Blue Sky Natural Tea Sodas

[Brad Ballinger]

click.

I'm a fan of Blue Sky's natural and organic sodas. Saw the natural tea soda on sale at the co-op. Picked up a huge supply of Santa Cruz Lemonade instead on this trip. Anyone have any experience with this new Blue Sky product?

[elswinger]

I'll give them a try. They're at a lot of stores including Whole Foods.

[Brad Ballinger]

Trial #1: Pomegranate White Tea Soda. Ingredients as listed on the can: carbonated filtered water, pure cane sugar, natural flavors with extracts of Italian pomegranate white tea, citric acid. Italian pomegranate white tea??? Oh, well.

Color is completely clear, or damn near clear. Taste is pomegranate-fruity with a very subtle tea quality that shows more on the “finish” (after swallowing) than when in the mouth. For some reason it is also more tea-like when it has warmed up a bit. I’ve had steeped white teas before, and know that they are fairly delicate, so that could be part of what I’m experiencing here. Lacks the astringency of any other tea beverage I’ve had.

It’s an interesting change of pace, and certainly preferable, to my taste, than most mega-produced sodas.

[Brad Ballinger]

Trial #2: Imperial Lime Green Tea Soda. Ingredients: carbonated filtered water, pure cane sugar, natural flavors with extracts of West Indies lime and green tea, citric acid. West Indies lime and green tea??? Oh, well.

Color is almost completely clear – perhaps a very slight brownish tint. Tasting it, I notice an immediate tea flavor that wasn’t so immediate in the Pomegranate White Tea beverage. There is a lime flavor, but it is pretty subtle. I’m kind of a citrus guy, and I’d be happy with a little more. Also, given that this soda has a stronger tea flavor component, I’m wishing it had less sugar. That’s really just a personal preference comment – I don’t like sweetened iced tea.

The particular tea flavor here is very much green tea if one thinks of green tea ice cream, or sencha. And there is more astringency than there was in the white tea soda. This particular beverage is more tea-like and the other was more soda-like.

I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll get to the other two Blue Sky Tea Sodas – Peach Mist Green Tea Soda and Raspberry Red Tea Soda – but it was fun trying these two. And I still have five of each left.

[Brad Ballinger]

Trail #3: Raspberry Red Tea Soda. Ingredients: carbonated filtered water, pure cane sugar, natural flavors with extracts of Washington raspberries and red tea, citric acid.

I've never drank anything called "red tea" before. White tea, green tea, black tea, red beer, red wine, but not red tea. So I confess to not being able to comment has to how much "red tea" taste there is in this product. Color of light pink. This flavor has a stronger fruit profile than either of the other two I've had. Whatever is "tea-like" in the flavor served to keep the soda from being too fruity-sweet like some raspberry-flavored sodas can get.

After swallowing, I can still lick the sugar off my teeth.