Iced Tea - 901 Reviews

This week I took my ladyfriend to Philly to go see Wild Flag, eat way too much food and hang out. She had never been to the city of brotherly love before, and it was a good time. No trip to Philly is complete without a stop at Wawa for soft pretzels, peanut chews, and iced tea. At the first Wawa we stopped at I decided to go with the Green Tea Mango. I have never seen it in the past, so I believe it may be a newer flavor. Either that, or I am just completely oblivious to my drink surroundings, and if that is the case I should probably just retire from this game. So I grabbed the tea, my two pack of pretzels and two packs of Goldenberg Peanut Chews. I made a wise choice. The tea was fantastic. One would think that a mini mart's store brand of tea would be garbage that was more sugar water than tea, but one would be wrong in forgetting the magically power that is Wawa. The tea is sweet, but in a good way. It's actually made from green tea, and not some powder. It's also sweetened with real sugar and not HFCS like most store brands. It has the dry/bitter taste of a somewhat quality green tea, with a mango flavoring that tastes authentic. I had barely made it two blocks before all of my purchases had been consumed. I should have opted for the larger bottle.

Worldwide fans of Thirsty Dudes,
If you could put me on a television like Matthew Lillard's character Emmanuel Goldstein or "Cereal Killer" in the movie "Hackers" that would be perfect for this. Imagine me on your television or any and every television that you walk by on your way down the street like in an electronics store or Times Square. I am going to give a speech.

Hackers unite and listen to me. I have found it, the holy grail of tea. It is perfect and I wouldn't do anything to improve on it. The quest is over. If I ever have another tea at this caliber, I will not live another day because my heart will explode with glee. This tea smells like carnival cinnamon salt-water taffy and tastes not much different but with the added flavors of a fresh black tea. It's naturally sweetened with honey, which rules, and towards the bottom of the bottle, it just gets better because the honey kicks into over drive. Do not ever pass this tea by. If you ever see it and have 1% of a question in your head, I will crack that riddle for you. Buy it. HACK THE PLANET!

The bees have started revolting. The world is upset because "bees are going extinct" but in reality, the bees are fine, they're just mad. They're mad because companies have been making "pretty close" honey in powder form rendering the hard working bees of the past obsolete. Bees. They are annoying when you're allergic but they're fine. It's the typical, "don't bother them and they won't bother you" mantra. It's what the kid bee's parents say to them, too.

So man comes along and creates natural things unnaturally and sells them back to people who know and love the natural version of the unnatural thing. Makes sense...These super scientists have created a green tea with lemon and honey that isn't terrible for you, sweetened artificially, and made from powder that isn't absolutely revolting. I know, I know. "Absolutely revolting" isn't a hard level to surpass, but it's been done. It's not too sweet and actually tastes like you want it to all the while being 20 calories. What more could you ask for? Oh, I don't know. A tea made with real honey, lemons, and green tea. Beggars can't be choosers. Remember that mantra while you're categorizing the other one I reminded you of.

When I was a youth, I used to drink a lot of the non-Lean Sobe honey green tea. It was awesome. Later on in life I realized that it was one of the worst drinks for you on the shelves. I don't eat particularly well, but anything I can do to ensure that I don't become a chunk helps, so I dropped it.

Cut to today, I've got a bottle of the Lean and I'm excited to see what zero calories versus 240 tastes like. Different? A little sweeter and just as oddly minty as it's fully fattened predecessor. Do you know what that means? Awesome. It means awesome. It means that for one of the limited times, you can get a good tasting diet version of the non-diet version of a drink you love. It has Erythritol and tastes like it but I don't hate it as an alternative sweetener so I won't count it against them.

Science and diet drinks have come a long way since Sweet & Low. Diet drinks don't all suck. Re-give them a chance.

The lottery is pretty intense today. Odds are that you have a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of winning. That is, for the first time ever, not a made up arbitrary number. Imagine winning. It is undoubtedly true that you would at least contemplate buying your own plane, but that's not a smart investment. You don't leave the city limits so what business do you have owning a plane you will never use? Me? I'd move to a nicer house in the same city that I live in, but seriously, not extravagant. I would also probably not buy many new clothes. I would probably buy that stainless Rolex Datejust that I want but can't afford the bi/tri-annual maintenance fees. I would probably do everything the same with a nicer car and maybe pants that don't have holes in them.

I would continue to do this site because I enjoy doing it. I would drink gross stuff with chunks and I would also drink great drinks like this Mate Fusion. I do get a bit of pomegranate but the yerba mate is strong, brother. Strong. Bitter and strong. It was nicely sweetened but still a genuine tea at heart. It's a nice guy. It's the guy that would win the lottery that you know and are friends with that might just give you like thirty grand for "fun money." What a generous dude. What a generous tea. Thanks for giving back, tea. You're a good dude.

I'm sorry, but I have nothing positive to say about this drink. It doesn't really taste like tea at all, even though it has natural tea solids. It also tastes overly diet. Splenda is the devil, and it has no place in beverages. Drink companies of the world take note. It's gross. I don't want to drink it. Keep it out of your drinks, so I don't have to taste it when I write reviews. I understand the need for diet drinks. We live in a country where the majority of the inhabitants are overweight in an unhealthy way. Diet drinks are fine; just use natural sweeteners such as Stevia. Finally, the peach flavor tastes insanely fake due to all of the artificial sweetener that's in here. Hansen's I expected more from you.

There is a cabin that a friend's family owns that Jay and myself go to a few times a year. Before there was the powerhouse that is Thirsty Dudes there was just Jay and I drinking drinks for fun. On our way up to the cabin, we like to stop at a supermarket and get things like hot dogs and drinks. This was the first time that I had seen or heard of Steaz. I think that I got a pomegranate acai and I also think that it was three-ish years ago. I hated every sip of it and I don't think that I have drunk another Steaz until today because of it. I'm not one to really hold a grudge, but I didn't feel like I was missing out on drinking any more of that junk.

We have been playing catch-up with some older, more common drinks as of late and I have seen this on the shelves forever and just assumed it was junk and skipped right on by. I decided to give it a go last week and I'm happy that I did. This is just what I was looking for. It's really light and has a nice, non-gum and non-mouthwash mint taste. It's actually refreshing and if I was a common man and not a destroyer of drinks, I would easily make this a standard in my collection of go-to drinks. It's not too bitter but tastes real. I liked it. The colder it was the better, too. It really brings out the coolness of the mint. This is good. Sorry I hated you for so long.

I am lucky. I have a good metabolism. I am not bragging. I don't eat like garbage, but I don't eat terribly well. I don't do diets. I have gone on stuff like a "no pizza for a month" diet. I don't put extra cheese on things. I don't do sour cream. I'm responsible. With all of that being said, I don't need to drink diet drinks. What that does for me is gives me a perspective of not being used to that "diet" taste. I don't have to give anyone credit because it's all that I have. When I review a diet drink and say, quite repetitiously "it has that diet taste" that doesn't mean that it's bad, that just means that people who don't drink diet drinks know what to expect and people that do drink diet drinks are already expecting it.

This drink has that diet taste, but the tea taste and the mangosteen are pretty good. It's a decent blend. If you're going to be a whiner, awesome. Enjoy being a jerk and hating everything. Not everyone has the luxury of eating an entire pizza and staying at their target, bathing suit weight. It's sweet and fruity and actually has a pretty good oolong tea taste. It's not the best I've had, but for a powder made from another powder, beggars can't be choosers.

Don't be a jerk to diet drinks and don't be a jerk to people on diets. I'm guilty, but at least I'm aware of it.

Sometimes you find yourself hanging out with a couple of friends in need of late night Chinese food. Those times are generally going to be good times. As we waited for our food to be ready last night we pursued the bodega next door. All of the usual suspects of crappy drinks were there. I decided to go with a raspberry Arizona. It's been awhile since I drank one, and they are a nice treat from time to time. I grabbed the red can and as I pulled it out of the cooler I realized that it wasn't raspberry at all, but rather it was cranberry. I had to stop for a second in disbelief that I didn't know this flavor existed. Even before this site existed I was always on top of the new flavors of Arizona. I feel like I have failed in some way. I checked and sure enough we hadn't reviewed it, so strange. I purchased the can, went back next-door to pick up my food and we went back to my friend's house to eat.

The tea was basically the same as the raspberry tea, but with the raspberry traded out for cranberry. It has the same black tea flavored base as most of the Arizona flavors do, but the accent was different, which is always nice to have a new choice on the old 99cent shelf. It definitely actually tasted like cranberry juice, but without that dry bitterness that normally comes with it. It was overly sweet as most things Arizona are, but you know what you're getting into when you buy a can. It wasn't anything Earth shattering, but it was a decent inexpensive tea. I'd happily drink another can or a dozen.

It's no surprise that Thirsty Dudes don't like St. Patrick's Day. Belligerent drinking, horrible songs, everyone wearing green, and the mid-afternoon vomit parade all equate to just us wishing we were anywhere else. This morning at quarter after ten I drove down the street and saw a dude drove his car into someone's front yard. Two firetrucks later and a detour from me, maybe that will be a lesson to that dude that even though you can theoretically do whatever it is you want, drinking that early in the morning and then driving is a terrible, stupid idea.

I was at a party with friends and didn't have anything to drink. I normally bring stuff but with my kid, I knew I wasn't going to be able to dedicate any amount of time to ponder over a drink. I stuck it out, went home, hoped I had a good tea waiting for me, failed, and found this. I don't know where it came from but memory wants me to think that Derek was "nice" enough to give it to me. Nothing good comes in a plastic bottle this big. Nothing good comes in a plastic bottle this big and uses corn syrup as a sweetener. I knew what I was in for. I smelled it as soon as I opened the bottle.

What I got? Validation. It's got that awful "bad tea" sting with a tremendously prominent peach taste and an almost non-existent "black tea" taste. If you can call Brisk tea, than this is tea but I wouldn't call it tea as much as I would call it a juice and tea drink. Oh wait! They already did that. It is poorly flavored like iced tea and tastes like those gallon containers of "drink" if they made them in peach, which they might, I don't know and would rather not drink anything than drink that liquid sewage.

So it's bad. Who would have thought, right? What do you mean that tea isn't supposed to sting? That's not natural? That's not organic? No, dummy. This is low quality junk that we found for a dollar at a discount store.

Tea is wonderful. Tried and true, it has been perfected by some to a T. Those people did not make this tea. When I saw this tea in Derek's closet of drinks, I wanted it. I didn't tell him, but I wanted it. A nice sweet tea with cherry? I'll take it. When Derek was shedding weight for an easier move, I got this. Stoked. Today, to quench my thirst I could wait no longer.

I should have known that it wasn't going to be wonderful from the start. The first ingredients are sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, and instant tea powder. That's a slew of garbage if I've ever heard it. I enjoy sweet tea. As a matter of fact, I love it. This, friends, is not sweet tea. This is cherry juice with tea powder in it. Maybe tea powder with cherry powder in it. This is a drink. It's not classifiable, to me at least, as a tea or juice. It's just a drink. It tastes like bad instant tea mixed with bad cherry flavoring. It tastes like something you would make at home as an experiment, not like, and promptly throw out because it just didn't work like you expected it to in your head.

I understand you have a creative mind, Marburger Farm Dairy. I appreciate it. I really do. I have drunk hundreds of drinks and I have never had a cherry iced tea. After drinking this drink, I can unfortunately still say that.

This drink was a castaway in the sea of beverages that flows in and out of the homes of the Thirsty Dudes. We've reviewed 25 different drinks from Cintron, and I'm pretty sure this is the last one left. When Derek left to move back to Portland last week Mike and I raided his cupboards and stole all of the drinks that he wasn't going to be able to take with him. I personally expected it to be the lowest of the low like Mike and I have sitting around, the things we are just dreading writing reviews for. As it turns out there were quite a few gems in there, this being one of them.

For such an unusual flavor for iced tea, it doesn't seem that odd when you drink it. Sure orange has been in hot tea for eons (literally eons, are you calling me a liar?) but how often do you see it in an iced variety. I have seen possible 2 or 3 companies that have it in their product line. Raspberry? That's old news. Combine the two and you have something new and exciting that doesn't taste too extreme. Fill up a glass for a friend and dollars to donuts they wouldn't even ask about the flavor, yet when you know the flavor you detect a subtle orange flavor hidden in an otherwise ordinary raspberry tea. It's great, and I'm glad we got to potentially close out this company with yet another great review.

Powder drink mixes are great. They fit in small, secret locations so you can have a drink made out of water that you can buy anywhere. This tea is surprising, it is because the white tea leaves and blueberries and yes, a little bit of artificial sweetener, were zapped with a sweet laser that just turned whatever it hit into powder. The company sets up the leaves and everything on a special table in a special room, put on their protective goggles and zap away carefully. Once everything was powderized, they would take the janitors broom, climb on top of the table, and sweep the powder into a garbage can to be brought to the packaging facility.

The answer to your question is "yes." "What question?" you ask? The question of "Do they shoot other things with that sweet laser?" Yeah, dude. It's the ultimate prank prop. They powderize people's shoes and put the powder back in their locker. They powderize some of the people's food, like sandwiches and stuff, and put it back in the tupperware with a Post-It note that says "Just Add Water" and put it back in the fridge. They have a lot of fun but they never are unsafe around the laser. They know its powerful powers and do take safety precautions around it.

With this tea they created, they actually got it down. Nice, light bitterness, good berry flavor, and although it is a bit diet, it's better than regular, bottled diet iced teas. The bitterness covers up any nasty dietness that arises pretty quickly.

I don't know if they are hiring, but they will, for a small fee, powderize anything you want them to. You just need to supply a container to get rid of the dust and you also need to clean it up. They're not working for you. Also, a powderized ham sandwich tastes just as good in a little bit of water. It's frightening, but true.

Lemons are so social. They are the team players of Fruitland. They'll go anywhere and do anything. What drink line doesn't have a lemon flavored drink, or at least lemon as an additive? I don't hate lemons. Unless it's lemonade, there is a different lemon taste. You only get the sting on lemonade. I think that lemonade is a lemon's pet project. That's where they have their best foot forward.

Drinks like this is where the blue-collar lemons go. It's not bad. They're there. You can taste them. They're not in their finest state, but they're there. It's a black tea with lemon in it. Simple. I'm not offended by the corn syrup as this is right on par with "the rival" tallboy. You know the one.

This is fine. Dandy even. Lemons, keep up the good work. Sure, for some reason Jay doesn't like you, but he's strange. He's got Spice Girls and Bauhaus in his music collection. Lemons are fine, Jay.

Months ago Marcus had become fed up with the prepackaged iced tea game. He realized that he was paying $4 daily for a liter of tea that he could easily make at home for less than fifty cents. He went out and bought a whole mess of tea bags and started brewing his own. He would boil water in a large pot and then drop in three tea bags. If he was feeling crazy he would add some sugar, but normally he kept it unsweetened. Life was good. He was able to control the strength of the tea, and he was saving butt-loads of money. After a month he realized he had saved over $100. He felt like someone who had quit smoking, and suddenly had an excess of cash and a healthier outlook on life. That's when an idea popped into Marcus' head. There were two things in life he was passionate about: tea and root beer. Why not combine the two? Marcus was no dummy, and he knew that his knowledge of carbonation methods was elementary at best, so he decided to make a tea with root beer flavoring. He went online and bought a whole mess of roots and barks to boil down into a base for his experiment. He bought a little of everything that one online store had to offer which included sarsaparilla root, maca root, brazil wood bark, chamomile flowers, chewstick bark, coconut root, guinea hen weed bark, marabelli bark, minniroot, princess vine bark, supple jack bark, west Indian mulberry bark, clove flower bud, bay rum tree leaf, cinnamon bark and rosewood leaf. He had no idea what most of those things were, but he figured the more the merrier and awaited his package's arrival.

Two weeks later Marcus arrived home from work to find his package jammed between his doors getting rained on. Oh shipping services, when will you learn how to properly treat people's parcels? He quickly unlocked his door, stripped off his lab coat and filled his trusty pot with water. He brought the water to a roiling boil and dumped in all of the contents of his package into the water with some agave syrup and let it boil down for an hour or so. It wasn't until he was straining out all of the roots and bark bits that he realized that he had forgotten to actually add a few tea bags to the mix. Oh well, this was going to be great anyways. It smelled great. It smelled like chai for some reason. It wasn't what Marcus had expected, but it was a nice surprise. He didn't have the patience to let it cool down in the fridge so he dumped some ice in a glass and filled the remaining space with his concoction. He was so excited and he took a big gulp and paused. “This…€¦is…€¦.weird…€¦” thought Marcus. It doesn't taste like chai, root beer, or any tea at all for that matter. It actually tasted like he was chewing on some sticks. To be more specific is tasted like chewing on sticks that had been dusted with cinnamon sugar. It was hard to get down. He finished off his glass and then called over some friends to see what they would think. His buddy Charles always was chewing on sticks from the licorice plant, maybe he would like it more. Turns out that Marcus was right, Charles really liked it. As a result he was able to take the remainder of the experiment home with him to enjoy at his leisure. With everything that was in it, the health benefits of it were huge. It provided natural energy and endurance while boosting the immune system, metabolism, circulation and liver function. It was a health nuts dream come true. It's just too bad that the taste would be more suited for a beaver.

I wish there were a secret meeting in a shady part of town where all of the tea magistrates met up to vote on what is and is not acceptable in the bottled tea world. Everything from the grade of the tea to the quirky names companies would want to use would be set before a committee and a vote would be held with majority rule (well either that or I wish the band Majority Rule would play a show). On top of wishing for this committee I would also expect we three Thirsty Dudes to be on the committee. I want to be a magistrate dammit! If I were the first motion I would pass would be for more companies to use yerba mate as the base of their drinks. You really don't see enough companies using it, and I feel like it is virtually unknown amongst the masses. Actually I think it's only been in the past 6-7 years that green tea made its way into mainstream bottled beverages. Let's face it the world is overflowing with black tea based drinks and it's up to us as members of this completely fabricated committee to spice things up. Mate tastes like an earthier version of green tea with a slight eucalyptus flavor to it. It's unique and amazing.

Also, if I were on said committee I would also propose that the Mate Fusion companies teas be more widely available and have a strong hold in the market. This is not a company that I should find at a discount store (like I recently did). Their drinks are organic and all natural, the way certain tea's should be. They do an excellent job of showing off the greatness of mate. With this flavor the distinct mate flavor is very strong. It's rounded out with black currants, which taste like tart grapes. I would saw it falls somewhere between a grape and a cranberry. The flavor of both the fruit and the tea is strong, but neither takes away from the other. This is a wonderful tea that the world should know about. So tea makers of the world, let's get this committee started. If you already have one, disband it and start a new one, because you're doing a terrible job.

Today, a man, or perhaps a man trapped in a boy's body, called "Peter Pan" wrote me essentially asking why we, these Thirsty Dudes, wrote stories that go nowhere instead of writing reviews about how the drink tastes. For you, friend, I will write one of the most boring reviews that will explain to you why we do things the way we do them:

Mate Fusion All Natural Raspberry Tea is a very good tea. It has nice, prominent notes of raspberry mixed with the inherent bitterness of yerba mate. This drink is all natural and you can taste the difference between this and a tea made with manufactured sugars and preservatives. The bitterness of the yerba mate mixed with the sweetness of the tea mixed with the fruitiness of the raspberry creates a pleasurable cornucopia of flavors. Mate Fusion All Natural Raspberry Tea is a high quality beverage that I would recommend to anyone who likes sweetened tea. I feel that it is a safe, entry-level yerba mate for those who might be on the fence about previous experiences with it.

That was splendid. I hope you enjoyed my legitimate review and not a story about how cats don't like yerba mate because the bitterness makes their hair stand up on end so people don't like to pet them because they look mean but are really having a reaction to the taste. That would be dumb and stupid.

An open letter to Arnold Palmer,

Arnold Palmer, I assume you are a smart man. You've got a drink named after you and now a series of them have come out and I can only re-assume that you are doing well from them. I don't know what caliber of golfer you are, but I guess they wouldn't give just anyone a drink. You probably have a whole closet of gold jackets. Is it gold or green? I get real golf and Happy Gilmore golf confused. Can you tell that I don't follow golf? My daddy loves golf. He will soon scorn me for my rudeness and lack of research as he did when I was in my teens, barely scraping by in high school. Mr. Palmer, you have been cartooned on some of these cans, and for this can in particular, you are just hanging out in what looks like a peach orchard wearing some nice golf wingtips with your nice pup looking admiringly at you. Are you just driving balls into the orchard? Do you own the orchard? Have you been planning this venture since this theoretical sketch was taken? Was this taken from a real photograph? I've got questions and you've got answers.

Once you are done answering the above questions, I would like to tell you what I think of your drink. Firstly, I would like to preface that I am a bit of a professional in my field. You can't tell by this review or about 80% of the other reviews that I have done and now that I write that, I doubt my own professionalism. I don't like peaches. I would never eat a peach and I don't care if I go the rest of my life without eating one. You probably think at this stage that your drink is not going to get a great review. Allow me to continue. Diet drinks are typically the pits as well. This drink absolutely tastes like there is "something diet" going on in there. Yes, "something diet" is a bad thing and yes, I have noticed, and yes, you will be penalized for it.

With all of that being said, there is a decent enough "everything else" taste that balances it out. Peaches don't taste terrible, I just don't like them but I like them in a drink. If I want you to analyze that, I will pay you like a psychiatrist. I will pay you as a psychiatrist only if you have the proper chez lounge. I've come to just accept that this is the way that your tea tastes. I would love to try this with real sugar but that's me being a snob and trying to improve on a man's life's work. You wanted this to come out like this and it did. I can't penalize you for that. It's not bad. You've hidden it enough to be drinkable. It's got a fair lemonade taste, fair peach taste, and I can't really taste any tea.

Arnold, I'm going to pass right through the niceties and call you by your given name. Arnold, you've done a fine job here and I congratulate you in your endeavors on the links and in business. Do people still call it "the links?" It's catchy. I like it better than "the green." Anyhow, I hope this finds you well and you have continued success in both.

You know what, Mr. Waitress; I'm sick and tired of this. I come here day after day and I don't know why. You always get my order wrong, all of the wait staff has a terrible attitude and the pop is usually flat. I got one exceptional meal here and I won't give this place up because I feel that one day it will be that good again. It hasn't been. I've been keeping my mouth shut for months now but this is the last straw.

The only think I asked for is sweet tea and you only have diet. It's not awful, but it's half way to really diet tasting. To make matters worse, you only had enough for half a glass. Now what am I going to do with this. I just filled up on crackers and I am exceptionally thirsty. Mix it with something? What do you propose? Lemonade? Who do I look like, Arnold freakin' Palmer. Yeah, sure. Lemonade me up.

Oh, and another thing. I can't stand...when...the thing is...I...I...I'm sorry. I've had a rough day and all I wanted was a Black and Blue burger. When you brought me a bacon burger, it was half the straw that broke the camel's back. The half diet lemonade was now the savior because this isn't half bad. Sure, it's still a little diet, but the lemonade saves it. It tastes like "kid-made" lemonade. This might be some of the best diet half and half I've ever had.

You, my good sir, have done it. "Done what" you ask? You have roped me into coming here again and again now that you gave me this. It's redeeming. Please, sir. I just ask you one more simple thing. Do you have any more chocolate cream pie? I saw it on your specials board. You don't. Well, how about that. Let down again. You'd better have this concoction in here next time I come or I'm really going to make a stink!

Welcome back to the country club Mr. Underhill. You've been away for awhile, and I haven't been able to apologize for the whole “John Cocktosen” incident. The waiter that served him was new and had o idea he was not you. Of course he was immediately terminated from his position when we discovered what had happened. Unfortunately Mr. Cocktosen could not be located. What can I get you sir? May I recommend the water buffalo? Oh you're just here for a quick drink before you jump in the pool. That's very understandable sir. Oh I'm sorry Mr. Underhill, we no longer carry sweet tea. Some of the elder patrons were complaining that the sugar in it was deteriorating their dentures. It became quite unseemly. We also decided that sweet tea was a drink for country bumpkins, so we brewed up the rich person's version which we call agave mate. To be honest sir, I personally love sweet tea, but the owners of the club, wanted to give the patrons the illusion that this was a truly fancy drink. To break it down in a nutshell for you we take some premium organic yerba mate, which is naturally rich in caffeine and sweeten the hell out of it with organic agave nectar. Everything about the drink it natural and organic, just the way things should be in paradise. The taste is very similar to that of sweet tea, but it's a bit more refined and adult. I'm sure you will love it Mr. Underhill. Shall I charge it to your account then?