Runa - 9 Reviews

Normally I am on board with guayusa. It's a natural source of caffeine that I don't need to feel terrible about consuming. Sure, it's not my all-time favorite flavor, but it is by no means gross. It's just its own unique flavor. Normally the other flavors mixed with it mask it a bunch, and everything works out great. In here I would say this is 80% guayusa and 20% lime. For my liking it definitely could have done with more lime. Lime is a flavor that can be as strong as possible and I wouldn't complain. It's very faint in here and it seems to make the guayusa shine a bit more. It was weirdly a bit plain, which I didn't expect to use as a descriptor. I can imagine a world where this is what water tastes like and no one would bat an eye. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't entice me to drink more.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I am finally getting old. I get creaks. I get aches. I fall asleep on the couch while watching movies at night. All of the telltale signs are there. On top of all that I have mentioned it seems to happen with increasing regularity that I need some sort of boost to get me moving in the morning at work. I always assumed that when people talked about needing their morning coffee it was due to their bodies getting used to ingesting caffeine. Now I am realizing that sometimes you just need the push, even if your body is not used to it. I try to not make it a regular thing, but at least once a week I find myself drinking something caffeinated in the morning (usually tea). This is a great alternative though. It's a mixture of guayusa tea and fruit juice that tastes amazing even without added sugar.

In this beverage the fruit juice sits pretty evenly with the tea flavor and that is exactly where I want it to be. It's not sweet, but it's also not bitter. Everything about this falls right in the middle. All of the energy in it comes from the caffeine derived from the guayusa leaf, so it doesn't leave you feeling insane. It's just a gentle push to help you get through the morning. It's just a bonus that it won't leave you with gross coffee breath or unwanted calories from sugar. It's simple, it's delicious and it's just what I want in the morning.

There is joy and there is sadness in the world of Big Lots. We tend to find a decent amount of tasty and interesting beverages there. If we find something we enjoy and we are lucky then it's simply there because a company ordered too much, or there has been a change in the label and the company is trying to blow out their old stock. Unfortunately there are other times when a product is being discontinued or a company has gone out of business. This seems to be the case more often than not when I find something I like there, so I buy up what I can and enjoy the limited time I have with it.

Luckily in the case of Runa, their teas presence at the discount store is due to nothing more than a chance of label. I will still be able to find these delicious teas in the future, but you can bet your bottom that at fifty cents per bottle I will be buying up the stores stock.

It's been awhile since I've drank an iced tea that has impressed me, so I was caught completely off guard with this. It's no secret that peach flavored beverages tend to be a little much, and end up tasting candied. This tea is flavored with “organic peach flavor” and that apparently equates to a taste that is like a peach that is right on the cusp of being perfectly ripe. It has a sweetness to it, but also a vague bitterness that comes with unripe fruit. It's a refreshing change of pace for this particular flavor. It also helps that they didn't go overboard with the sweetener and there are only 16g of sugar in the entire bottle.

This drink is very smooth and you get a little kick from the caffeine that is found in the guayusa. Flavor and energy; this tea truly has it all.

Can we all agree that your everyday energy drinks make you feel like garbage in the aftermath? There is too much sugar and too many weird chemicals in them, and as a result you crash and you either need to drink another one like a junky, or you deal with the “shakes,” or should I call them anti-shakes? For me at least they are a “break glass in case of emergency” type item, or at least they were until we started up Thirsty Dudes. Now I have a civic duty to feel like moose trampled me.

The main, and classic alternative to energy drinks is to drink coffee. That is also not for me. I can enjoy it if there are tons of chocolate and sugar in the mix, but I just do not like regular coffee. Again, I really don't need all that sugar into my life either.

Runa is giving people another option. It is a sparkling juice beverage that uses the Amazon guayusa as a delivery method for natural caffeine and polyphenols. Each 8.4oz can contains 120mg of caffeine, which is more than in a regular cup of coffee. We're talking more energy per square inch here people. On top of that it actually tastes great. It has a never rainforest berry flavor going on. You know if acai actually tasted the way you wanted it too, and wasn't so intense.

Sure these cans cost more than a gas station coffee, but they are cheaper than you would pay for a coffee shop coffee, so why not go for the switch and drink healthier.

Did you know that in the original draft for Heart of Darkness the tale that Joseph Conrad told was very different? For one thing it took place in Ecuador and not Africa and secondly it had nothing to do with the ivory trade. Mr. Conrad was actually writing about his favorite tea, guayusa. Sure the general themes of savagery vs. civilization and racism were there, but the heart of the heart of darkness was tea. Ultimately it was decided that the subject of tea wasn't gripping enough the world over (the English loved it), and it was swapped out for ivory and you have the story we all know.

I for one don't give a rip about ivory. I mean sure I don't want to think of the death of elephants so that man can have nice piano keys. I do on the other hand love me some tea, and guayusa is absolutely wonderful. It's earthy with natural caffeine much like yerba mate. Runa makes it right. It's lightly sweetened with only 14g of sugar in a 14oz bottle. I would enjoy it unsweetened as well, but it's nice to have an option for a sweetened tea that doesn't taste like someone accidentally dropped the whole bag of sugar in it.

Now you know the secret behind a literary classic. Do you feel dirty, or are you just thirsty?

For a good portion of my life I consumed far too much sugar, and the majority of that sugar came in the form of iced tea. I love the stuff. Can't get enough of it. With the advent of the iced tea tall boys and the expansion of the medium they are everywhere and generally only $1. That's a deal that was hard to pass up. Eventually I got to the age where what you eat/drink finally catches up to you, and it was quite a shock. For 30 years or so I ate and drank whatever fancied me and my weight never went under 170 and never above 175. They were the golden years. Then I started to notice a change and I decided I needed more exercise in my life and a change to my diet. I am happy to say that I have actually stuck with it, and things are looking good.

One of the steps I took was to start brewing my own tea at home. I would boil a huge pot of water, throw a couple of tea bags in and them transfer it to a growler after an hour or so. I learned to love unsweetened tea, and it help stave off the cravings I used to have for tallboys. I still drink more tea than is probably good for a human, but at least there is no sugar involved.

One of my go to teas to brew is “original” Runa guayusa tea. It has an earthy taste that is similar to yerba mate, but with it's own twist. Sometimes I drink it just like that; sometimes I throw in a different tea bag into the mix of flavored tea. Either way it's always delicious. I love that I have the option to get these teas in ready to drink form. I wish this were available at every gas station around the country, so I could easily find them when traveling. It is a perfect balance of earthy tea and limejuice. It's mostly tea, but the lime flavor is very obviously there.

These days “mixologists” are all the rage. It seems like just a fancy word for a bartender that knows how to do their job. If I were to use the term though, I would say that Runa has one of the best mixologists around, sure this is a simple beverage, but ratios are as crucial to a drink as the quality of the ingredients used, and they have it down to a science.

I've said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again; guavas have never let me down. From juices, to teas, to the actual fruit I like everything I have ever tried that it was involved with. I even like the Ween album “Pure Guava.” It's the magical fruit that can do no wrong.

In that same regard it seems that Runa is a tea company that can also do no harm. I've tried a couple of the products and have been impressed by all of them. I want more companies to use guayusa as their tea of choice. It has a more interesting flavor, and as much as I don't want to admit it, I've grown bored of black tea. Yerba mate and guayusa are now my teas of choice. It also helps that they have a decent amount of caffeine in them, as I never want to drink coffee, unless it's made up all nice and fancy, and I try to drink energy drinks very sparingly, as I don't want to have heart problems in the future, and there's a lot of unnatural chemical junk in them.

The thing I love the most about Runa and this tea is that they weren't afraid to forgo a sweetener. The tea alone would be great unsweetened, but adding the guava makes this perfect. It's fruity enough that it has it's own quasi sweetness. It also perfectly balances with the guayusa, so neither flavor overpowers the other. There is a Ying and Yang thing going on with this tea of two great flavors that can also live in perfect harmony together.

Lightly sweetened? Yes sir. Mint? Yeah, sure. Whatever the heck guayusa is? Throw it in. Together you have created something that I think you might be able to get at the side of the road from a Mayan. Do Mayans still exist? Did Mayans use guayusa? For some reason, this feels like something that happens in antique times. Olden times. Classic times. Dusty times.

This is a nice traditional tea taste with a very light, good, non-toothpasty, mint flavor. It's a bit earthier than a black or a green tea. It's drier and maybe more bitter, almost like a mate. It's good. I like this and it is both refreshing and not terrible for you.

I know nothing about the Mayans and for that I am sorry but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt of being historically awesome at making tea. Do not take this as an insult. You are or were truly great at it.

Editor Dan picked this up for us. I had no idea what guayusa was, but I'm not one to turn down any sort of iced tea. Seriously, I'll even drink Nestea if it's put in front of me. I drank this tea before doing any research on it, and I would have sworn that guayusa was just another name for yerba mate. It really reminded me a lot of Guayaki Pure Heart tea. The tea is very heavy on the hibiscus and berry (shockingly it's a combo of yumberry and blueberry), and it's great.

While I was writing this I did some research and guayusa is not the same as yerba mate, but it is another plant that grows in the Amazon. The article I read said that it does taste very similar to mate though. It's nice to know that after so many damn drink reviews my taste buds are still up to par. Guayusa also has as much caffeine as coffee and twice the antioxidants as green tea. It's a nice healthy energy kick. I'm definitely interested in getting some guayusa to brew myself. I'm sure I'll mess it up somehow though. Hopefully more companies will start using it, or Runa will become more popular so that my failure won't matter too much.