and pull the left earlobe. I said left! Great now you've got some raspberry lemon. No problem, I'll drink that one, you can get a new glass. What do you think? It's got a great flavor doesn't it? The hibiscus and raspberry blend in well together to create a slightly floral berry flavor that really isn't all that floral at all. In fact it's nearly perfect. It's really just a green tea, but since hibiscus is in the mix it can be called an herbal tea to make it seem fancier. Whatever you call it, it tastes wonderful.

The one thing that the folks at Blue Buddha wanted to get away from is the idea that you have to be fat like the Buddha in order to achieve enlightenment, so they mix in some stevia with the cane sugar. The result is only 8g of sugar in this whole bottle, and it doesn't taste very diet. If you didn't know, and we're familiar with stevia, you probably wouldn't even guess that there was a zero calorie sweetener involved at all. Low calorie drinks have come a long way since the days of aspartame.

Please don't stick your hand in the Buddha's mouth. It' the ice dispenser and it's very sensitive, we don't need your grimy hands monkeying up the works.

Inko's is a company that for years has been known for its use of white tea. Well, they decided to branch out into the realm of other types of tea as well as into aluminum cans. I can firmly announce that these folks know what they are doing no matter what the tea medium. Upon opening the can the air in your immediate vicinity instantaneously reeks like Teavana or some other high-end teashop that you would find in the mall. It's a magical scent that is fruity with a strong under base of tea, which I feel other companies should strive for. I've spent way too much money in such shops and I have never been disappointed with the products I received in return. While the contents of this can are not completely up to those standards, it is one of the closest ready to drink teas that I have ever tried. It tastes like mango and passionfruit were dried and mixed into the tea batch pre-brewing and not like it was an added flavoring after the fact. That is the sign of a good tea. My only complaint is that it's a tad sweeter than it needs to be for my liking. There are only 13g of sugar per serving, with two servings per can, but as someone who loves unsweetened tea, it's just not needed and it detracts from the greatness of the natural flavor of the tea and the fruit. Don't let that deter you though, for your average drinker it probably won't seem all that sweet at all. I'm just becoming more and more of a tea snob every day.

Update:
Hawiian Ola has updated their formula a bit by adding some pineapple juice in to the mix and it makes a world of a difference. Say “So long” to the harsh bitterness and cuddle up with some tropical fruit flavors. It's a shot, but I would have no problem drinking a full glass of this, well minus the dumb amount of energy I would receive with no outlet for it. Even though I'm sure it's not in any way true I will choose to believe that Mike's review of the original formulation, which can be read below, was directly responsible for the update. We have that kind of pull here at Thirsty Dudes, right?

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Jeez Louise. I have drunk some strong drinks in my day but this might push some unlucky contender out of the top five. Note to the weak tongued, this is one bitter drink. It's like a concentrate of yerba mate and green tea but tastes between a really bitter tea and, for reasons unbeknownst to me, an old coffee taste.

After a while when your amazement and tears subside, you get a little bit of a concentrated fruit taste. There is nothing you want in this drink but because it's a shot, it's like they just want to make it easier for you to get everything you need. I think if you took this tiny bottle and poured it into a proper pint glass and just filled it with water, this might be a pretty good drink. Alone it's pretty gnarly. Not bad, just overpowering of all good things.

To those who say "You can't have too much of a good thing." should drink this and will presumably say, "You know what? Fruit is good but they could have cut back a little bit. These good things were properly too much'd."

Cheribundi has expanded their line and is stepping up their game. First off that is one great looking packaging. Sure the bottle itself is really nothing too crazy, but everything from the colors to the typeface to the tasteful picture of cherries is absolutely perfect. It's so simple and esthetically pleasing. Lucky for us the taste of the liquid it contains is also just as pleasing.

The jasmine tea base in here is not as floral as others I've tried, and I think that is for the best. Don't get me wrong, I love a nice floral jasmine, if that is all that it is, but once you add other flavors to that, a toned down version works much better. Since this is a company who is known for their cherry juice, I had expected this to be exploding with cherry flavor. A lot of companies overdo things that way, but just like with the design, they knew that less would be more with this. There is a nice cherry flavor that is a little tart, but overall it's pretty subtle in the mix, and it intermingles nice with the tea. The one thing I would change about this is that it is a little sweeter than it needs to be. I personally enjoy my jasmine tea unsweetened, but I understand that the tartness of the cherry also has to be taken into consideration. It is my opinion that if the amount of added sugar were cut in half the drink would have greatly benefited and would have earned a full five bottles. Hey, four bottles on Thirsty Dudes is nothing to scoff at, but I always hope drinks will win the whole pot.

How to the people at Brisk sleep at night, knowing the damage they have wrought to the world of iced tea? Brisk is to iced tea what sour apple flavoring is to apples. They are about as far removed as you can be from the original and still share a base name. It just gives iced tea a bad name for those out there who haven't (for some reason or another) tasted real, decent tea.

While I disagree with this line, I have to admit that this flavor is a little bit of alright. It is not amazing, it's not even really all that good, but I did have a one liter bottle of it, and over two sittings I drank the entire thing. None of it got dumped down the drain, like I had expected. White it definitely has their classic “iced tea” in there, the lemonade makes up for it. It gives it a nice balance, and on a nice hot day like today I will begrudgingly say it hits the spot.

I am concerned that the ingredient list reads: water, high fructose corn syrup…€¦. Seriously, the sweetener so high on the list? That's just kind of disgusting. Shockingly there are only 44g of sugar in this entire bottle. I expected it to be in the 60s, but that is still a lot.

Come along with me, if you will. Travel with me back in time to an hour ago when I ordered this drink. I says to the lady I say, "I'll have a strawberry iced tea." to which she responds with, "It's unsweetened." and I responded with, "That's even better."

Cut to five minutes later and I'm sitting down and I take my first sip and think to myself, "What the heck just happened to this iced tea?" I take another sip and see what's going on. What they did is take the unsweetened tea and pour an allocated amount of strawberry puree into it. It is actually very good. The strawberry takes a bit out of the tea, if I'm being honest. I enjoy the taste of unsweetened tea so if they cut it down on the amount of puree and let the tea shine through a little bit more, this would absolutely be something I come back to time and time again.

A nice walk back to the office with a little of the ice melted cut down on the sweetness and turned the once good drink into a really good drink. Wendy and your squad of workers, you have done good by me today.

I've spent the past few weeks trouncing around the Amazon collecting green tea. Sure, I could buy it in a store, or even grow it myself in some sort of green house, but if you ask me it never tastes quite right unless it's procured directly from the source. The thing is that well…€¦I'm sort of lost. Well, let me rephrase that, I was lost, but then I found the river and I have been following it back to the village I will be flying out of. Yancy, my top hat wearing llama, seems to be in good spirits and appears to have no qualms with carrying all the tea I've picked. I know from landmarks that we have about a days walk back to the village, so this whole fiasco hasn't been too big of a deal. My only real problem is that I am running low on the coconut water I brought with me for hydration. Sure, I have plenty of water, but I've become accustomed to the refreshment I can only achieve from the essence of the coconut.

I've come up with a solution. I am going to ration the coconut water I have and cut it with some green tea. It might not be the same, but at least I'll get a little quenching without being tempted to just down the rest of my rations. I am weak willed like that. Okay I have the mixture in two bottles now. One I shall drink post haste and the other I will save for the morning. Oh wow, this is ridiculously good. I feel like I'm still getting that special hydration from the coconut, but it mostly has the flavor of the green tea. I mean you can still taste the coconut water in there, but it's the tea that really shines. I really did put in just enough sugar. It was kind of a lot, but it really works well. I really can't believe how well this worked! I'm going to do this all the time now, it just means I have less coconut water to bring on my excursions, and that will make Yancy quite pleased. You know what? Screw tomorrow, I'm going to drink the other bottle now, and plod through the night.

Did you know that in the original draft for Heart of Darkness the tale that Joseph Conrad told was very different? For one thing it took place in Ecuador and not Africa and secondly it had nothing to do with the ivory trade. Mr. Conrad was actually writing about his favorite tea, guayusa. Sure the general themes of savagery vs. civilization and racism were there, but the heart of the heart of darkness was tea. Ultimately it was decided that the subject of tea wasn't gripping enough the world over (the English loved it), and it was swapped out for ivory and you have the story we all know.

I for one don't give a rip about ivory. I mean sure I don't want to think of the death of elephants so that man can have nice piano keys. I do on the other hand love me some tea, and guayusa is absolutely wonderful. It's earthy with natural caffeine much like yerba mate. Runa makes it right. It's lightly sweetened with only 14g of sugar in a 14oz bottle. I would enjoy it unsweetened as well, but it's nice to have an option for a sweetened tea that doesn't taste like someone accidentally dropped the whole bag of sugar in it.

Now you know the secret behind a literary classic. Do you feel dirty, or are you just thirsty?

Amidst all of the Apple, Xbox One, and Playstation 4 announcements today (I think I just outed how much of a nerd I am), I almost forgot today was Iced Tea Day. I also forgot to eat anything in the last 10 hours so this comes at a good time.

I think I was given this flavor because I am the only one of us who doesn't hate pears. While I don't hate pears, I don't necessarily love them either. I've always thought of them as the last picked fruit in school. Bananas would be picked first because they're tall so they could easily dunk. Then the Grapes would be picked next because they can roll around the defenders easily. Oranges would be picked third because they roll really well and have a tough skin so they are good defense.

Then it would come to the Apples and Pears. Both have a shape that isn't usual, but the Apple would win out because it is semi-popular and would probably always wear sunglasses inside and listen to Phil Collins b-sides. So the Pears would be picked last and probably play third string. Their biggest moment in the game would be late in the 3rd when someone finally passes the ball to them because no one is bothering to guard them and they sink their only 2 point shot of the game. It's sad because they will replay that moment in their head for the remainder of Junior and Senior year.

Luckily this drink isn't that bad and doesn't have low self-esteem. It is exactly how it's labeled: A really nice smooth green tea with the compliments of a crisp pear juice. The weird thing is that pears don't appear specifically in the ingredients list. There is lemon juice concentrate and "natural flavors" two spots underneath it. After seeing this I do taste the lemon in the after taste. Whatever, it still tastes like pear.

This is one of those rare times where I give a beverage that I did not enjoy a great rating. I couldn't get through more than a few sips of this tea, but that is my problem, not Harney & Sons. If I were a person whose taste buds were in love with coconut (the meat of the fruit, not the water/milk), I would be all over this. It's sad that it turns out I don't have the palate for the stuff. This is a high quality green tea with a little vanilla and even less ginger added to it. Had that been the end of it, I would drink this all the live long day, but there is that previously mentioned coconut in there that just turns me off. The thing is if you are someone who does enjoy that sort of tropical delight, this is probably one of the best teas you could find on the market.

There are a bunch of teas on the market that claim to be lightly sweetened, and that just means it's what should be a normal amount of sugar added, instead of the insane amounts that most tea companies use. Harney & Sons make no such claim, but this tea is the definition of lightly sweetened in my world. There is a little cane sugar and a little honey in here, but it only equals 5g of sugar. It's enough to combat the bitterness of the green tea, but not enough so that it's completely nonexistent. This is a tea that you could drink obscene amounts of and not feel terrible for having done so.

It should also be noted that even though I don't like the coconut I'm powering through this, because everything else in it just tastes that good.

On this day, National Iced Tea day, I did intend on drinking only iced tea but promptly screwed that up. Who cares, right? It's just one day a year. I'm getting my iced tea in. You should be celebrating it stronger than us because we drink more than you. We don't like to drink old things and it is often hard to find new, specific drinks. Believe it or not, I only had this one iced tea at the office. Please allow me to review said drink now.

This is good. It's got a nice green tea taste and is substantially less sweet than Arizona although the taste is pretty close. I feel that they really hit the nail on the head with the quantity of honey because you can really taste it. I am no mathemagician but I can tell you it's about 50/50 sugar/honey up in hrrrrrrrr and I like it.

Now that you can add one more tea to your repertoire, find it and drink it. According to the Eastern time zone, you've got less than ten hours to celebrate!

First of all, good one Motto. You got me. I knew this was sparkling and I saw some stuff at the bottom. Let's call it "sludge" for the sake of conversation. I turned the bottle upside down and moved it around and that sludge wasn't going anywhere. I looked at the bottle and it said, "Please shake well and open carefully" so I did. I don't know how carefully you can open a pop top bottle but as expected, it fizzed up over the top. I let that guy do his business in the sink. I'm no dumb idiot. I'm not getting all sticky and green teaful. That's for the birds.

After that debacle, I drank it. First sip I was turned off. Second sip through the end kept pulling me in. I "got" it. It's a lightly sweetened, super bitter Matcha tea. It tastes like a really bitter green tea if you've never had matcha before. It has vinegar in it, which seems odd, and you could taste it but it wasn't offensive. I don't really know what that guy was doing in there but he's in there, doing his thing. This drink was sweetened with honey, which achieves such high marks in my book. I'm going to say that to all Thirsty Dudes, something sweetened with honey gets a big thumbs up. The sparkling just makes the drink a little different and might actually cut the flavor down a little bit. Between everything going on in this bottle, the reprieve is nice.

I hope they come out with some different flavors. Maybe different strands of tea or some fruit tea? I'm giving you some gold here, Motto. Use it.

Dear Herbal Mist,
Do you know what yerba mate is? Are you adding so little that you know you can't taste it but you can still say that your tea is made with it? We've got a guy in this office called Dan and he read this, said Joe Nemechek's name and starting talking about some special NASCAR Language. Something about "Jumpin' Joe," and "Boogity, Boogity."

Look, this is a great iced tea but it's nothing that I haven't gotten at every restaurant I've ever been to. I thought that it would be a chance to really see what your yerba mate tea would have since there are no fruits or sugars getting in the way between me and m' tea. You know what? Since Dan had so much to say about Joe Nemechek, I'm going to let him close out this review but before I do, I would like to say that this is good as far as generic iced tea goes but nothing more. Joe, you may be a fantastic racecar driver but you might want to relay the message to Herbal Mist that you want more yerba mate in your tea. After all, your good name is on it. Alright, here's Dan to say a couple things.

Seriously, Joe? You're better than this. You are THE "Jumpin' Joe," or at least you were. You didn't just only turn left like the other dudes. You hopped and galloped your way around the bends of Daytona like a wild pony. This tea is probably more representative of you now: cruising the neighborhood in a Cadillac, judging your neighbors' unkempt lawns after a Sunday breakfast at Hardee's. Grow a pair, Joe. Get some. Act like it's you and The Intimidator (RIP Dale, Sr.) rounding turn three at Talladega, chasing the checkered. Bumpin' is racin'; Joe needs to get back to Jumpin'.

Coffee coffee coffee. Enough, alright? We get it. The Keurig is the invention of the decade. I'm not even arguing it. Swarms of people who previously couldn't make a decent cup of coffee to save their lives are now regular baristas. You know, just writing this makes me feel bad for actual baristas. I bet Starbuck's, Tim Horton's, and Dunkin' Donuts sales went down since the invention of that thing. I imagine that if you even breathe the word "Keurig" to someone who works at a coffee place they just shudder and their hand involuntarily turns into a fist.

I'm not taking bread out of anyone's mouth with this guy, though. Half iced tea and half lemonade lightly sweetened. It's lightly sweetened. Did you hear me? Real sugar sugared just enough to still be able to taste the tea and the lemony lemons. It was pretty good. I've had two or three of them and intend on drinking that whole, what do K-Cups come in, 24? 16? Whatever. I'll drink all of them.

Starbuck's et al; you will be fine. Something will come out that says that there is a high content of fecal matter in the cups and everyone will come crawling back for forgiveness. That's when you use your foam skills to spell something lewd to which they deserve.

Finally! After all these herbal mists, we finally found one that tastes like actual yerba mate. Yes, it's only for a limited time but for the limited time, it's great. After this limited time offer, you are given a nicely sweetened mango tea. Xylitol, a natural sweetener, and all its Stevia brethren have been in seemingly everything and it's nice to see this used well. It's not too sweet and doesn't taste fake. It has a good mango taste to boot so this whole bottle has got winning all over it.

If I could have a lot of this, it would be great. I don't love mangos anywhere near as much as Jay does but I think that even him, ever-incrementing hater of all things Stevia, would enjoy this drink.

The county fair is one of the most wonderful places in the summer. There is a ton of gross awesome food, animals galore and great people watching. Sometimes spending all day out in the sun gets to be a little too much in the heat department, so there are little “mist tents” set up where you walk through a little tunnel and water is misted on you from spray bottles and fans. It's really not the most effective thing in the world, but any little bit of help is appreciated.

All I can think about with the name of this company is one of those tents, but instead of spraying you with water, it pumps out iced tea. It would be the stickiest refreshment anyone has ever seen. It would also be absolutely terrible. If I were forced to go through one, I would choose the diet peach option. I can only assume it would be less sticky than real sugar, and also the peach doesn't taste as insanely strong in this as it does in the regular version. I would just wander through, with my mouth open and let the refreshment wash over me, and hopefully get a little flavor on my tongue along the way.

Like every flavor in this line, it tastes nothing like yerba mate, which as always is disappointing. It tastes a little bit diet, but not in a chemical death way. It's a little strange because it's specifically the peach flavor that tastes diet and not the actual tea. It tastes diet in a way that makes you say, “Why not, there's nothing else to drink, and I don't find this completely disgusting.” Can you really ask for more in a diet drink? The answer is yes, but this is still better than most 0 calorie beverages on the market.

I'm standing in the aisle and a woman walks past me and says, "Too many choices." I promptly respond with, "Not enough choices." I swear, as soon as I pass the New York line, my fame and fortune is forgotten because if we were in New York and not New Jersey, I would have swarms of people surrounding me pondering what drink I will pick. That would obviously be followed by a loud cheer and sometimes but not always, confetti. I think there is a confetti brigade that follows me around but they are very stealth and I can never see them in the open.

I picked this tea because it was "not too sweet" which is what I needed because I have been eating like absolute garbage this whole trip. Not poorly, just in excess.

This tea was alright, though. Not too sweet but a little off. I couldn't place it but it's not like the sweet tea I am used to. It was black and sweet but didn't add up to "sweet tea." That lady should have picked my drink for me because I could have done better.

For a good portion of my life I consumed far too much sugar, and the majority of that sugar came in the form of iced tea. I love the stuff. Can't get enough of it. With the advent of the iced tea tall boys and the expansion of the medium they are everywhere and generally only $1. That's a deal that was hard to pass up. Eventually I got to the age where what you eat/drink finally catches up to you, and it was quite a shock. For 30 years or so I ate and drank whatever fancied me and my weight never went under 170 and never above 175. They were the golden years. Then I started to notice a change and I decided I needed more exercise in my life and a change to my diet. I am happy to say that I have actually stuck with it, and things are looking good.

One of the steps I took was to start brewing my own tea at home. I would boil a huge pot of water, throw a couple of tea bags in and them transfer it to a growler after an hour or so. I learned to love unsweetened tea, and it help stave off the cravings I used to have for tallboys. I still drink more tea than is probably good for a human, but at least there is no sugar involved.

One of my go to teas to brew is “original” Runa guayusa tea. It has an earthy taste that is similar to yerba mate, but with it's own twist. Sometimes I drink it just like that; sometimes I throw in a different tea bag into the mix of flavored tea. Either way it's always delicious. I love that I have the option to get these teas in ready to drink form. I wish this were available at every gas station around the country, so I could easily find them when traveling. It is a perfect balance of earthy tea and limejuice. It's mostly tea, but the lime flavor is very obviously there.

These days “mixologists” are all the rage. It seems like just a fancy word for a bartender that knows how to do their job. If I were to use the term though, I would say that Runa has one of the best mixologists around, sure this is a simple beverage, but ratios are as crucial to a drink as the quality of the ingredients used, and they have it down to a science.

Oh I think I'll just take a little walk. I've got about five hours before I have to do anything. I'll take a walk, get something to eat, look for some cool cars, and look for some drinks. It will be fun. (opens door to go outside) Oh fantastic. It's windy, raining, and cold. One better is there are no sidewalks. I'll just walk on the side of the road like a bum.

Here I am at a Panera and I know what I want to eat. Clearly the cinnamon crunch bagel but what to drink? That giant sign advertising tropical hibiscus tea piques my interest. I'll have that. (sits down) There is a real lack of "cool" car's out. The weather sucks but still. No one wants to drive their Porsche 911 to get a bagel? This tea is worth the drive. It's got a great floral tea taste with just a touch of sweetness from, presumably, the tropics. I don't taste any pineapple or mango or passion fruit; just a nice hibiscus tea, which is fine by me. Sure, a pineapple hibiscus tea would probably reign supreme but I'm not working at the Panera Bread flavor center now, am I?

Now this bagel is done. Looks like I'll aimlessly walk around like a hooded creep who doesn't have a car and enjoys running into the end of sidewalks because Jersey doesn't care about tourists without cars.

Am I the only one who feels like non-carbonated energy drinks don't work? Even thought I know they have the exact same energy giving ingredients, the absence of thousands of tiny bubbles tricks my brain into thinking that I will not be awake for much longer. Well brain, learn to work properly because I can assure you this does provide the burst of energy that it sells you on. It's been awhile since I have physically been able to feel an energy drink, and I'm sure my nearly empty stomach played a supporting role in that.

Monster hit the nail on the head when they decided to mix their energy formula with tea and lemonade. They use a nice mixture of brewed black and green tea, instead of some garbage powder. That mixed with the pink lemonade it tastes wonderfully like summer and it does a great job of masking the typical energy drink flavor. It also 95% hides the taste of the sucralose used to sweeten this. This is decent tasting lemonade that has only 6g of sugar in the entire can. That's some kind of magic right there. By the way what is in pink lemonade that makes it pink? Online tells me it's just dye, but it taste different to me.

On top of this tasting great and giving you a healthy dose of hopped up energy it also has coconut water and a bunch of antioxidant rich fruits to help you recover from a rough night of some crazy scavenger hunt that you were more than likely on. I mean that's how everyone spends their weeknights, right? Oh, and the secret to winning is to find the name of the baby gorilla buried in the pet cemetery, and get that can of Mello Yellow, no matter what.