Arizona Blueberry White Tea

There was a time in my life where I had to do the “weekend dad” thing. No I wasn't the dad myself, I had to go and stay with my father every other Friday and for the full weekend on the opposite weeks. That was a long time ago. As soon as I was old enough to ride my bike places I was hardly ever at his apartment, except to sleep. I think I was 16 when I stopped going at all. It just seemed pointless and his place was one big cloud of smoke that made me feel like butt soup. There's no real point to tell you that except that in the center of that smoke hole is where I first encountered Arizona tea. MY stepmother became obsessed with it and I remember waking up early one Sunday and drinking one of them. Being as I was probably 15 at the time it blew my mind. Before that the only iced teas I had tasted were Nestea and powder mixes. Arizona opened up a whole new world to me and I quickly became obsessed with iced tea. That obsession lasts to this day, and while Arizona is no longer my favorite, I still have a soft spot for it in my heart.

The other day I went to the store to stock up on “normal drinks” that we hadn't reviewed yet, and I was shocked to discover that we had yet to review this classic Arizona flavor. It used to be the flavor I would treat myself with. I always went for the cans because of their lower price, but to this day I have never seen this flavor in a tallboy. I'm pretty sure it never existed. So sometimes I would cough up the extra sixty cents and go to flavor town. This bottle holds 3oz of tea less than the tall boy cans, but for some reason it seems enormous. That's really what you go to Arizona for; the quantity of tea plus it's slightly above average quality.

There are two things that make this tea stand out amongst the others: they use white tea to make it and it has actual blueberry juice in it. Both of those things step up the game. The white tea makes it taste softer while you can really taste the blueberries. If they had made it with cane sugar instead of HFCS this would be a complete slam-dunk. Unfortunately they don't and the taste suffers a little from the overly sweet syrupiness.

To think if it weren't for bizarre furniture that folded out into a sleeping compartment I wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting Arizona until a few years later. Where would I even be now in my life?