Green tea ginger ale. Yuck.
By Owen Morris in Leftovers
Fri., Jan. 30 2009 @ 10:00AM
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Normally I try to keep my reviews to alcoholic substances since it's more fun for me and, besides, nobody wants to read about Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper's newest flavor creation that will be gone in two months. Also, I don't drink many sodas. However, I do drink ginger ale -- and when I saw that a new hybrid called green tea ginger ale was just named the best beverage product of the year by an influential consumer group, I had to try it.
Green tea ginger ale is made by Canada Dry, so I was expecting the taste to be similar. It's not. Not even slightly.
The dominant flavor is green tea -- or a green tea-like flavor that tastes slightly artificial. Green tea is an actual ingredient -- right below fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors and ascorbic acid -- but this tastes unlike any green tea I've had (then again, I drink tea unsweetened and this is brimming with sugar). The order of the flavors you taste from highest to lowest are sugar, weird green tea, Seven-Up-like-flavor, ginger ale.
It's oddly disconcerting because of the carbonation. Drinking carbonated green tea is a new experience and not a good one.
But it's all supposed to be OK because green tea ginger ale is good for you. It says say right on the label: "enhanced with 200 mg of antioxidents." In smaller print it says "each 8 oz serving contains 200 mg of antioxidents from green tea flavonoids." Besides the flavonoids, this seems to be just another high-calorie soft drink (135 calories per can) and no matter how many flavonoids you ingest, you're going to gain weight from drinking so many empty calories.
Two months back, Fat City put together a ginger ale taste-test. I would rank green tea ginger ale below Vernors, which was the lowest-ranked ginger ale in the test. Yes, Vernors tasted like piss, but at least you recognized the flavor the company was going for.
As a fan of ginger ales and green teas I will enjoy each in their own seperate times and never again shall the two meet. At least not when the words "Canada Dry" are involved.
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