Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Tea Review 44 - Bottled Peach Teas (X2)

White Peach White Tea
Inko's White Iced Tea

Peach Oo-La-Long
Honest Tea

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've never met a bottled tea I liked, but it's close. The problem with bottled tea, at least for me, is the sweetener factor, that notion that a bottled beverage won't fly with the sugar-addled American public unless it's sweet.

White Peach White Tea is the first Inko's tea I've tried. The propaganda on the bottle trumpets the health benefits of white tea and features the slogan, "what white tea tastes like." Uhhh...

Anyway, the ingredients in this one are premium brewed white tea, fructose crystals (an especially vile "F" word, in my book), all-natural white peach extract and citric acid.

Inko's does get big points for appearance, with a nice crystal clear amber color. As for taste - not bad, but I just couldn't get past that fructose thing. Sorry, I really tried.

Honest Tea's Peach Oo-La-Long fares a little better in the taste department, though I'm considering giving them a demerit for the excessively cutesy poo name. I'd also knock off points for cloudiness, but granted that's not nearly as important a consideration as taste.

Peach etc. is an organic fomulation that - oddly enough - places organic Fair Trade Certified oolong and black tea fourth in the billing after purified water, organic sugar and organic peach puree. Also in the mix are organic brown rice syrup, natural peach flavor and that yummy old citric acid.

The presence of two sweeteners was somewhat alarming, but the sweetness factor here is actually quite understated or, as the blurb on the bottle would have it, it's "a tad sweet." Indeed. Overall, the taste wasn't so bad. On a stifling hot day I might just be able to knock off a bottle or two of this stuff.

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