Organic Cane Sugar - 229 Reviews

I think someone once told me that is life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That's all well and good, but what happens when life gives you limes? Oh that's right, you make guacamole and mojitos. The problem is that I am plum out of avocados and mint, so there goes that plan. I suppose my back up plan could be to make some limeade. Is limeade the rarest of all ades? No, I think that award would go to Citron's guava or papaya ades.

For those of you who are only familiar with lemonade, this may be a bit of a disappointment. It doesn't make your cheeks pinch in that sour way that great lemonade does. It's basically watered down limejuice, but that is a good thing. Have you ever tried drinking straight limejuice? I do not suggest it unless you want to look like this guy.

This is tame and mild and only slightly sweetened (12g of sugar for an ade is not very common). I could have gone for a bit more lime, as I do love an intense ade, but this would do in a pinch.

I'm going to start a petition to switch the places of black and mate teas. Black tea is everywhere and let's face it, while it is delectable it is also pretty boring, and far too easy to over sweeten. Mate is a rarity. It's exotic and you can't over sweeten it without it losing its special pizzazz. I know that if they were switched for long enough mate would begin to seem commonplace and lose it's exoticness. I just want this to be for a limited time. I want to go out to eat with my family to some garbage chain restaurant and be able to order a tea and have it be special. In shirt I'm bored with everyday teas.

Kiju is a nice answer to my problem. They make a nice, lightly sweetened mate iced tea. The fruit juice carries most of the flavor, but it has the very specific mate aftertaste. It has a very strong passionfruit taste with some mango around the edges. Did I mention that they use real fruit juices in this? Maybe that is why I like mate so much. If a company cares enough to use it, then they also care enough to use primo ingredients. I've never seen a mate sweetened with HFCS. That just doesn't fly in this world. It's the world I want to be in, well at least for the time being.

It's been a while since I've had an aloe drink. Not because I haven't been in the mood for them, I really have. The reason I've been without them is we have reviewed most of the ones I have come across in the last few months. Then I found this wonderful chunky drink at an Asian supermarket.

Korea really knows their aloe drinks. This is delicious with a nice tart pomegranate taste. I wish it had more chunks of aloe, but you can't win them all. So I bow to you, all mighty Aloe Vera King.

Can Nature promise me that all of this dumb snow will be gone by the next time I look out the window. I know I live in Buffalo and I should be used to it. I am, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I could move out of Buffalo, but that's where I keep all my stuff. What would I do with all my stuff? STUFF!!!???

Now that I've worked myself up into a tizzy I should probably drink this tea, as it has chamomile in it and it will help calm down my winter rage. First and foremost this tea has a strong oolong taste to it. Like yerba mate, oolong has a very distinct taste. It also looks dumb written out, as no words should start with two Os. So there you have it. This is a very strong, natural tasting tea. It has some lemon in it, but not in the cleaning spray way. It just helps the tea flavor shine instead of trying to run the show. That is the way lemon should behave. Know your place lemons! If children should be seen and not heard then lemons should be noticed, but not overbearing. Actually nothing in the world should be overbearing…€¦well except bears. They can do whatever they want.

Guayaki is a company that knows what they are doing, and what they are doing is making yerba mate based beverages that are nothing if not delicious. This is the 9th product of theirs that we have reviewed and so far they have all received either 4 or 5 out of 5 bottles. That is a rare thing indeed in the world of these Thirsty Dudes.

For those of you not familiar with it, yerba mate is essentially a tea. Does tea have to be made from a specific plant, or is it just any plant that is steeped in hot water? I think I'm safe referring to this as a tea. I've heard others do it, so I'm going to follow suit. As with all teas it has its own distinct taste, that is hard to describe, but once you've had it, you'll always be able to place the flavor. It's been compared to green tea, but I don't really see it at all. Both are a tad on the bitter side, but yerba mate has an earthier flavor to me.

Guayaki has been making this tea for years and recently has started producing a sparkling line. I for one love it. Tea based sodas are always hit or miss, but this is an inner circle bulls eye. The yerba mate flavor is right in the center and it's softened up a bit by some sweetener and a mixture of cranberry and pomegranate juice. What we have here are three bitter flavors, which could easily take all of the moisture out of your mouth, but instead blend together in a perfect way. Both of the juices are easily recognizable in the taste, but they are living in harmony together instead of fighting to see who will solo in the spotlight. I suppose that is because they both know that they will only ever be supporting characters in this drink; yerba mate is taking them all the way to Broadway.

I can't get over how great it is that this company was started by a couple of surfers. Even better is that they decided to start the company after a surging trip to Brazil when they were given a bowl of acai juice to drink…€¦A SURFING TRIP TO BRAZIL! If you ask me I'm gonna have to wager that we have a Point Break type scenario here. These dudes pulled some bank heists in order to fund surfing expeditions (to this day this is still the greatest movie premise of all time). The thing is that instead of all either ending up in jail, dead, or lost at sea on the coast of Australia these dudes changed their lifestyle and put their heist energies into making juice. Now they just use their profits from the business to fund their surfing trips. I mean these guys aren't crazy adrenaline junkies or anything.

Not only do these guys have a great bad guys gone good life story, but they also know how to make one hell of a beverage. I think we can all agree that a lot of companies' acai juice can be a little much to handle. It always tastes like you're drinking concentrate. Sambazon knows how to smooth it out and make it an enjoyable, healthy drink. You can taste the acai, but it's not in your face with every sip. I think it's the apple juice that they mix in that solves the harshness problem. Either way this drink is great. It's smooth, fruity and all of the flavors blend together seamlessly. You can tell that there is yerba mate and guarana in the drink if you think about it, but if you were given a glass with no indication of what was in it, it would just taste like a general blended smoothie. You would have no idea of the caffeine kick you were about to receive.

Ahh flowers. They look great. They bring color to this otherwise depressing world. When I lived in Boston for a few months, I didn't know that I would miss foliage and color. I spent six week not really seeing trees or grass too much and then someone told me about Boston Commons and I felt I needed to go. It was like I had never seen flowers before. I spent the whole time just not caring but really my body craved those little guys.

So, I self-admittedly enjoy a flower every not and then. It's fine. This drink was floral. It was like if you had a red tea that wasn't too bitter, infused a flower, and then added a little sugar to it. I will also admit that I clearly have no idea what hibiscus tastes like because sometimes it's the greatest thing I've ever had and then other times it's just...there. I'm not hating on it, but I wish that I could taste it in it's truest form so that I know which side of the fence I'm on; like or love. I guess either side is pretty non-confrontational, but still, I don't like this floral purgatory I'm in. It's terrible but the smell is relaxing and the sights from up here are quite scenic and well pruned.

Let it be known that I am not a huge fan of NYC. It's dirty, a good majority of the people are rude, and I hate the idea of being a faceless identity in a sea of people. Two things the city does have going for it are a nice variety of veggie food and great drink selections sat all the corner stores. It's been awhile since I have been overwhelmed by what beverages store carry, but the bodega in which I found this chia tea did just that. I spent way too long making my selections, and this came out one of the victors.

If I had come across this s year ago my mind would have been blown, but since then a couple other companies have emerged that have used chia seeds in their beverages. I'm not talking down on this drink, because it is something I really enjoyed. It has a good semi sweetened peach green tea flavor. That alone would make it a drink that I would keep my eyes open before, but on top of that the chia seeds give it a nice unusual texture. They also make it more beneficial health wise as they boost omega 3 and 6, fiber and calcium.

On a side note you have to love that the seeds are the first item on the ingredients list. There are literally more seeds in here than beverage. Ridiculous.

I have to admit that my knowledge of Rio is solely that there is a giant statue of what I believe is Jesus and little tidbits that I picked up from reading Carioca Fletch. That's right, I so cultured that I've read a bunch of the books that spawned two of the funniest movies ever, and yes I did hear Chevy Chase in my head as I read them. Oh yeah, I also have some friends who have a cat named Rio. Does that count for anything? No? I didn't think so.

Okay, so I'm going into this with limited knowledge, but that knowledge has expanded now that I know that yerba mate is grown there. That alone gives the city a thumbs up from me. I love yerba mate. It has such a distinctive unique taste in the world of teas.

As Mike likes to point out in every review he does of a lemon flavored beverage, I am not a huge fan of the fruit. Sure I love lemonade, but just adding it to another beverage that is not solely lemon just doesn't do much for me. I'd have to say the same goes for this drink. I would have preferred it to be straight up tea, but I cannot deny that it tastes pleasant. I also know that there is a world of people out there who love the lemon flavor, so I won't hold it against this drink. It tastes exactly as it's advertised; just like you brewed a pot of yerba mate, mixed in some lemon juice (not too much) and put it in the fridge to cool down for an hour. If you are a fan of lemon iced teas, and are looking for something a bit different, look no further. The future awaits you.

This is one the lightest, and most lightly sweetened teas to ever walk the face of this earth. Did I just insinuate that this tea is sentient? Possibly. For all I know this bottle could sprout legs and it could go on a walkabout. I don't know and I don't care, as I would still drink it. It's a quality black tea that is ever so slightly sweetened with cane sugar and honey. You can taste the honey a teeny tiny bit, but it's enough to add leaps and bounds to the overall flavor. There is only a faint hint of peach. It's more in the aftertaste than the sipping taste. If sentient beverages is the cost of having teas that taste this good, I say let's do it. Sure we'll have a moral dilemma with each sip, but we're humans we adapt to the craziest things.

Who doesn't love Lemonheads? I know I do. They're one of the best candies you can get that has a good lemon flavor. I didn't know what to expect until I looked at this wine shaped bottle and saw the stuff at the bottom. The stuff on the bottom? Pulp. The lifeforce of a lemon or other rined fruit. I think you can see where I'm going here but this tastes like Lemonheads. It's got a great lemon flavor but a nicely candied, still sour lemon. I don't know where these came from. Jay got them for me among his worldly travels. Wherever it came from, you should find it and get some. Get it for yourself and get some for your kids that like little candies. It's not terrible and if you're into health food you will enjoy the sensation that your tooth-rotting child is drinking something organic. I am not into health food and I wouldn't give this to my kid but my kid is under two and he shouldn't be drinking pop. Your kid can drink pop. I don't care. I'm not his dad. Am I his dad? I thought I was in the clear. Have my new found son call me. They've got some catching up to do and I've got a kid to inevitably disappoint.

Summer is depressingly over. If you live where I live, you can essentially kiss the sun goodbye (great album name that is available with credit given to me) for the next six months. These are things we deal with on the East Coast. Oh it's bright and you still need sunglasses but you can't see the sun and need twelve jackets to fight the ice age that is northeast winters. It's fine. It's really no big deal.

Why do I bring up the sun and a paragraph of nothing before I review a drink? Well for two reasons mostly. Number one is that I'm trying to create a picture and a scene and number two is that we are terrible at writing drink reviews. You can't really say otherwise and if you do, well, thanks. You're too kind. Wrong, but kind. We're narrative masterminds but we are not product reviews.

So aloe is used to cure us from the sun's lashings upon our fair skin. Human skin was made for holding in our muscles, guts, and organs. "Guts" might be slang for organs so I might have just said the same thing twice but I didn't want to leave anyone out. Now that the sun isn't out we can't get burnt, the role of aloe turns from topical to internal usage. That's right. Aloe drinks are winter drinks to prep our skin from the inside out to prepare it for the emergence of the sun come April. What better way to do it that with the help of Aloic? It's not overly sweet, still has a ton of chunks, and that grapy taste that anyone who likes grape juice or has drank an aloe drink in the past loves. The sweetness part is the item that gets my love. That is a problem I have with a lot of aloe drinks is that they are too sweet. Good, but too sweet. This solves that problem in a delicious, chunky way.

I can feel my skin tightening and toughening up as I drink this. Every sip is one more day I don't have to wear sunscreen, a safari hat, and pants in the summer to protect me from that jerk sun. I appreciate all that you do what with annually burning my lawn and killing my flowers with your relentless rays, but sometimes you can be a real turd. Just tone it down a little bit. Go hide behind the clouds and read a nudie mag or something so we can stop fertilizing and melting.

Rough day, man. You can feel it immediately and that's when it's the worst. It's not that bad when you kind of have a bad day and around the middle of it you say, "Man, today blows." but the kind where as soon as your feet touch the ground when you roll out of bed. Sleeping, wake up, foot, big toe touches the floor, immediate depression. It'll be over soon, but it's not getting any better, man. Ugh. It's terribly exhausting but it's all my fault. I messed up some stuff and am overwhelmed at work. It's all my fault and I'm losing time I don't have, so I'm just feeling pressure. That's why I needed a nice, lightly sweetened iced tea.

I don't have patience for something that has chunks or even has the slightest bit of potential to suck. Clean stuff. This drink was just what the doctor ordered. A little lemon, a little sweet, a little black tea. Wonderful. It's a real pick-me-up. 16 ounces of happiness during an otherwise dark and gloomy day. Jay gave this to me because he hates lemon for some reason. I don't know what's wrong with that kid. He might actually like this, which is a clever way of saying if you almost don't like lemon, you might like this. I like it. It's nice. I thank it. Thank you, Nature's Promise for picking me up during and otherwise bad day.

One good thing about Mother Nature is that she always keeps her word. When she makes a promise you know she'll follow through. Don't listen to what those meteorologists say; they don't have a direct line to Mrs. Nature and are full of lies. I would say that next time you want to go to the beach or on a picnic to give her a call yourself, but her number is unlisted and I don't really feel comfortable giving it out to people. I don't want to annoy her at all.

I was talking to Mother Nature just the other day and she made a promise to me that this tea would be totally organic and totally awesome. Of course that wasn't a lie and this tea is amazing. It's semi-sweet, which is how I've grown to love my tea. You don't feel like you're drinking liquid sugar, but you also aren't just drinking a whole bunch of bitter either. It's made with red tea; a nice change up from the normal black and green varieties. Also, while there is no juice in this bottle the mango and mandarin flavors are there just enough to make this a flavorful tea without taking away from the taste of the tea itself. I could drink this stuff by the gallon, and I would if Mother Nature hadn't told me that it would be a bad idea. As we've learned she doesn't lie and is never wrong, so I'll stick to my 16oz bottle.

Nature's promise is to fill your body with vitamins and minerals that come from nature. Nature does a good job making food and drink. As a matter of fact, it probably does the best job. Technology makes food maybe bigger and faster but that doesn't necessarily make it better as much as it makes it convenient. When nature says something, it means it. Nature doesn't lie. People lie and blame it on nature. Things like "100% Natural" means that it comes completely from nature and that, in my experience, is about five out of ten times true. That's 50% lies. Nature never lies, once again.

When nature wasn't lying, they teamed up with a company that used that phrase as their titular line and made a delicious drink. It's a raspberry white tea. It's not bitter, has a pretty great raspberry taste, and is lightly sweetened. The latter has the keys to my heart because it's an actual relief when something isn't just chocked full of sugar.

Here is where the vegans, namaste-ans, and hipster vegans have a point in that they believe in things that come from the earth and don't really subscribe to things that are "manufactured" and artificial. You guys. You guys and your dreadlocks, fixed gear bikes, patch'd jackets, and 80's secretary glasses. You guys have a point. You have a point about nutrition. Only. Exclusively. Just nutrition. Knock it off with the rest of that nonsense. You girls are wasting your prime years looking like my Jewish Aunt did in 1986.

You gotta free your mind maaaaaaaannnn. Open up your third eye and see the world for what it really is. It's beautiful maaaaaannnnn. You gotta see the trees for the forest maaaaaaan. No maaaaaaan I got it right. It's not “see the forest for the trees,” that doesn't make any sense maaaaaaaaaannnn. You can't have a forest without trees and trees are beautiful maaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn, just like life.

You know what else is beautiful maaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn? Guayaki yerba mate, that's what. The stuff is delicious. It's so beautiful maaaaaaaaaannnnnn. It's like the trees. They have this one flavor called Pure Mind, and whenever I drink it I just feel like I'm one with the planet. There are these little birds on the label and they are just so beautiful maaaaaaaaannnnn. It has that wonderful earthy, slightly bitter mate flavor to it, but the bitterness isn't really there because it's sweetened and it has all of this beautiful pomegranate juice in it. Antioxidants maaaaaaaaannnnn, now there's a mind trip. This is seriously one of the best tea drinks I've ever tried maaaaaaannnnnn. The thing is maaaaaaaaaannnnn that it doesn't taste overpoweringly like mate or pomegranate. The two just live in harmony like the trees and the forest maaaaaaaaannnnn. That's where the saying comes from anyways. Some shaman drank this tea and thought of the awesome harmony that it contains and creates and just thought of trees and forests, and little birds. You really just need to drink this and free your mind maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn.

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.

Somewhere in Asia there is a community garden where they mostly grow tea. I know it sounds ridiculous to designate so much public land to a garden of this variety, but think about it, who doesn't love a glass/mug of some nice green tea? Also, who are we to judge what brings a community together. Whether it's growing a few carrots and peppers or a small field of tea plants if it brings people together, then it's good for the community.

The real problems begin after the tea is harvested and it is drying. That is when arguments arise about how they will flavor the tea. There are many who are purists who just want it to be straight green tea. They believe adding anything to it disturbs the integrity of the drink. Others wish to flavor it with flowers. There are still some that want to add fruit flavor. Every year it's the same argument and every year they settle it the same way; with an old-fashioned street brawl. Everyone who has an opinion gathers in the middle of the now desolate field, where the tea had recently been harvested from and they have it out. The last one standing has their way (eww, not like that) with the tea.

This past season the top brawler had wanted some orange tea. He had kept his mouth shut about it for years, because he knew his training wasn't finished. For years he hit the gym daily to bulk up in order to ensure he would win the battle. His efforts paid off. The rest of the town was no match for him, and the brawl set a record for being the shortest in history.

Now that the tea has been brewed and chilled, our warrior sits on his back porch with a dusty old dog and sips away. It's a very strong, bitter green tea with slight accents of orange peels. He added just a touch of sugar to it to take the edge off, but no one in their right mind would ever refer to it as a sweetened tea. As he sat there he decided that it was a nice tea. It tasted like green tea should taste, but that if he had wanted it to be perfect he would have been better off either using orange juice instead of rinds, or a different fruit altogether.

Sherman is a young man who loves orange juice. He drinks it every morning without fail. When someone drinks the last of his orange juice, Sherman gets very depressed. It's more emotional than someone who drinks coffee every morning because that's almost like an addiction. Sherman legitimately loves orange juice.

One day, Sherman had some friends over and they drank all of Sherman's orange juice. They didn't do it on purpose, but it happened nonetheless. Sherman went upstairs and left his friends downstairs to play Halo. His mom noticed that he wasn't downstairs and knew what had happened when she saw the empty carton on the counter. She went upstairs and asked what was wrong, knowing full well what was wrong. He told her about how Charlie always drinks the rest of the orange juice and his mom retorted about how she didn't really like Charlie because he always poured orange juice like a slob and left the counter all sticky. Sherman's mom had brought him a gift, though. She had brought him a bottle of Eldorado Sicilian Orange spring water. He was very reluctant to drink it because it wasn't orange juice. She told him to trust her and he did so he drank it. He took a little sip and then followed it by a big sip followed by a chug. He took a giant gasp of air and when he caught his breath, he thanked his mom. This drink tasted like a good orange juice but maybe a bit more refreshing and less thick. No, orange juice isn't really thick, but this is definitely watered down but in a good way. He drank more and noticed that it was a different type of orange than he was used to and it was a nice change to his standard issue, Florida Orange Juice. He gave his mom a big hug and got ready to walk downstairs. Before he got to the door, his mom told him to get a bunch of headshots off Charlie for her. He smiled, told her he would, and went downstairs to accomplish his duty of pleasing his mom and irritating that jerk, Charlie.

If logic means anything anymore than the Mate Fusion company has a stockpile of syringes. It's the only logical way I can think of them getting this beverage to taste the way it does. I'm not talking about using said syringes for drug use; well actually I don't know anything about the employees of the company. Maybe some of them do enjoy spiking a vein every now and then before brewing some tea. How am I to know? I think the employees, sober, high or drunk brew up huge vats of yerba mate tea. Once it's ready they fill the syringes with the tea and then inject it directly into nearly overripe peaches. They shoot so much tea into the fruit that it almost bursts. Then they let the peaches sit for a twelve-hour period before dumping them in a giant juicer that filters out the pits, skins and chunks. All that is left is what you find in this bottle. It's bitter yerba mate tea mixed with some nicely ripened peaches. Just picture biting into one of those tea infused peaches before it goes into the juicer. So much sticky juice/tea would pour down your face and it would be delicious. I just hope they properly dispose of those needles. We don't want an epidemic on our hands.