Steaz Green Tea Soda: Root Beer

If you're a root beer purist, then you needn't read any further than this: Steaz isn't pure root beer. Instead, they appear to have mixed our beloved drink with tea - green tea, based on the label - and this as caused a divide in the badger community. Since those who do not classify Steaz as root beer ("root beer is made with roots, tea is made with leaves - entirely different") won't be drinking it anyway, this review is for those who are willing to classify it as root beer.

Steaz tastes of sweetened iced tea (say, Arizona?) mixed into cream soda, with a bit of lemon for character. It's sweet, but not really syrupy. Carbonation is mild, yielding a smooth drink, and the bouquet is of vanilla. All in all, Staez reminds me of the old Lemonade commercials with the old guy on his front porch, and I think that's really where this drink would fit - at the end of a full day, watching the sun go down, when you want something cold, something like root beer, but don't want all the fizz of soda. It would probably also fit in at an occasion where soda was deemed too vulgar, as tea brings with it the suggestion of genteelity.

Incidentally, Syteaz is another clear-glass-beer-bottle soda, but the tea aspect of the drink somehow makes this acceptable.

So, a neat idea, and a neat drink, but not one that I expect I'll purchase regularly.

Grade: 6

90 Calories per 8 ounces = 11.25 Calories per ounce (low)
Organic (USDA, Organic Trade Association, Quality Assurance International)
[Price] for four
www.steaz.com