TasTEA Time! Snapple Papaya Mango Tea

Oh Snapple, you and your limited editions.  Brett Michels has a tea made after him and apparently, so does the Amazing Race India.  But, this one has papaya and mango so I'm perfectly willing to buy a discounted case.  Now, I don't think Snapple is the best bottled iced tea (I can think of at least 5 companies that are better), but they're usually inexpensive and have a pretty decent quality product.  My biggest problem is that to me, their black teas are too sweet and strong.  But hopefully this one will be good.

Outsies:  This one has a nice festive bottle.  The tea is dark and it smells fruity and tropical.  

Insides:  I was pleasantly surprised at the non-attack of sugar.  The mango flavor is strong with this one and I think they put a little less tea.  It's still strong black tea, but the fruit flavors take front stage and really, I'm ok with that.  Looking at the back, they seemed to have cut back a little with the sugar (This one's 150 calories as opposed to 170-180).  I actually really like it and hopefully, can buy another discounted case.

Overall:  It's nice, fruity and an all around good summer treat.  Unfortunately, you can only find these in discount stores, but the newest batch isn't expired yet and I got a 6-pack for 3 dollars.  So yeah, buy it for that much.

My Rating:  Buy it!  Here's the site:  Snapple

TasTEA Time! Snapple Berry Herbal Tea

So, Snapple doesn't make tea-bags anymore, but they used to.  I actually like Snapple since it's cheap, they have fun flavors and their tea is generally pretty good.  It's not top-quality by any means, but it's enjoyable if you like fruity tea.  Also, I'm a huge fan of berry tea.  I am going to warn you that this is old tea so the flavor is probably going to be impacted, but it was inside a cellophane sealed box, so hopefully it isn't too bad.  

Outsides:  It's a paper wrapped sachet.  The tea is dark and purple colored with the smell of strawberries and blueberries.

Insides:  I think at one time, this was a nice herbal tea.  The berry flavor is still strong and you taste a few herbs in there.  But this is old tea and you can tell it's old tea.  Whatever tea background was there has only a hint of flavor left.  There's something that tastes like licorice and doesn't go too well with the berry flavor.  But still, it's not the worst old tea I've had.

Overall:  This one wasn't my favorite of the Snapple tea bags, but it's not terribly bad.  Honestly, I'd kinda like Snapple to bring these tea bags back.  Still, if you see someone selling this on eBay or something, don't buy it.

My Rating:  Pass.  Here's the Snapple site:  Snapple inc.  

TasTEA Time! Snapple Refreshing Green Tea

What:  Canned Green Tea

Where:  USA

Why Should I Care:  Oh canned tea.  You're big, you're cheap and you're usually not very good.  There's very few teas in this catagory that use real tea and don't use HFCS (Peace Tea being one of the exceptions).  Now, despite my dislike in the previous Snapple products, the regular green tea was a staple of my lunch when I used to work at Shop and Save.  Plus this is slightly smaller and cheaper than the average.

Packaging:  It's a can on green tea.  It's can, it has a suggested price for it (79 cents, I paid 50).

Non-Taste Senses:  It smells like green tea and it's that yellowish color

Taste:  You can still taste the preservatives, but it's not as bad as Arizona or Brisk.  For the most part, its a fairly generic but moderately sweetened green tea.  Unfortunately, Snapple uses High Fructose Corn Syrup in this which is strange since Snapple uses real cane sugar in everything else.

Overall:  It's a little better than Arizona in that they use real tea but honestly, there's nothing to recommend here.  I'm actually a little surprised that I've given most of the Snapple stuff a pass because I buy Snapple stuff more often than most of the other tea brands.  Eh, better luck next time.

My Rating:  Pass.  

Review! Snapple Kiwi Strawberry

What:  Kiwi Strawberry drink

Where:  USA

Why Should I Care:  Strawberry Kiwi is one of the most typical, generic flavor combinations out there.  It's safe, you're probably going to get the same flavor profile as you expect to get and it's ubiquitous.  Again, this is something that has been sitting in my refrigerator for several weeks and I know that if I don't get rid of it somehow, it's going to stay there forever.  So yeah, here we are.

Packaging:  Pretty much just a generic glass bottle

Non-taste Senses:  It's pink and it smells like strawberry.

Taste:  It's pretty much what you expect from a strawberry kiwi drink.  For those of you who've never had a strawberry kiwi drink, it's about 40% strawberry, 20% kiwi and 40% sugar (these values are estimates and may change from product to product, although that's unlikely).  It's way too sweet and despite claims of juice, I've seen sodas that I consider healthier.  It does have a hint of juice though, which is more than I can say about brands like Minute Maid, and I don't hate the flavor combination.

Overall:  I understand why people like Strawberry Kiwi stuff.  It's relatively familiar, sweet and has a hint of the exotic.  Do I care for it (in drink form)?  No.  Do I recommend this to people who don't care for SK?  Not really.

My Rating:  Pass.  Here's the site.

Review! Snapple Peach mangosteen Immunity

Two non-tea reviews in one day?  What is this world coming to!?

What:  Some kind of sugary fruit drink that has peach and some other weird fruit

Where:  USA

Why Should I Care:  Well, I wasn't planning on doing another review today but I cooked up some noodles and needed a cold drink so here we are.  Snapple is one of those companies that tends to give you a warm, fuzzy feeling when you buy one of their products.  Maybe it's the fact that they use actual cane sugar or maybe it's because of the "real facts" they put on their caps or maybe it's just because of the word Snapple.  Whatever be your reason, they tend to be cheaper than Lipton and actually use real things unlike Arizona.  Plus this kind is using a fancy fruit that I honestly have not tasted on its own.  What the heck is a Mangosteen?  Let's find out.

Packaging:  It's a glass bottle.

Non-taste senses:  As you can see, it's this radioactive orange color.  The liquid smells similar to Peach Jello.

Taste:  It actually tastes like peach jello as well.  The texture isn't really thick but it tastes more like peach flavor as opposed to an actual peach.  I don't taste anything other than peach so don't ask me what a mangosteen tastes like because I can't tell you.  It's not bad, but it is basically just a sugary drink.

Overall:  Honestly, it's not that exciting to me.  It's good and I think if you like peach then you'll also think it's good, but I don't think it's worth the calories.  Also, I bought a 12-pack about 8 months ago and this was the last one so clearly, it took me a while to get a craving for them.

My Rating:  Pass.  Here's the site.

And here's Tommy