Mango Açaí White Tea

Welcome to all the new marTEA.com visitors.  I’ve enjoyed many teas over the years and picking one favorite sweetened iced tea (ready-to-drink) was really difficult.  I selected Honest Tea’s Mango Açaí White Tea when asked in a recent interview with Woman’s World Magazine (The Best Iced Tea – June 29, 2009 edition).  It was nearly two years ago when I first reviewed this delicious and organic tea.  If you are looking for unsweetened teas, many of the tea brands I’ve blogged about carry unsweetened teas.  I learned a long time ago, if you find a tea that you enjoy, drink it and enjoy it often.  I know my taste preference is not always going to be the same as yours.  So explore the vast variety of flavors offered by the numerous tea companies and find the one that is right for you.

Here are a couple of links from my blog that might help:

• Ready to drink (bottled teas)
• Honest Tea: Mango Açaí White Tea

Thank you for visiting,

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Honest Tea has certainly made a name for itself in the ready-to-drink (RTD) tea industry. Recently, Coca-Cola acquired a 40% stake in the company. The deal was reported as being worth $43 million (read the press release). I’m confident that the move will help strengthen Honest Beverages by giving them the resources necessary to distribute their superb products to a larger consumer base. The fact that they partnered with Coca-Cola is sure to deter some of Honest Tea’s current customers. I’m hoping to find more Honest products in my local supermarket due to this move. I still crave the Honest Ade beverage – Orange Mango with Mangosteen.

Let’s move on…Moroccan Mint Green Tea can be found in several different forms – loose leaf, tea bag, and ready-to-drink. Almost every tea supplier has a variety of this classic mix. Honest Tea’s Moroccan Mint Green Tea is one of my favorite RTD teas. First off, it is made from USDA Organic: green tea, white clover honey, peppermint leaves, and spearmint leaves. This is a very tasty combination. The mint flavors swim around in the briskness of the smoky green tea. It’s a perfect combination. The beverage is very refreshing. It has very few calories (34 calories for the entire 16 ounce bottle). Honest Tea continues to exceed the standard.

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After guzzling 64 ounces of “Just Green Tea” down last month, I was ready to try another green tea variety from Honest Tea. My wife bought “Green Dragon Tea” from our local grocery store. The bottle contains 16 fluid ounces of organic green tea from China, which totals about 60 calories. Green Dragon has the same green tea flavor as the “Just Green Tea” with a touch of lemon juice and natural passion fruit flavor. The green tea has a smoky-green flavor to it. The passion fruit flavor is very pronounced in this beverage. Of all the Honest Tea beverages I’ve tried recently, this was my least favorite. If you enjoy fruit flavored green teas, this beverage will be a real treat for you.

I got a kick out of the bottle label on this tea… It references the fact that co-founder Barry Nalebuff has a Ph.D., and how it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to brew tea. That said, the label gives a lesson in economics discussing declining marginal utility. I’ll never forget sitting in econ class discussing utility. Basically, economists use utility to quantify consumer satisfaction of a good or service in an economy. The way Honest Tea related the econ lesson to teaspoons of sugar was pure genius.

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Here’s another flavorful selection from Honest Tea… The Pomegranate has made its way over the last couple of years to almost every recipe from relish to tea. I’m sure some of you have been well aware of pomegranates for several years. In my small part of the world, it’s fairly new to me, but I’m seeing them used a lot more. The pomegranate is native to Iran; however, they can be found growing in several parts of the world. Pomegranates tend to have a balanced fruity flavor between sweet and sour. The fruity flavor makes it an excellent compliment to a wide-variety of recipes. Since the ready-to-drink tea market is booming, it was only natural to find pomegranates flavoring teas. Also found in the white tea is Açaí (commonly pronounced a-sigh-ee). Açaí is another tropical fruit, mainly harvested in Brazil. It has a deep purple color or green color (depending on the variety), and it is about the size of a grape with less pulp. I haven’t had a lot of time to fully research the berry, but I read that it supposedly has 10 times the antioxidants of grapes. Each fruit has numerous health benefits. The majority of the health benefits of the mentioned fruits are believed to improve your cardiovascular health. When you mix the fruit with the white tea, you get a healthy and flavorful combination. The flavor of the tea is almost grape-like. The white tea flavor is also present, and that’s why I like this beverage. I was afraid with all the fruit, the white tea would be buried in the beverage. The fruit flavors actually compliment the white tea very well. The bottle contains 16.9 fluid ounces, which totals 74 calories. Compared to most bottled teas, the calorie count of this beverage is excellent. I’m not a major fan of berry flavored hot teas; however, it works well with iced tea. Again, another job well done by Honest Tea.

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Honest Tea, located in Bethesda, Maryland, has established themselves as a major player in the ready-to-drink tea industry and beyond. Seth and Barry (Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff), co-founders of Honest Tea, have been brewing tea for over 10 years. In the early days, they started out by brewing tea in Seth’s kitchen. Their story is inspiring with a slight comedic spin. I recommend visiting Honest Tea’s website for their complete story – I won’t spoil it. As someone that majored in Business Administration, I appreciated their entrepreneurial challenges. Seth Goldman recently received The Alliance for Workplace Excellence 2007 Visionary Leadership Award. I’ve read many stories about the company, and I greatly admire their vision for their products, the environment, and the stakeholders of the company.

Now, I want to branch out of tea (slightly) to discuss a couple other products offered by Honest Tea. In 2004, they launched Honest Ade. Honest Ade are flavorful beverages that do not contain tea, but are still extremely flavorful, organic, low in calories, and healthy. I tried the Orange Mango with Mangosteen. I let my whole family try it, and everyone had the same expression – yum! The tropical flavors mixed with orange, blend for an absolutely delicious and refreshing beverage. Lastly, I was really impressed with the Honest Kids product line. The product is neatly packaged in a juice pouch. Honest Kids is USDA Certified Organic, and it contains fewer calories and sugar than most kids’ drinks. My kids loved it. They kept saying they were drinking tea, but I’d remind them that Honest Kids is a healthy juice drink without tea.

• Visit Honest Tea

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Well, not too long ago I tried Honest Tea’s “Just Black Tea.” Over the last week, I’ve been enjoying the “Just Green Tea” from Honest Tea. It’s 64 ounces of Fair Trade, unsweetened, green tea. Now, I’m not sure specifically where the green tea originated, but it has more of a smoky flavor than a veggie flavor. I’ve blogged about ready-to-drink products from other brands, and they’ve all had a strong veggie flavor. I was pretty happy that this one had more of a smoky “green” flavor to it. It was a nice change-up from the other teas. For those of you who drink green tea regularly, you know there are several varieties. Most of the unsweetened green teas I’ve been drinking had more of a Japanese Sencha flavor. Where as this tea, if I had to guess, was probably produced with green tea from China. Either way, this tea is very good. I think it’s an excellent way to drink green tea. If you want to sweeten the beverage, you can. If you like it cold and straight, have at it. The volume that this product comes in makes it ideal for families that like to drink tea. As I mentioned in a previous blog, it’s also good for the lone tea drinker that likes to chug as much as they can directly from the bottle. This tea offers a unique green tea flavor, and it’s packed with antioxidants. Green tea lovers, here ya go…

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Keep it simple, big, healthy, and flavorful seems to be Honest Tea’s goal behind their “Just Black Tea.” First off, this bottle contains 64 ounces (it’s huge) of black tea. The good news for me is I’m the only one that drinks tea at my house on a regular basis. So, I can break all the rules with this tea. I literally twist the lid off and chug as much as I want – straight from the bottle with the refrigerator door open (my parents would be proud…). The good news for all of us is the fact that Honest Tea has recognized the need for this product. The tea has a classic black tea flavor. To me, it has more of a refreshing Ceylon flavor to it. The great thing about this product is the fact that it is totally unsweetened. If you wanted to add sweetener to it, you could. Honest Tea allows the consumer to dictate the amount of sweetener (or none) that belongs in your tea. I think it tastes just fine without sweetener. Honest Tea is well aware of the “label readers” or educated consumer. There are labels and symbols all over the bottle letting you know just how good this product is for you, the tea farmers and workers, and the environment. This is a great product to see in the grocery store. In my opinion, this is another step in the right direction for the ready-to-drink (RTD) tea industry.

• Visit Honest Tea

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If you are a peach lover, you’ll love this USDA organic bottled tea. One of the main ingredients of the tea is organic peach puree. Hence the title of “Peach OO-LA-LONG.” I can tell Honest Tea makes every effort possible to make sure their products are high quality. Peach oo-la-long is a fair trade oolong and black tea mix. The organic cane sugar and organic brown rice syrup in the tea add up to 8g of sugar per 8 fl oz. Compared to other bottled beverages, this is not too bad. Honest Tea states that this beverage has one-third the calories of other bottled tea beverages. Not to mention the fact that this is an organic product. So it’s not sweetened with a lot of ingredients I cannot pronounce. I can’t stress the detail Honest Tea packs into their bottle labels. There is an entire story on the bottle about how this bottle was given a penguin as its main character. I won’t spoil the story on this blog. I really enjoy Honest Tea’s products. My kids like this tea more than a lot of other teas I’ve let them sample. I’m not a super fan of peach flavored beverages, but I wanted to give this one a try. Honest Tea has several other flavors to select.

Visit Honest Tea’s website to see what flavors they have to offer

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