Iced Tea - 901 Reviews

I hate mid-day naps. I'm busy and if I'm not, I like to relax, but sleep is for nighttime and if I have time to sleep in the day, I have time to play video games or, probably a better idea, work. Today was a nice warm day, too warm for jeans, but whatever. I'm a tough...ish guy.

It was lunchtime and we decided to take a walk to a local deli and grab a sandwich. They just started carrying Marley's and I noticed a while back that we never reviewed the green tea with honey flavor, so today was the day, friends. We bought a sandwich, fruit, and this drink, which came to an astonishing $16 and change and sat down. We must have been hungry because we both finished our sandwich before we even opened the drink. When we finally got around to opening it, it was well worth the wait. It was a very light green tea taste with a nice honey flavor right up front. The bitterness, which was small, was then soothed over by sweet honey and it really made you want to go back for more. We split that bottle right down the middle in no time flat.

Fast-forward an hour.

On our way home, we got about three blocks away and sleep hit us like a ton of bricks. We couldn't get home fast enough. We got home and all three of us passed out. I think my girlfriend put her head on the pillow and was instantly sleeping. I was fighting it because, as previously mentioned, I hate mid-day naps. I couldn't fight it anymore and we all slept for like three hours. Later we realized it wasn't due to lack of sleep, but due to Marley's Mood.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but man, if we wanted to be productive, I would have been pissed that I slept instead of re-paved the front walkway.

I've been trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup lately. Anyone who has tried this knows how hard it can be. It's in everything! Even most ketchup has high fructose corn syrup as one of the main ingredients. I was feeling a little sleepy/exhausted from working all morning so I decided to take a walk to the Lexington Co-op to get some food and a drink. Since I was feeling sleepy, I thought an energy drink would be good. Luckily, the co-op doesn't carry anything with HFCS in it.

Now I've had some hits and misses in the past with "natural" energy drinks. Either they actually know what they're doing and it taste great, or it tastes really bland and almost worse than normal gross energy drinks you find at the gas station. Steaz usually makes good drinks so I opted to give this one a try. I must say, it's quite nice! It's a really good mixture of green tea and orange soda. Unlike most energy drinks, it's not heavy at all. It does leave a little bit of a weird aftertaste, but nowhere near as bad as most cans of battery ac.... I mean, energy drinks.

Tonight was my last night on the Night Birds tour. It's been nothing but incredible. The thing is that my sugar intake via beverage has been astronomical. Soda after soda has been poured down my throat. After the show we stopped by a gas station and all I wanted was a nice clean crisp bottle of water. Then this little gem caught my eye. Thank you Lipton for your Pureleaf line. It's so much better than your garbage Brisk. Tonight an unsweetened tea was exactly what I needed. This is a little weaker than a lot of unsweetened teas, and I'm fine with that. Sometimes the bitterness can be a bit much, but this is great.

Last night at about 3am someone in the apartment I was staying at started blasting Madonna. Let's get something straight; the first couple of Madonna albums are incredible. They are some of the finest pop records I've ever heard. The thing is that no one wants to hear any music played that loud when all they want to do is sleep. Why do I bring this up? I'm glad you asked. I think that the song Borderline may have been written about this tea (well what she wants this drink to do). Unfortunately it never falls either way. It just keeps riding the fence. It tastes like pink grapefruit, but in kind of a fake way. With each sip I expect it to suddenly turn amazing or terrible, but it's just stuck in the middle. I really want the grapefruit to be stronger then I would be on a "Holiday."

"Baby girl, you annoy me."
by Mike Literman

Why are you talking so loudly on the phone?
Are you upset that you aren't home?
The speaker is on and I can hear,
all of the complaints that you have to bear.
You hold the phone around your dumb head,
so everyone can hear what is said.
You are also pushing your baby in the middle of the street,
and for that, you should be beat.
You should calm down and drink Rob's iced tea with lemon,
or I'm going to have to ship you off to Yemen.
The drink is cool, natural, and fantastic,
Laura Palmer was wrapped in plastic.
The taste of the drink goes down so smooth,
Your scratchy throat induced from screaming needs to be soothed.
So girl walking in the middle of the street like a dumb dummy,
why don't you grab some of Rob's iced tea with lemon because it's nothing short of yummy.

Yeah, I know that I rhyme like a twelve years old boy. Guess what? I probably haven't written a poem since I was twelve so I'm right on track.

I think Albert Einstein may be responsible for the "Arnold Palmer" because obviously a genius is behind it. I refuse to believe that a golfer had the intellect to produce such a great drink. Wow that sounded harsh. I have nothing against golf. It's boring to watch, but I bet I would really enjoy playing. So maybe Mr. Palmer did don an Einstein wig, go to his lab (aka his kitchen) and mix up a batch of wonderful.

I was aware that Calypso knew what they were doing with lemonades, but I didn't know they had such a firm grasp on tea until I tried the Teamonade line. This is one of the finest half and halfs I've ever tasted. Both flavors blend together great and while it is sweet, I don't feel like I'm instantly getting a cavity with every sip.

Perhaps this will make me give golf a fair shake. If I do I'll have to be sure I have a bottle of this out on the greens with me.

Mint is a tricky game. When done right it can make you feel like you're the king of Refreshmentville. Just the slightest thing off can leave you feeling like you just popped a fresh stick of gum in your mouth before each sip. I find that the lime in mojitos seems to neutralize the mint a bit. Sadly I don't think it worked in this tea. It's a bit gum-ish for my liking, but the lime is also pretty strong. This is the first mojito that I've tasted that I didn't want to force everyone around me to drink.

Dear Grandmammy,

I've missed you. Ever since I moved to the big city, I haven't seen you. Let me tell you a little bit about the city. There are cars all over the street and people walking around and tall buildings. Everyone wears hats, which is a little strange, but it happens. To move from the country to the city was quite a feat. I mean, sure, I only had a few things; button down shirt, one pair of shoes, a pad of paper, and some toiletries. One suitcase is all I ever need.

The reason that I am writing you is that the city is stocked with some fancy teas. Not just black tea with milk and sugar for me, gram gram. They've got this stuff that is rose flavored green tea. It reminds me of you because it smells like you. I mean that in a good way. It's bitter, which is what green tea is supposed to taste like, or so I've been told. The taste is like I'm drinking this newfangled green tea through a bed of roses. It reminds me of that stuff daddy brought back from his trip to India for work except it was way tamer.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't need you anymore. I've grown up into a man and have replaced everyone I know with stuff from around the city so I'm not so homesick. I've met some kids around town that ride motorcycles and has a lot of tattoos and I think that I'm going to start to run with them. They seem like nice enough sorts.

Love,
Travis Tuffguy (formerly known as Travis Sprinkles)

Chicago is home to some of the best vegetarian food I've ever tasted. There are multiple restaurants that are must eats if you don't partake in the flesh of other creatures. Today I learned that the same city is also home to one of the best teas I've ever poured down my throat.

I obviously chose this because of the awesome bottle. It looks like it should house some sort or marinade and not a tea. Secondly when has anyone known me to pass up something with ginger in it? Not only does it taste like ginger, but also there are actually small pieces of it in the drink, like sediment. It's surprisingly smooth with a heavy ginger flavor, minus the burn. The secret weapon in here isn't the ginger though; it's the trace amounts of vanilla. It gives this tea a whole new dimension. I picked this up at Whole Foods. Hopefully their stores outside of Chicago will also carry it, because I definitely want more.

This can tells me to "think pineapple." Don't worry friends. I'm already there. I take a bite and it's so juicy it dribbles down my chin. The acidic levels in it make my tongue tingle a bit, but not to a level that it's uncomfortable. I mean it's my imagination so I cut the thing right off the tree/bush with a machete and use that same tool to slice it up. Man this is some good pineapple. I do have a question though. What does this pineapple have to do with my mango tea? There's no pineapple juice in it. It doesn't even have the faintest taste of pineapple. It tastes like a nice dry/bitter white tea with just the right amount of sweet mango juice mixed in. There's also some cane sugar and agave thrown into the mix. It's not overly sweet. It's just right.

Now if I could only get this pineapple off my mind...

You've got a great son, Mr. Ziegler. Roy Jr. is a bit high strung at times and often likes to plot other children's demise, but all in all, he's not a bad kid. He's good at math, but not so good at history. He's good at science, but not so good at English.

Reason I called you down here is because of two things. He brought this Lipton 100% Natural iced tea in and passed it around to the rest of the class. Although his sharing is great, it felt almost as if he coerced the other kids into doing it. Like they were doing his bidding. Have you ever noticed that type of behavior before? Like he had taken control of their minds through some sort of magic and was making them take sips from this one bottle. I took the bottle from him and made him finish his work but I've got to be honest with you. The drink, although good, was not the best. I found it lackluster and a bit...forgettable. It was a bit too sweet because of the Stevia. The flavor was alright, but I took a couple sips and never really craved going back to it. I drank it because it was there. That's not really that great? So, why did Roy Jr. tell everyone it was the greatest? You might just want to work on getting him to wash his hands and inform him about the danger of germs.

Second thing is that he brought in this magazine...I can't stop thinking about that magazine. I mean, where did he get it? I can't get those images out of my head.

Hmmmm....it's half things that I like and half gross. Yes, it is a fact that I like chrysanthemum tea and licorice. Whatever else is in this can makes it taste downright dirty. I can't place what it is that I don't like. Honestly, it might be the licorice that overpowers the rest of the tea. You know when you just bought a bag full of black licorice Twizzlers and you eat a few too many and you get that strange, numbing flavor in your mouth? This is like that but there is no slow roll up on that flavor, it's just there when you sip it.

I wanted this to be good. The rest of it is a little tea and then disturbed by a slurry of, to me, unnecessary flavors. I give them credit for having an all-natural tea with some different flavor, but to my palate, it is not something that I desire.

Sorry, Taiwan. Not this time.

To me Tetley is an old ladies tea. A grandma tea if you will. It's what my grandmother always drank, and it was probably my first experience with tea as a child. I was young and dumb and I thought it was complete garbage. Now that I've wised up through the years I love tea. It's probably my favorite beverage. The thing I loved about Tetley when I was a kid was that each box of tea came with a little ceramic animal. My grandmother's cabinet was filled with them (She was a women who loved her tea). Playing with them filled many hours of my youth.

When I was up in Canada recently I saw this at a grocery store and I felt I owed it to that forgotten porcelain army to buy it and review it for the site. Let me tell you 2 liters is a lot of beverage. Especially when it's a way sweet beverage. This is a good quality low quality iced tea, if that makes any sense. There's nothing special or fancy about it. It's actually more like sugar water than tea, but it kept me coming back for more. The lemon flavor is also very strong. If this came in tall boys it would be a nice and refreshing drink to pick up at gas stations on road trips. As it is I'll keep nursing this huge bottle.

To whom it may concern,
What are you doing over there? Do you have three separate divisions? Your drinks have completely different flavors. You've got your Joe Shmo brand garbage like Brisk and this half and half which is quite possibly, top five worst half and half's I've ever had, and your TrueLeaf and your new 100% Natural line which are pretty amazing. So what's the deal? Here's what I think.

You've got the classics, the relics, the veterans, and the original line up. These guys are the people that started Lipton. They make stuff the way it should be made; real sugar, actual, real tea, natural flavors. These guys make the TrueLeaf.

You've got the new jacks, the rookies, the kids making the 100% Natural line. It's good for you and has natural sweeteners, which don't taste like liquid sewage and actually let the natural flavors shine through. They utilize the newest technologies and natural ingredients to allow the flavors to act as they should and stay low in calories.

Then you've got the 80's guys. Those jerks. Giant lapels and even bigger hair, these know-it-alls will do anything to turn a buck. Take this half and half, for instance. It's too sweet. It is clearly made from excess or overstock Brisk. Then there is lemonade in there. You can't really taste it, but you are left with the feeling on your tongue like you just drank lemonade but can't taste it. You know they're churning this out by the gallon and those 80's dudes are just sitting on their cigarette boats, blaring Van Halen's "1984" so loud that it's veering the ship off course.

Old dudes and young guns, why do you let yuppie jerks get away with bringing your entire company down? Yes, I understand that they carry the load of the company on their padded shoulders, but don't you want to be known as a quality tea manufacturer rather than a drink powerhouse? It's money versus integrity.

I love a lot of your stuff and I don't like a lot of your stuff. You've released more than any company and you've got a lot coming out all the time. Try and turn down the poor quality stuff and turn up the classic tastes.

Sincerely,
Mike of the Thirsty Dudes

Mike did not enjoy the Beaver Buzz citrus energy drink. As we all know, Mike it wrong sometimes. Actually Mike is normally infallible, it just turns out he doesn't like energy drinks. I in turn thought it was one of the best energy drinks I've had. I was excited to drink the tea version of it. Non-carbonated energy drinks always seem weird to me, but I'm starting to come around. It reminds me a lot of Arizona's green tea. It's very sweet, with a green tea after taste when you exhale. It's decent, but it's not as good as the other two Beaver Buzz's I've had. That being said, I would still pick this over most "normal" energy drinks.

Also, it's Canadian and it's still hysterical that it's called Beaver Buzz. I appreciate their sense of humor.

Sir, I'd like to hire you to work for our company. We're looking for someone who can go through all of our peaches and pick out the finest ones to be used in our teas. Your outwardly French disposition leads me to believe that you would be perfect for the job. Sir don't tell me that the French have no history with peach picking. I am the head of this corporation. Do you think I came this far without knowing a thing or two about the different nationalities and their fruit traits? I'm just going to need some information from you. Can I please see your passport and work visa? What do you mean you don't have them? Carol get me immigration on the horn, we have an illegal in the office! Why should I listen to you explain? What could you possibly say to make me not call the authorities? What? You're a penguin? I'm sorry I thought your beak was just a comically over-sized nose. So a French penguin huh? Well you surely don't have any peach experience. How about you just model for the image on our label? Okay let's keep this on the down low. I don't want any animal INS on my butt about hiring illegal birds.

So we learned today that penguins know squat about peaches and that the fictitious head of the company that I made up can't tell someone with a huge nose from a penguin. What I also learned was that oolong tea is halfway between black and green tea, and it definitely tastes that way. Also this tea is delicious. It's supposed to have a little more sugar than the other Honest Teas, but I can't really tell. It's "just a tad sweet" just the way I like it.

Recently I've been on a winning streak with blueberry drinks. If I were Clark W Griswold I would grab the $27 that I had in my wallet, go to the nearest casino and place a $26 bet on the "Pick a Fruit" game that they will undeniably have (I'd need to save the extra dollar for bus fare home). Everything would come up Griswold. Rusty would finally look up to me. I would be the man I always wanted to be. Then for some inexplicable reason I would change my bet and put it all on crappy durian. Who would ever pick durian? It smells like vomit! The wheel would spin, slow down, land on durian and then at the last second flip one more space and land on blueberry again. I would be broke with only my bus fare home. Oh wait I used that to tip that pretty waitress that looked like a model from the 80's. It's a sad time in the life of a man who just loves to vacation.

I (Clark) would be crushed, but blueberry would reign supreme, just like it does in this drink. When you open the bottle it's like shoving your nose in a bushel of fresh picked berries. The tea and lemonade are at perfect levels, with the blueberry just a touch higher in the mix. It's tart, sweet and fruity all in one. I don't know if the world of "Arnold Palmers" gets better than this.

Some drinks have a special purpose and when reviewing those drinks it's hard to decide what is more important flavor or functionality. The Celsius drinks score great in the realm of functionality. I can't say whether or not it burns the calories on it's own, but it definitely gives you more energy to exercise. When I drink one of these before jumping on my bike I end up riding way longer than I normally would.

On the side of flavor they sometimes leave something to be desired. That is because of their good friend sucralose. The sweetener that tastes sweet in all the wrong ways. I wish they would just switch over to stevia. If you're not going with real sugar stevia is the way to go in my book.

This is the best tasting Celsius I've had thus far. I think that's because it's a tea and not a "soda." It still has the sucralose taste, but it's masked a bit by the tea. It basically tastes like a diet raspberry tea. I don't taste the acai at all, but really who needs it when you have raspberry in the mix?

I've been inside for far to long today. This can is now empty so I'm going to go jump on my bike and ride around the city for a while. Try not to hit me.

Guys I just brewed the best tea ever. What's great about it is that's it's all-natural! What's in it? I'll tell you what's in it! It's just three simple things; tea, water and heroin. Why are you looking at me like that? The tea is certified organic and free trade friendly and the water is from the purest springs. Obviously you must not be taking offense to the heroin. It's made from locally grown poppies. What do you mean it's not "natural"? I just told you it's made from poppies. If JB's can say that HFCS is natural than I can say my heroin is as well!

Seriously, don't say all natural and then use HFCS. Own up to it! The tea isn't all that bad. Sure it's syrupy, but it tastes good. Just accept yourself for who you are. Like Angus, "you're still here."

Green tea? Had it. Black tea? Been there, too. White tea? Old news, friends. I think that it's about time that we vary our tea selection to varieties that aren't colors. We're adults. We're worldly. We travel by boats and planes to foreign countries. Worldwide trade is in full effect. Treat yourself to something not from the country you live in. Look, brand loyalty is fine, but look at Thirsty Dudes. We've reviewed drinks from dozens of different countries.

Take this team from Japan. Japan has sugar but does this oolong tea need it? Not at all. In a world filled with even the purest of sugar, sometimes you can't beat an unsweetened team on a hot summer day. This tea is a nice shortstop between green and black tea. A little bitter and a little earthy but just like you would make at home.

You don't have to love unsweetened tea, but as an adult, at some point you have to accept that some drinks don't need to be sweetened.