Peace Tea

I ordered pizza a couple night ago because I was just feeling tired and couldn’t muster up the energy to cook, and I got a free drink with my order so I picked this one out. I don’t love it; it’s quite sweet and not really actually raspberry tasting. Though, it does taste of a more generic “berry” and with strongly flavoured pizza (so much banana pepper!) that generic sweetness works well enough.

R is for… Raspberry

Stopped at a depanneur on my way home from the studio on the second day of being there. I was so sore and tired, and I knew I needed to kick start my “R Tea” day and saw this so I figured it could double as an R tea and a quick bit of cold refreshment for the metro.

I drank most of it on the walk from the metro to my apartment building, and it was far too sweet and artificial raspberry tasting to really be “good” but it was also super cold and refreshing and after two very long and social days (much too social for this lab dwelling introvert!) it was that sort of “in the moment perfect” that hits that spot better than any quote unquote proper tea would have been.

Then I got home and I fell asleep, and had to continue with my r teas the day after.

Couldn’t resist trying this new flavour!

It’s very sweet – and, I mean, I expect sweet when it comes to Peace Tea as a brand but this is possibly the sweetest flavour from them I’ve tried other than maybe Snoberry? It doesn’t taste like tea at all – more like a thick syrupy strawberry juice with lemonade splashed in. Much more strawberry in my opinion than lemonade.

I mean, I liked it as a drink – but as a tea!? I think Peace Tea has some stronger options…

Saw this at the grocery store the other day, and was delighted to see a new flavour in this “Sparkling Tea” line up after I was pretty impressed with the Sparkling cherry flavour from Peace Tea. I thought this was really nice as well, though nothing about it particularly reminded me of tea at all – it was more like a very well done light and still sweet/refreshing sparkling lemonade. Happy to have tried it though – the sparkling tea trend has been crazy lately!

I was pretty surprised to see this at the Depp on my way home from work on Monday, I didn’t realize Peace Tea was doing carbonated/sparkling teas – they must be very new. This was the only flavour in stock, so I picked one up and I tried it this afternoon.

I think I did a longer review for the normal Cheeky Cherry flavour, so I’ll just say that it was incredibly similar/comparable to the flavour of the usual RTD. Maybe just a hair sweeter? It was definitely VERY fizzy though and, weird as it may be to say, I did think that kind of made it better!?

I must have been in a weird head space last night because I woke in the middle of the night dying of thirst (like 3AM) and instead of getting water I pulled this out of my fridge and just downed it in almost one go. I vaguely remember the sweeter cherry note and hint of black tea in the finish, but it’s a blur. Why did I do that? Definitely not normal nighttime behavior on my part.

Chugged one of these fuckers on my metro ride home today. Not particularly a favourite, but I was soooo thirsty and that quick hit of sweet mellow cherry was instantly refreshing. It’s weird – there are a lot of other flavours from Peace Tea that I generally like more than this one but when I was picking something out from the dep in the station this was the only one that sounded appealing tonight.

It’s… basically just cherry juice.

It’s… basically just mango juice.

I’ve tried a few different flavours carried by Peace Tea, but I think this is the first one that I’m actually really into. I mean, it has that sugary sweetness that always seems to accompany “Ready To Drink” iced teas – and it doesn’t really taste like tea at all, but I generally just expect that from these types of “iced tea” beverages anyway. The berry flavour is amazing, though! Very fresh and sweet; not super distinct or like any one type of berry but I feel like perhaps that’s the point? I get sort of that generic “blue raspberry” kind of vibe, honestly – and maybe a little bit of strawberry? And as sweet/sugary tasting as I found this, at least the fruit in it tasted natural over artificially flavoured/chemical.

Too sweet (artificial sweetener) for me. I would have preferred 1/4 of what it had. The raspberry flavour was fine, but the sweetness was overpowering in comparison to what I’m used to. Also, you can’t really taste the tea.

I liked the last offering I tried from Peace Tea, so decided to try a new flavour and see if the company can pull off another win…

This one was a hot mess though; just FAR too sickly sweet/cloying. Exactly what I hate from a canned/bottled iced tea, and the epitome of what I hate in terms of peach flavoured things. They need to dial back a lot if this is ever going to be something that I spend my money on again.

Big disappointment.

Grabbed this one to drink on my way home the other night from a convenience store because I was otherwise without tea. It was actually pretty good! I thought the lemon was really bright and smooth, and I didn’t find it tasted artificial/‘disinfectant’ like or overly sweet/cloying! So, that’s a pretty good success right there just in terms of canned lemon teas. I’d probably actually really happily drink this one again; it’s not the world’s best tea by far but for sure one of the better canned options that I’ve had in a long time.

This is the third flavor of this canned tea I’ve tried this week. It is the best pre-packaged lemon tea I’ve tried, and it’s drinkable, but it’s not my favorite by any means.

The thing is, I love lemon things that taste like lemon to me. Lemonheads are my favorite candy. I save lemon Skittles/Starbursts/gummy bears for last. There’s something off about adding lemon to tea for me, and I haven’t found a tea yet where the lemon tastes like discernable lemon. Ditto with squeezing real lemon into tea. It just doesn’t do anything for me. I haven’t found a tea and lemonade combo I like, either.

I like this okay, but if peach or razzleberry are available, I’ll skip the lemon one every time.

This is the second Peace Tea I tried, on the heels of the peach. It’s got a nice flavor, and like the peach one, there isn’t an annoying aftertaste from the sucralose. It’s kind of generic berry with a bit of a lean towards raspberry. I taste less of the tea in this one than I did with the peach variety.

If both were available, I would default to the peach, but I would still be satisfied with this one, too.

My neighbor was raving about this tea when I saw her at the convenience store, and I love peach, so I grabbed a can. This is one of the best pre-bottled (or in this case, canned) teas I’ve tried. It claims no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. Apparently" flavors" only applies to the fruit flavor added, because besides the sugar, it’s got sucralose, too (which is artificial, and does contribute to flavor).

Anyhoo, the peach in this tea is not fakey at all. It’s pretty natural-tasting. I thought with the sucralose there might be a tinge of aftertaste, but I really didn’t notice any. The tea itself was a lot smoother than other pre-bottled teas, without that weird little tang one tends to notice. The peach here is abundant, and really is the star of the show, though it doesn’t fully mask the tea, either. I’m definitely going to grab a couple more cans of this when I fill up my gas tank today. It isn’t like home-brewed, but it is quite drinkable.

Meh. I wanted tea, but I was driving almost all day yesterday, so I picked this up in Iowa or Nebraska. I should have tried a flavored version, this was just dull. Sweetened brown water.