Unsweetened - 11 Reviews

You know that feeling you get in your mouth after you just brushed your teeth? Or had a minty gum? It's a pretty awesome feeling. Now imagine that times 10. That's what it's like drinking this tea. It's seriously the mintiest tea/anything I have ever tasted. It feels like I just brushed my teeth for 5 hours straight after just drinking a couple sips of this. I'm not usually a huge fan of unsweetened teas, but this is incredible. It's definitely a sipping tea as far as I'm concerned. I've had to take a minute or two between sips due to the intensity of the mint flavor.

As you may or may not have noticed, I haven't reviewed a single drink in the past week. This is because I have been working at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas. I worked 80 hours in 6 days and it was insane. But it was well worth the long hours and dust storms. I got to meet Henry Rollins, Brian Posehn, Donald Glover. I saw first hand how insane Odd Future are when I did security for their set when they instructed the crowd to disregard security and rush the barricade/stage. I was several feet away from Ryan Gosling on several occasions. I met lots of amazing people, made some new friends, and have stories about Danzig, Slayer, and many other experiences to share and remember for years.

The reason I'm mentioning all this is because this is the only water I drank for 6 days. If it wasn't for these bottles of water all over the fest, I probably would have died. So in a sense, this water saved my life and sanity. It's not special water; it tastes just like any other water. Unlike most bottle water, it will hold a special place in my heart.

For the longest time, I couldn't enjoy unsweetened tea. I always need my iced to taste like fruit and sugar. Sometimes one would question if what I was drinking were actually tea. Probably not, I think most sugary iced teas are more water and sugar with a hint of instant tea powder.

Skip forward many years and I'm living in a house in Portland called the Lemon Bomb. It was named the Lemon Balm, but people kept saying it as 'bomb' so they changed it. A friend once drew a great picture of a grenade/lemon hybrid. Anyways, previous tenants of the house had amassed a good collection of loose tea and everyone in the house enjoyed them. Everyone that is, except me. One day, I decided to be adventurous and went through all the little mason jars and picked out a few scoops of 3 or 4 of the best smelling ones. I put them in a pot of boiling water and 10 minutes later I had the best unsweetened tea I've ever had. It was that moment that made me realize that all unsweetened tea isn't bad.

This tea isn't quite as incredible as my own concoction, but it's still really good. It has a nice light and crisp taste to it. My palette isn't accustomed to unsweetened teas yet, but this has guava leaves and ginseng in it along with the Oolong tea. Thank you Sokenbicha for helping me on my journey into the unsweetened tea world.

In recent news, the unsweetened tea world has been turned on its ear recently by newcomer Sokenbicha. When Sokenbicha first arrived on the tea scene no one took much notice. It sat on the shelves in its quasi-fancy bottle gathering dust as it was overlooked for Teas Tea. Then one daring individual took a chance during a sale and the tea world has never been the same. Never has such a richly flavored unsweetened iced tea made so many moves in such a short time.

The company knows that flavor is just as important as no sugar, and they make their ingredients count. Most companies treat their unsweetened teas as bare bones. Water and tealeaves with nothing else added. Sokenbicha sees the folly in that and in this particular flavor they add barley, rice, cinnamon and ginger. The result is truly phenomenal. The taste is primarily a nice smooth tea mixed with what tastes like puffed rice. Added to that are the slightest aftertastes of ginger and cinnamon. It is truly a drink to write back to the small town you grew up in and brag about to those who are destined to die never leave.

I was not prepared for this tea. I expected a bitter unsweetened tea. While there is no sugar added to this, it is far from bitter. The little story on the bottle tells me that the Oolong tea has notes of raspberry and pomegranate. They definitely give the tea a slight fruit flavor and overpower the bitterness. The rose hips and pedals that are listed in the ingredients also give this the faintest of floral. I'm honestly shocked at how good this is. It's definitely going to become my go-to unsweetened tea. I only wish that it was available in bigger bottles for home consumption.

Tonight was my last night on the Night Birds tour. It's been nothing but incredible. The thing is that my sugar intake via beverage has been astronomical. Soda after soda has been poured down my throat. After the show we stopped by a gas station and all I wanted was a nice clean crisp bottle of water. Then this little gem caught my eye. Thank you Lipton for your Pureleaf line. It's so much better than your garbage Brisk. Tonight an unsweetened tea was exactly what I needed. This is a little weaker than a lot of unsweetened teas, and I'm fine with that. Sometimes the bitterness can be a bit much, but this is great.

It's Tuesday. Let me rephrase that. It's Thirsty Tuesday (as all Tuesdays are. That means we go get burritos and then hit up stores in search of new drinks to review. Today we went to Wegmans. It's a slight point of controversy around Buffalo, but I claim they have the best burritos in the city. It's probably just because the tofu they use is delicious. You don't agree? We can easily settle this argument like gentlemen, with a round of Rock Paper Scissors.

Wegmans' burritos are meant to be enjoyed with unsweetened tea. I also go with the green jasmine. It's so nicely bitter, and jasmine is a great flavor to add to any tea. It cleans the palate so you can properly enjoy your burrito. Now I need to polish these chips and salsa that accompanied my meal.

Like Mike said about the Wegmans Water With Lemon, this tastes like your out at a restaurant and the waiter serves you some water before taking your order. Oops! It looks like the restaurant was out of lemons, so they improvised and gave you a lime in your water instead.
It's nothing fancy, but it's not supposed to be. It's just water with a slight squirt of lime with it. Now stop thinking about your water, and figure out what you're going to order. This is a busy restaurant.

I like iced tea. A lot. I don't really buy it without being green tea or oolong or jasmine or at least something with additional flavor. When I got to a restaurant I usually like to take a load off by getting an unsweetened tea because the alternative is horrid, super sweet, super syrupy tea.

I've been a fan of New Leaf since my first bottle a year or two ago. It was just clearly a good quality tea. It's actually nice to unwind with a nice unsweetened tea every once in a while. This tea is nice. Since it's unsweetened, you could drink it at any temperature. I drank it cold and it was very refreshing. It only tasted like black tea and that's all one could ask for.

What a nice drink. It's got a great, light, floral scent and taste to it. I drank it luke warm and it was very good. It might be better than drinking it cold as it's an unsweetened tea. It has a sweet, flowery taste, but not so much that it is as if you are drinking potpourri, which is fantastic.

This is supposed to be an energy shot. The energy it supplies comes solely from the yerba mate and green tea, which are pretty much the only ingredients in the drink. If you are a fan of strong unsweetened tea and are looking for a little kick of energy, this is the drink for you.