I love to brew tea at home. It’s comforting and makes me feel like I’m doing something healthy. I really think my immune system is recharging when I drink it. So, you would think I would love bottled tea, but I’ve just never been fan. They are always so overly-sweetened I can hardly force them down… and the colors? My tea shouldn’t be blue, people! The same goes for fruit juices. I rarely drink them. This is aside from that Dole Pine-Orange-Banana Juice. I love that juice. Don’t tell anyone I’ve been known to slip a little vodka into it when I’m feeling sassafrassy. That’s my new word, and don’t be thumping your dictionaries at me. I think Aerosmith used it in one of their songs, so it MUST be a word.
Back to the subject of bottled tea (we’ll discuss vodka on another post). When I heard of Santa Cruz Organic and their bottled tea-juice, I figured I most likely wouldn’t like it. Then I learned Santa Cruz Organic is:
· Fair Trade certified
· Uses 100% (!) reusable energy to run their processing and bottling facilities
· They recycle 96% (! again) of their refuse!
I am more than willing to work with these tea people at this point. If I’m this impressed with their eco-standards, they just might be able to make me change my mind about bottled tea. So Camilla over at Santa Cruz wanted to prove me wrong and sent over some samples of all four flavors: Lemon, Mango, Peppermint, and Raspberry.
I was pleasantly surprised at what I tasted. These teas were not sickly sweet at all nor did they display psychedelic colors. They were refreshing and lightly sweetened. The flavors tasted natural, not artificial. I thought it might be too good to be true, so I snagged some volunteers to help. This is what we found:
Peppermint: I’ve had chamomile with peppermint tea before, so the idea of peppermint tea wasn’t completely foreign to me, but peppermint ice tea sounded strange. I don’t like Mojitos either, what can I say? After trying all four of the teas however, this one ended up being my favorite and the favorite of my volunteer taste-tester crew. Who knew?
Raspberry: Among my panel, this was the close second. Of course, they threw in some frozen raspberries I had in my freezer, so that might be cheating. This tea was good on its own with a burst of raspberry goodness.
Lemon: The lemon flavor reminded me of the ice tea my dad always had in a big glass jar throughout our hot Arizona summers. He would add lots of fresh lemon to it. This rivals Dad’s.
Mango: I love anything mango. Using pure mango puree to flavor this tea, Santa Cruz did not let me down. I would actually encourage them to add a little more mango to this one, but like I said, I love my mango.
Each one of these is brewed with organic green, white and black tea leaves, so the antioxidant level must be through the roof. So you’ll be drinking something delicious and healthy, while feeling assured that it comes from a company that cares about the environment and the people in it.
Santa Cruz Organics can be found at major health food stores.
Also check them out at: http://www.scojuice.com/default.aspx.
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