Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Up until this point nearly all of the Rob's Really Good Flavors have been discontinued. It's funny because I had stated before that I always expected more from this company with the exception of the blueberry tea, which is the only flavor that made the cut in the switch to their new line. I'm glad that the company held the same opinion as us.

This is my first go with the new line, and I have to say after my first sip I already knew it was far superior to their old flavors. If a sweetened tea company wants to win me over with their products the best course of action is to use a decent sweetener and actual fruit juice for flavors. Rob's Really Good has done both of those things. I also want to applaud them for their use of oolong tea instead of the classic black variety. It adds just a little bit of kick that makes it stand out. In essence this is a southern sweet tea made with oolong with some real peach juice mixed in. I can't wait to try the other new flavors.

Call it a hunch, but I'm pretty sure this is a completely different company than the Texas Tea we reviewed in the past. That stuff was cheap gas station swill that was passable only because it was so cheap. This on the other hand is a high quality organic tea. This one is also actually made in Texas instead of New Jersey. Can we just strike the other country from our collective memories and pretend that this was the only Texas Tea that we've known?

This tea is wonderful. You can tell from the taste that actual blueberries were used in the creation of it. The sweetness of it is also very obviously pure cane sugar. It's almost gritty and I mean that in the best possible way. It's sweet and refreshing. I can imagine myself slowly sipping on a bottle while I sit on a back porch of a century house somewhere in the backwoods of the south. It's a relaxing and slightly terrifying thought.

The bottle was also informative as I learned that Nacogdoches is the oldest town in Texas and it also has the highest production of blueberries out of anywhere in the U.S. Who would have thought that? I never expect much to be in Texas. With the exception of Austin my experiences in that state have been less than stellar. Since starting this site I've learned that there is an unusually high concentration of quality tea companies that reside in that state and I'm glad that I've found another in Texas Tea. The next time I'm down there the amount of iced tea I will consume may be setting a record for the books.

Dude Mikey you're totally getting slaughtered in your D&D campaign. Every hit you take is nearly killing you. You really need to step up your defense. That elf just slapped you and it took away half of your remaining hit points. That is no way to live my friend. You should probably down this Body Armor drink. It says right on the bottle that it's made to “prevent and protect.” I imagine that it will turn your game right around and you can crush that backhanding elf. What do you mean that's not the way the game works? This stuff is chock full of ingredients that will protect you. There's even a little chart on the label that tells you what's in it to help you recover and it also will keep you hydrated because of the coconut water and various other things it contains. I mean sure the goji berry overpowers any other flavor that is supposed to be contained within and makes you think that oxidants are running away in fear, but isn't that what you wanted; to be safe and to recover? What do you mean that you appreciate the drink, but that's not how the game works? What are you talking about dice for? Wait, you have to roll dice to decide on your levels. Well that just seems boring. I just wanted to deal with some sweet dragons. Apparently that's never going to happen here because you're now deceased due to a slight breeze. Learn to roll your dice better next time.

Before even opening this beverage I had an appreciation for it; mainly for it's use of a "Grolsch" top. I don't know if that's the official name, but that's what I've heard it referred to. I know that's the name of a beer company that uses the same design, so maybe it's just slang. Besides being visually appealing and fun to open they also wield a secret purpose. As someone who plays guitar (well bass, it's still a guitar) the annoyance of your strap coming unattached from your instrument while you play can be annoying and embarrassing. Sure you can go buy fancy strap locks, but who really wants to have to screw something into their instrument. The secret these bottles hold is that you can pop off the little rubber washer and put that over your strap after it's on your guitar and that strap won't be going anywhere. It's cheaper. It's easier. For that any company that uses this design gets a nod from me.

Flavor-wise this is also really great. A nice sparkling blood orange flavored lemonade. It's more blood orange than lemonade, which I enjoy. It also has the slight bitterness of an Italian soda, but it's from France. This could cause an international incident. They chose to sweeten this with beet sugar, which is interesting and it worked well for them. This is a fancy adult soda that I feel like I should be sipping on the patio of some cafe or another. Thumbs up all around.

When a man is broken down the only thing to do is to load his vital stats into a computer and have it create an 80's like line diagram of his body. That way you can use science to fix him, to make him better. After everything is loaded in the best way to proceed is to pour a bottle of this beverage into your disc drive. It will take care of the rest. Sticky circuit boards are what it takes to cure a man.

This is rather odd. I don't know whether to call it a soda or a tea. I guess it is both, but I feel like one should have dominance. It is green tea extract added to carbonated water and the only sweeteners in it are the ones that come from fruit juice. That's something I can appreciate. They could have stopped there and had a decent drink, but that's not going to rebuild a man. In their wisdom they added kola nut, guarana, taurine, damiana, ginseng, ginko biloba, suma, gotu kola, echinacea, capsicum, dandelion root, kombucha and others. As a result I think this technically becomes an energy drink instead of a recovery beverage. Who knows, maybe they were able to complete the hybrid of the two with their sticky circuit boards.

Flavor-wise this is fairly similar to any carbonated green tea I've had. It has an accurate cranberry taste to it. There was a slight strange aftertaste and it wasn't until after I read the ingredients that I realized it was sarsaparilla. Why that is in there I will never know.

That's it! I've just come to a firm conclusion that I am not a fan of lemon in iced tea, or ice tea as this drink is called. I don't know if I really like lemon in anything other than lemonade to be honest. More times than naught it'd presence also brings a thought of cleaning products. In iced tea it generally makes me feel like I have a nice tall glass of tea that is sitting in the open and I dust my apartment with lemon Pledge and I accidentally spray the Pledge into my glass. For those of you who are into that sort of thing I really think this tea would be right up your alley. It has a good black tea taste and the lemon actually does taste more like fruit than cleaner, but not enough to satisfy me.

Today ended up being pretty glorious. My ladyfriend and I went on a bit of a bike ride. When I got home my roommate informed me that he was going to the 42nd Puerto Rican Greased Pole Festival. I said "Wait....whaaaaaaat?" and jumped back on my bike and rode to downtown-ish. This festival was fairly small, but if I was a meat eater I believe I would have been in heaven. I have to admit all the food looked amazing. Then it began. The Greased Pole Climb. Four teams of five members had to build a human totem pole by climbing up each other on a pole that looked like it had used motor oil slathered all over it. It was downright hysterical. Only one team made it all the way to the top of the telephone pole to grab the prize at the top. Everyone involved was completely covered in grease and I laughed a lot and didn't understand a word the announcer said because it was all in Spanish.

By the time I got back home after all of that I was pretty beat, but we were meeting some friends for dinner, so Natalie and I split this bottle of Hydrive. We both needed a little pick-me-up, but didn't want to get all crazy. What we drank is essentially a Vitamin Water-esque drink with some energy drink style additives. As Neuland pointed out it's strange to have non-carbonated energy drinks. It's even weirder when those words are printed on the bottle. This tasted exactly like grape Popsicles. It's not something I normally look for in a drink, but since it was very hot and humid today, it seemed sort of fitting. This also has aloe vera and acai in it and it's supposed to help speed up recovery time from a night on the town or some such thing. I don't know if that's true, but I bet a bunch of people at that festival could use some of this tomorrow morning.

Thank you for choosing the Journey travel agency. We offer many getaways all over the world. Did you have a specific destination in mind or were you still unsure where you wanted to vacation? Thailand? That is a wonderful choice. I'm sorry to tell you that our agency does not book any activities that involve the sex trade though. I'm sorry sir. Please don't be upset. I understand there are many wonders of Thailand, but to be perfectly honest 99% of our customers who want to go there give me the creeps. The things they say they want to experience give me the shivers. I do believe I have exactly what you're looking for though. Yes sir that is a bottle of soda. I've been told it's the essence of Thailand condensed into a single bottle. It has a strong lemon flavor, which is due to lemon juice, lemongrass and lemon verbena extract. Those Thai folks sure love their lemon. To balance things out there is some ginger thrown into the mix. Yes sir, I agree it tastes like someone mixed a lemonier 7Up into a ginger beer. I would actually say it was more like a Greek soda mixed with ginger beer.

I'm glad you enjoyed your trip sir. That will be $4983.72. Sir I don't know what kind of establishment you thought this was, but we try to give people the experience of going to a foreign country in soda form. What do you mean you won't pay it? Didn't you see the waiver when you came in? Don't make me call Billy-Bobby out from the back room! He doesn't take kindly to people who skip out on their bills.

Here is a story that may make you think that I was once and possibly still am a savage. In the early 2000's I started my life in touring bands. At the time I was completely broke, but all I wanted to do was tour as much as I could. As a result I rarely ate. After my first month tour I came home and I had lost over 15 pounds. My mom said I looked like a skeleton. I see it as worth it. I spent that entire tour eating basically nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We had a cooler in the van that had a bottle of barbeque sauce in it along with my PB&J. It created a very unique smell. It was so strange. In those adventures I always had Welch's grape jelly. There really is no point to telling that story other than I had a cooler in a van that I lived in that reeked of Welch's grape jelly, peanut butter and barbeque sauce and that is kind of gross.

This is my first go at a Welch's non-grape drink although it does have grape juice in it. Would there be an impending lawsuit if there weren't? I was expecting this to be a very bland generic fruit drink, but you can actually make out all three of the fruit flavors. It's mostly grape and blueberry, but there is an aftertaste of kiwi, which is pretty rad. I can't say that I would drink this very often, as I tend to pick juices that don't have added sugar in them, but in a pinch this works just fine.

Oh yeah I finally found a use for that barbeque sauce. I would up getting a bunch of veggie chicken patties that I would put on the dashboard to defrost/warm them up. Slathered in barbeque they were a little bit of okay.

Pirates are famous for many things; pillaging, plundering, raping, parrots, scurvy and eye patches. I'd like to think that in their heyday they ruled the seven seas with a wooden leg. They set fear into the hearts of every man, woman and child that set foot onto a boat. Through all that there is one thing they never got a firm grasp on: root beer. It's a little known fact that the primary objective of all pirates was to acquire premium ingredients to brew the world's greatest root beer. Unfortunately for them their lack of vitamin c got the best of them and all they created was mediocrity in the beverage world.

Dead Red Root Beer is decent but that's about as far as it goes. It's similar to Barqs in flavor. That may be because this is the only other root beer (besides G33K B33R) that I know of that has caffeine in it. I was expecting this to be special and have that classic Skeleteens burn to it. It did not. I also really thought it was going to be red due to the name, but it's normal caramel root beer colored. Also how awesome would it have been if it were cherry root beer? Why don't companies make different varieties like they do with colas?

The potential for these Kahe drinks was through the roof. An all-natural kiwi soda sounded like a dream come true. I've always wanted a bottle of straight kiwi juice, almost as much as I want a bottle of cantaloupe juice. I don't think either is destined to happen though.

They started this off right. They took some carbonated water and added a bunch of kiwi juice concentrate to it. I'm pretty sure they could have stopped right there and I would have loved this drink. Sure it wouldn't have been overly sweet, but it would have been enough for me and it would have tasted like fruit. Instead of quitting while they were ahead Kahe decided to add a low calorie sweetener, or two to be exact. I'm all for low cal drinks. I completely understand that this country has a severe sugar problem. I suffer from it myself. I also salute stevia for being one of the only "diet" sweeteners that I can really stand. The problem with it is that it can be overpowering if there's not much else to cover it up. Since this was just water and juice the stevia and xylitol completely took over the flavor of the drink. It tastes like it's 2 parts sweetener to every one-part juice. As a result the wonderful kiwi flavor becomes hidden and you have to search it out underneath the added sweetness and the drink drops in ratings.

When someone serves me an unsweetened tea I expect it to be tea brewed in water and nothing else. Sure it's bitter, but that is the whole point of drinking unsweetened. I want it to taste real. Arizona did not meet my expectations. They decided to throw in a few other ingredients. Mainly honey, natural bisulfate of soda and vitamin c. The result is a cheap tasting tea that really doesn't do anything for me.

I suppose if you were used to drinking overly sweetened teas and your doctor told you that you needed to cut down your sugar intake this would make the transition to unsweetened teas less of a shock to your system. It just doesn't taste right to me though.

I was not prepared for this tea. I expected a bitter unsweetened tea. While there is no sugar added to this, it is far from bitter. The little story on the bottle tells me that the Oolong tea has notes of raspberry and pomegranate. They definitely give the tea a slight fruit flavor and overpower the bitterness. The rose hips and pedals that are listed in the ingredients also give this the faintest of floral. I'm honestly shocked at how good this is. It's definitely going to become my go-to unsweetened tea. I only wish that it was available in bigger bottles for home consumption.

I really should hate these drinks. They are loaded with sucralose and have a diety/chemical taste to them. Basically they are diet energy drinks that are supposed to help you burn more calories. I don't know if it's just the normal energy drink ingredients that help you burn calories because you are all hyped up, or if there is something else involved. With all of that being said, I somehow don't hate them. There is something alluring about these drinks. This one in particular is kind of decent. It taste like iced tea and energy drink mixed together with a whole bunch of fake sugar. If someone was used to diet drinks I think this would actually be pretty good to them. I can vouch for the fact that they do give you energy and a bit of the jitters as an added bonus.

Listen Cindy, I know you really wanted to have a lemonade stand today, but the truth of the matter is you plumb used up all of the lemons in the house yesterday. All we have left is a handful of limes that your stuck up older sister uses in her Mojitos. I don't think those would be what you want. I've been meaning to ask you, what did you do with eight dozens lemons? I'm catering a party for the Shemkovitz's this weekend and you know how they love lemons in their water. Yes I know you made lemonade to sell, but what did you do with the rest of them? You sold it all and you now have $137? Wow! People said they would be back today for more? Well I guess we better give these limes a go then! Hmmm. This actually isn't bad. It's really tart, but it tastes exactly like it should; lemonade with limes instead of lemons. No I don't think we should add more sugar. The tartness has a charm to it. You're sister is going to be so mad at us for using her limes. Hopefully your customers will love it. Oh honey your father wanted me to ask you if you knew where his records went. You what!?!?! You gave them away with the lemonade?!?!? Do you know how much some of those early 45's were worth? Looks like someone isn't going to college anymore.

Wegmans is our local grocery store, and it is the best grocery store I have ever set foot in. Seriously it blows everything else away. The selection is great, the prices are low and they even have a burrito bar that has tofu in it. Pure gold. On top of the store itself being incredible their store brand is as good as if not better than most brand names.

So the other day I'm in Wegmans getting myself one of those previously mentioned burritos and I decided I wanted something carbonated, but I didn't want soda. I just couldn't deal with that much sugar at the moment. I walked to the beverage aisle and I saw that they had these as a new product. I happily grabbed a four pack and made my way to the cashier with burrito in tow. I was expecting this to be a little on the seltzery side, but holy crap is it amazing. It's nothing but juice and carbonated water, but it tastes like one of the best pops you'd ever have. There's no sugar added to this, but it's still naturally nice and sweet. Luckily it was to a level I could handle that day. It tastes like a great blend of mango and orange juice with pineapple controlling the entire ordeal.

This four pack is already gone and I can't wait to try the other flavors. If you're lucky enough to have a Wegmans in your area, don't sleep on this juice.

Dear companies that produce watermelon flavored drinks,

I wholeheartedly believe that most of you have never tasted the juice of a watermelon. In fact I'd wager that 50% of you have never even been in the same room as the mighty fruit. I believe this because you're drinks taste nothing like actual watermelon. It's like sometime in the 90's Jolly Rancher came up with a flavor of candy that they decided to call watermelon and every drink company since then has assumed that is what watermelon tastes like out in the wild. Yes the wild. Apparently you also didn't know that watermelons only grow in the most distant valleys of the rainforest, protected by an army of deadly half snake half woman. Yes there are three halves. They are that dangerous.

Please take note and order yourself an actual watermelon for your scientists to mimic. I mean this is perfectly fine, but it tastes like candy, not like a fruit and I really, really wanted this to taste like the fruit.

My ladyfriend bought this a while ago and I have been patiently waiting for her to decide the time was right to drink it. Yesterday that time finally arrived during a BBQ at a friend's house (which I nearly helped burned down via a box of fireworks and a stray spark).

While the soda was very tasty it did not actually taste like guava. It has a very familiar deliciously fruity taste that I could not place, but it definitely wasn't guava. Tropical? Yes. That specific tropical flavor? No.

I really wish this had been made with cane sugar. I believe that would have been the little push this soda needed to make it spectacular.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in an effort to gain superhuman sight I shall now consume no food other than carrots and drink nothing other than carrot juice. I am sick of this normal vision. I dream of a day when I can read at night and more importantly look through a closet refrigerator door so that I can realize there is nothing I want to eat inside without wasting the manual and electrical energy.

I will start this experiment in greatness with this carton of juice. 11.2 fl oz of freedom is what I hold in my hand. Hmm. This doesn't taste like actual carrots nearly as much as I imagined. Since the only ingredient is organic carrot juice I really expected this to taste like I chewed up a carrot for about 15 minutes. This is actually much sweeter than I anticipated. I would have sworn there was sugar added, but nope. It tastes like a juice of some sort that is vaguely carrot tasting and lightly sweetened. I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't taste exactly like carrots, but I but if I drank a juice that did and this back to back, this would win out. Not bad.

What's what Sally? If I eat nothing but carrots my skin will start to turn orange? Well I want no part of that. I will leave the gift of super sight to rabbits and cats. He's to wasting fridge energy!

Gene you've done a great job here with this white grape juice. It has a great flavor and nice carbonation. Wait…€¦what? It's not carbonated? I guess it's just that good that my mind somehow imagined the bubbles. Let me take another sip. You're right it's not. Why on Earth did I think it was?

Now Gene this is great but as you know us here at Sangaria are trying to take the company in a “green” direction. You know, reduce our waste and all. We've been getting in a lot of trouble with the government as of late. Is there anything you can think of to help us out? Wait you want us to put the remainders of the grapes in the drink? That's just plain weird Gene. Who would want to drink that? Okay find I'll try it. This actually isn't too bad. My only complaint is that the grapes could be peeled. You have a machine that will do that? Where do you get those wonderful toys? This is going to be perfect. It's a wonderful tasting white grape juice with whole peeled grapes thrown in to make drinking fun again. Kids are going to have a hay day and you Gene are going to have an awesome compost pile with all of those grape peels. I told you we had to get rid of waste, so now you have to take them home. Enjoy.