With ordinary sugar-filled, calcium-sucking sodas finally losing some of their appeal, numerous manufacturers are stepping up with some sort of “natural” or “organic” soda, which is somehow supposed to be a healthier alternative to typical sodas.

I usually avoid these, but one did catch my eye - Steaz organic green tea soda. What interested me is that this soda contains green tea! I figured it would be something like a green tea with extra flavor and some carbonation.

Perhaps a “sparkling green tea” if you will. (Actually, even though my bottles say “green tea soda” on the label, the Steaz website seems to have an updated slogan, which is in fact “sparking green tea.” That sounds much healthier than “soda,” but the ingredients are still the same.)

So let’s start off by seeing if this is actually healthier than soda…

Steaz Ingredients and Nutrition Facts

At first I was impressed with the ingredients, because the list was nice and short…

RASPBERRY INGREDIENTS: Sparkling filtered water, organic evaporated cane juice, natural raspberry flavor, citric acid, fruit juice for color, sodium citrate, organic Ceylon green tea and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C).

It’s basically water, organic sugar, green tea, and flavoring. So far, so good.

But once I saw just how much sugar was in one bottle, I cringed! Steaz have 23g sugar per 8oz serving, which comes out to about 35g of sugar per 12oz bottle! The sugar isn’t so bad, but that is quite a bit of sugar for one bottle!

To put that in perspective, an entire 16 oz bottle of Honest Tea has just 20g sugar!

At least there is no high fructose corn syrup!

Back to the ingredients list, Ceylon green tea is the second to last ingredient. That’s a little disconcerting, but according to Steaz, the amount of tea in each bottle is equivalent to one cup of tea. (It appears towards the end of the ingredients because by weight, the green tea powder used in the drink is minimal.)

So we have fairly healthy ingredients, but a little too much sugar.

Steaz Taste Test

Steaz is available in quite a few flavors, although I chose these three: key lime, orange, and raspberry.

Three should be plenty for me. I mean, I don’t drink soda. I don’t even like it. So this is from the perspective of someone who drinks water, green tea, and sports drinks…

Orange - This reminds me of regular orange soda, although there is much less carbonation (i.e. it’s smoother and easier to drink.) The flavor is pretty close to regular orange soda, although slightly less powerful. I couldn’t recognize the taste of green tea in there, although I could tell there was something different.

In the end it was alright, and I’d prefer it over regular orange soda (thanks mainly to the lack of carbonation.)

Raspberry - No surprises here, this one tastes like a raspberry soda. It’s pretty good, and I thought the flavor was much more authentic than the orange soda Steaz.

You know those bottles of sparkling juice? Sparking grape juice, apple juice, peach juice, pear juice, etc… Well, if they had a sparkling raspberry juice, it would taste like this. It’s pretty good, definitely sweet.

I’m not sure that I noticed the green tea in this one, either. It was really just like “sparkling raspberry.” It’s tasty, although easily forgotten.

Key Lime - Now this is the taste I was waiting for! This is what I’d expect to drink when I hear “sparkling green tea.” The flavor is light and mild and reminds me of cream soda, actually. But with a hint of key lime, of course.

It’s hard to describe. Imagine mixing a glass of green tea with a glass of sparkling water, and then adding a hint of lime flavor. And then dumping in some sugar.

This was definitely refreshing, and if I was to recommend a Steaz, it would be Key Lime.

Steaz is definitely more “soda” than it is “green tea.” I’m not sure why I bothered getting this; I guess I just wanted to see if there was a healthier soda option for anyone who does drink soda on a regular basis.

My final verdict is…

Even though this stuff tastes alright and does contain healthy green tea and natural cane sugar, there is still so much sugar that I can’t recommend this stuff. It’s OK for drinking on occasion to help ween yourself off soda, but that’s a lot of sugar in one bottle. (And one bottle of this will go down real fast.)

I wouldn’t want to consume that much sugar in one shot unless it was during a bike ride, and in that case, I’ll be getting my sugar from a drink such as Powerbar Endurance. If I want a casual drink, I’ll stick with brewing my own green tea.

If you’re weening yourself off soda, you could try this, although I’d still recommend Honest Tea or Honest Ade instead.

Official website: www.steaz.com

I like to keep an eye on all the crazy new energy drinks because sometimes you find something healthy. Today that something was a small can of green tea straight from Japan.

This is the Sencha Shot from Ito En, a premiere tea brewer in Japan. If the name didn’t give it away, the rock solid, steel can sure would have. This is not the can to try smashing on your forehead!

It actually reminded me of the Starbucks Double Shot Espresso can, which clues you in to the taste. In a word, it’s strong! This is the tea version of an espresso - strong, bitter, and a definite wake-up call! I guess that’s how they take it in Japan.

I wasn’t expecting something that was all-natural, unsweetened, and had 0 calories to be tasty, but I was still surprised at how “full-bodied” the flavor was. Some people call it “full-bodied” or “authentic,” but I have a more descriptive opinion…

I think it tastes like crap. Figuratively speaking, that is. Literally, it tastes (and smells) more like vomit. I couldn’t drink the whole thing (even though the can is only 6.4 ounces.) The terrible smell rising from the can sets the stage for a bitter green tea, which actually isn’t so bad once you’re drinking it.

Like I said, I couldn’t finish the can, so I let it sit overnight in the fridge. Then the horrid smell was gone the next morning. I was able to taste this “authentic Japanese green tea” which was interesting, but still on the bitter side. The taste actually seemed like I was chewing on raw tea leaves and branches out in the wilderness (except that I was sipping it from a can in the comfort of my living room.)

Moving on to the health benefits…

The highlight of this tea is that it contains 152 milligrams of catechin tea antioxidants. Epicatechin, epicatechingallate, epigallocatechin, and epigallocatechingallate, to be specific.

Surely the high concentration of antioxidants plus a day’s worth of Vitamin C is worth the bitter taste!

My final verdict is…

If you like to try exotic or just plain weird drinks, this could be for you. It could also be used as an espresso replacement for someone looking for a pick-me-up with more antioxidants.

If you like green tea as we drink it in America, though, steer clear of this.

Official site: www.itoen.com/sencha/

Buy it: Amazon.com

I almost bought these for Christmas gifts last year… for my enemies!

* It got a 4-star rating at Amazon.com, so some people must like this stuff.

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I’ve always been a tea drinker, but now I’m really into it. It started last winter when I got into the habit of drinking 2-3 glasses of white tea per day. Granted that was at home where I had a full kitchen, but even at college I can fit a glass or two of tea into my schedule.

Active.com has a great article about tea, which everyone should read:

http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=12683

That’s good, but Matt Furey is who really turned me on to tea. He talks about green and white tea straight from China - the good stuff! But you don’t have to go to China to get tea. If you live in or near a bigger city, you should find plenty of green and white tea in one of the supermarkets. If not, you can always order it online.

But the point is, whatever tea you can get, drink some! (And don’t worry, tea is not bad for your teeth.)