Sobe Green Tea

It's always astonishing when
a company changes a formula for the better.

Sobe Green Tea

Bought it with an early lunch in grand central, hadn't had a Sobe Green Tea in years and years. I was shocked at how cool and refreshing the drink was. I felt like I was in a beer commercial and the product really did taste like a mountain stream instead of fermented urine. Not that Sobe tastes like beer, but that it tastes refreshing. And yes, beer does taste like pee.

It's clean and incredibly sweet, not in a saccharine way but in a shock to the tongue way. The flavor is there but almost unnoticable, hard to pin down. It's like that perfect blend of wonder that becomes an unquantifiable nothing.

The first three ingredients are water, sugar, and natural fkavor. Following these are green tea extract and a host of the crap normally found in energy drinks. These may account for the vigor of the drink, but I prefer to tlinagibe* that the natural flavor is industry code for beef blood, as I've been warned many times by many vegetarians.

But seriously, Sobe made a drink with guarana in it which tastes good. That's incredible. Every guarana drink in the world tastes like satans penis, except maybe China Cola - does that have guarana? Actually, I don't remember that it does.

So yeah, Sobe green tea is great. My true love used to be the black tea, I'll have to dig some up now that they seem to be screwing around with the mix. The only reason I stopped drinking sobe in the first place was an inability to find the decent flavors. The deli across from my work stopped carrying the Sobe teas in preference for the Arizona teas, of which only their green tea is really drinkable.

*This word is iPhonese, and has no suitable translation in English.

Sweet Leaf Pomegranate Green Tea

Don't look her in the eye, or you'll be condemned
to a thousand years servitude in the pomegranate mines.

Sweet Leaf Pomegranate Green Tea


I had the Sweet Leaf Black Tea, or some such thing, some time ago but lost the review. That was merely one of a long chain of foolish Sweet Leaf related incidents thwarting my honest intent of A) drinking a bottle of the stuff and B) writing about drinking a bottle of the stuff on the internet.

I finally succeeded with the Cherry Limeade, and this one too.. Sadly, "Pomegranate Green Tea" falls further from the high bar set by the first two.

The pomegranate green tea performs a small marvel, it takes a drink that is all organic and makes it taste like a Jolly Rancher. It's a mov of syrupy, cardboardy, and fake fruit taste chasing an honest green tea flavor with torches and pitchforks. You can see the fear in the green tea's eyes as it feverishly searches for cover.

It's sad really. It tastes more like Fruitopia than anything natural.

The worst thing about this flavor of Sweet Leaf, is that it's everywhere. EVERYWHERE. If a store has only one Sweet Leaf flavor, it'll be this one. Whether that's because this is the default flavor you get if you only order one, or if it's because the good flavors all get drank up and this is what's left, I dunno. And I don't care. Burn it.

Sweet Leaf makes amazingly delicious tea drinks, but as soon as they start adding flavoring to them things go a little awry. So this is officially labeled a "bad drink", even though the unblinking, bug-eyed goblin lady on the label compels me to do otherwise.

Turkey Hill Iced Tea - Lemon Flavored

Okay, so I seem to have lost the photo I took of the bottle,
here's one swiped off their website. My bottle was this shape,
but the flavor was "Lemon Iced Tea".

Turkey Hill Iced Tea - Lemon Flavored

I've seen Turkey Hill stuff around for some time. They make ice cream, and I believe I've seen Turkey Hill convenience stores in Pennsylvania, I think they had Slurpee type dispensers there, too. In NYC I see the teas in the medium to large sized supermarkets, but had never actually seen anyone drink one till an evening of games at a pal's house.

It was a bad evening, I lost at Power Grid and Around the World in 80 Days.

Early in that dismal evening, a brother-in-law of my host showed up with a bottle of Turkey Hill Iced Tea. Someone said something about him being addicted to the stuff. That sparked my interest and moved the Turkey Hill onto my "acquisitions" list, an item I checked off just today.

My first drink almost made me vomit. Once again, I drank something without reading the fine print on the back instructing me to "shake well". Bah. That first sip was pure, unflavored syrupy sweetness. Horrible.

A good shaking makes the stuff much more bearable, but still not great. Not bad, but not very tea like. It tastes alot like the instant powdered iced teas I grew up with, and that ain't a great thing tea wise. The real pull of this stuff is in the sugar/caffeine rush, I think. Drinking about a cups worth puts me in race car mode. Brrrrrrrummm-bum-bum-bmmmmmmmmm. Honestly, the taste is only about half a pip less good than Snapple Lemon Tea, and it isn't really that it's worse but just different in a slightly less desirable way.

It's much more mellow than Snapple, that's for certain.

The bottle art is pretty tacky, with a poorly drawn polar bear wearing sun glasses and a scarf, hugging himself for warmth. He's there to illustrate that it's "cold fashioned for freshness". On the back they boast that the stuff is kept cold throughout the entire process. Wait, they DON'T say that. The cold part starts at the bottling, it's supposedly kept cold from then on. I confess I was suspicious of any tea that could be made cold.

It's sad to think that in another decade or two it might be in bad taste to use polar bears in advertising.

The side of the bottle has a relief that says "Imported from Lancaster County TM". Trademarked. They trademarked that phrase. That's sort of silly and sad. And I wonder if they sell these same bottles in Lancaster County, where it wasn't imported because it was made there. Maybe I'll call 800-MY-DAIRY and ask.

Anyways, this stuff ain't great but it ain't bad. It's a pretty neutral way to get lots of sugary crap in your body fast. Honestly, I don' really recommend it.

The Original Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea

The Original Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea

Straight people don't know, what your about

They put you down and shut you out

You give to me a new belief

And soon the world will love you, Sweet Leaf

So I usually stop at a particular grocery store in Brooklyn en route to my monthly Cthulhu game. I buy some genoa salami and cheese, or some fresh pineapple rings, and usually a box of Caffeine Free Coca Cola. The salami and cheese thing is a horrible habit I picked up from a friend who was on Adkins, being that I'm not on Adkin's I just get fat on it instead of turning greasy and wasting away.

It's a good life, though. I had to stop going to the deli for lunch meat because the meat cutters have acted like jack asses in the past and inspired me to a level of retaliatory nastiness that makes me nervous about even entering the store.

The worst part of this regular grocery visit, though, was the recurring frustration of the Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea. The idiot store people put the precious stuff in a refrigerator on the far end of the pay counter, so you don't see the stuff till AFTER you've paid and walked all the way to the exit. For about a year I would shop, pay, take three steps and slap my forehead as I saw the highly desirable bottle with the picture of the little old woman on it.

Till one day. One glorious day, a great day, I notice the stuff before I'm done paying. I put all my crap down on the counter, and fought my way over to the refrigerated cabinet and extracted a single bottle. Victory!

I gloated over my success throughout the entire Call of Cthulhu game session. The bottle sat in my bag, I was saving it for a good day when I could concentrate on it. I also didn't want a big dose of caffeine that particular evening. Good things can wait, right? I got home and put the bottle in the refrigerator, only to have disaster strike in the form of a thirsty and vengeful wife.

A while ago my wife started innocently drinking out of my soda stash as a way of forcing me to consume the sodas faster, and therefore clear out an overcrowded refrigerator shelf. I say innocently, but this was actually a decision arrived at through her native cunning. I'd come home and see another rare soda, perhaps one hand crafted from raw air by Phillipino monks living in Tibet, fallen victim to my wife. The bottle placed on top of the recycling can, or left casually on a table, sure to attract my attention. To protect against these encroachments I "fell back" into a box in my room, hoarding the bottles and cans under a table. Sure, the sodas won't keep as well, but at least they'll stick around long enough to upset me with their horrible taste.

I considered throwing a camouflage tarp over the crates, but I think my wife is happy with simply having driven me out of the refrigerator. Her victory conditions were met.

A few days ago my wife and I were waiting for a bus in Brooklyn. I was telling her about this blog entry, and how she had dashed my long efforts to nab a bottle of Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea. My dearly beloved told me that this drink was not nearly so rare as I thought, and that it could be found in any deli in NYC. I pointed across the street from the bus stop to a convenient deli. She ran in and returned empty handed. Her original statement was amended to "any deli in Manhattan". After our ride we stopped in at a health food store she thought would certainly have the stuff, the joke was on her because it not only didn't have Sweet Leaf anything, but I walked out with five new bottles random fancy sodas. Ha!

On the way out on the bus, I'd spotted a Polish market at Fifth Ave and 18th Street. I ran all the way there, to beat the bus, and had a quick dash through looking for Eastern European sodas. None were to be found, but I did pick up a nice selection of American fancy sodas and an RC - RC is rare in NYC. This place easily had the best soda selection I've seen in NYC. And - lo and behold - there was a row of Sweet Leaf teas. I didn't pick one up because, after all, they are as common as dirt on Manhattan.

So Sweet Leaf, I didn't get a chance to know you. But maybe later. Maybe.

Tradewinds Sweet Tea

Part II of my trip to Michigan:

Tradewinds Sweet Tea, Tradewinds Beverage Company

Having the photo's subject slightly to one side is considered
good composition. This bottle should have been moved
about fifty feel to the left, and smashed against a tree.

I bought this stuff because it was made in Cincinnati, like my wife.

That sixth pair of eyes helps watch for hawks and owls.

Okay, I bought this stuff because I went "Internet Crazy" in a rest stop somewhere in Pennsylvania. "Internet Crazy", as far as I understand, is when people do stupid things that they regret doing in the public realm, then they blame it on the "Internet Crazies" and deny all responsibility. While I think the Internet is usually involved in the Internet crazies, I feel comfortable in using the term in relation to my buying "Tradewinds Sweet Tea", it was a mistake and I deny any wrongdoing. I'm not the asshole here, YOU ARE.

Sweet tea is one of the finest things in the world. When it's good it's great and when it's bad it's often still pretty good. Great sweet tea is bought at good barbecue restaurants, very good sweet tea is bought at White Castle (it's true). Tradewinds Sweet Tea is pretty bad, but still drinkable because of the innate power of sweet tea-ness. The sweet level is a little low, unusual for a drink like this, but the whole thing is plunged into the realm of gross by the syrupiness.

It's sweetened with corn syrup. The flavor element is pretty low key, but the viscosity is completely wrong. It's THICK. It's thicker than a flat soft drink. Tea should be watery in consistency, this stuff is watery in flavor. Yuck yuck yuck. I take back what I said earlier, it's really NOT drinkable. I didn't finish the bottle - it sat in the truck and was passed over by Phredd when he scavenged my Frozen Run Bear Mountain Birch Beer.

On the back of the bottle they have all these assertions about how healthy the stuff is. That it's kettle brewed and full of hippy goodness. Great, kettle brewed sounds wonderful! Believe it or not, I like healthy drinks and I like the idea of drinking healthy drinks. I eat healthy much of the time. It's true. But NOTHING IS HEALTH ABOUT CORN SYRUP! Don't do all this steeping and brewing and sacrificing-to-the-nature-god and then pour in a bunch of corn syrup. Shame on you. Whoever made that decision deserves all the horrible names that their health-minded underlings called them.

I remember the word "flavinoids" being used. Flavinoids are robot mascots the company uses to attract kids. The Flavinoids fly around and make things taste like imitation tea...

Oh man! I almost missed the chance to make a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference. My god, I'd've had my install of Dwarf Fortress confiscated. Okay, here goes:

"Tradewinds Sweet Tea tastes almost, but not totally, unlike tea."

I hope I got that right. I'm not going to look it up.