Snack Review: Lemon Tea Snapple (Reformulated)

Perhaps the Boston Tea Party alienated Americans from consuming tea like the rest of the world? For a very long time, I grew up not understanding why people drank tea. No one I knew drank it and so I followed suit. But after living in New Zealand, where everyone drinks the stuff, I became accustomed to it. And by accustomed, I mean I drink maybe… 1 or 2 quarts of the stuff per day of various varieties. Thus, I feel I know a bit about tea.

Around the time I moved back to the US, the green tea health craze had burgeoned, and everyone was incorporating the stuff into his or her diets, a nice change to the chai craze, in my opinion.

Over the years, I have seen green tea and green tea extracts fuse with all sorts of products, including ice cream, hard candy, and chocolate. It’s therefore not surprising to learn that Snapple has recreated and rebranded its trademark teas in the aforementioned fashion.

I feel a full disclosure of my Snapple/soft drink history is required in order not to come off as biased. I did drink Snapple as a kid, particularly a fan of the peach tea, but stopped drinking all carbonated beverages and drinks containing sugar almost a decade ago. If it’s not water or freshly brewed unsweetened tea, I don’t want it.

So when the kind folks at Snapple sent me three bottles of their Lemon Tea, Snapple’s first tea (the company actually manufactured fruit beverages and juices originally in New York, with their apple soda being quite popular, with it’s snappy apple flavor - hence Snapple), I couldn’t really judge the new design of the product without first looking up the older version online.

I will say I prefer the new design. Instead of the Snapple name branded on the glass, a solitary “S” with leaves emerging from its curves is the newly embossed logo. Also, the paper around the glass has undergone a makeover of its own.

It’s a more muted yellow without the pattern and sun symbol of the original. Instead, it now has a picture of a lemon with the words “All Natural Snapple” inserted below. The packaging also declares it’s made from green and black tea leaves, with a tiny bee buzzing away from the lemon tree it has just pollinated.

The reason I believe Snapple redesigned their product’s look to complement the new recipe is probably because of the image they are trying to sell you. The new version is chic, refined, and intelligent… isn’t that the anthem of the trendy and mature green tea craze?

But enough of the look of the product. How does it taste? Well, let’s first examine what this new recipe is. The original consisted of water, high fructose corn syrup, critic acid, tea, and natural flavors. The new product is comprised of filtered water, sugar, citric acid, tea, and natural flavors.

I am all about the removing of HFC from products and replacing it with real sugar, so I applaud Snapple for this move. Apparently, this switch lessened the amount of calories 20% per serving. Now before you go crazy and start consuming 20% more calories, the health guru in me must state that the 20% is only 20 calories per serving. The new bottle is now 40 calories fewer than original, which isn’t bad, but not enough to justify indulging in something else.

On to the taste! It has a strong tartness to it that is both slightly sour and sweet. Though it’s smooth on the tongue and throat, leaving no bitter aftertaste, the zest of it is too potent for my liking. Rather than taste lemon tea, I tasted lemonade with tea flavors. Almost like a refined Arnold Palmer.

The flavor of the lemon contains notes of lemon, but it’s obviously not real lemon, not for the most part at least. How do I know this? Because citric acid is listed as the third most abundant ingredient. Now, citric acid gives lemons and many citrus fruits their universal flavor. So the insertion of it artificially in a drink, combined with lemon extract (natural flavors in corporate lingo), will give the impression of a lemon, but it’s not the same thing. Nothing natural about that.

Tea in general, specifically black tea, is also quite acidic. So are lemons. And so is sugar! So why take an already acidic product and just add more and more acidic flavors to it? What I enjoy most about tea is lost here among the grossly unbalanced pH range of this drink: there are not subtle flavors to enjoy, as the whole drink attacks your tongue.

These faults do not surprise me. For starters, the idea of lemon tea is a bit dubious. Tea can be derived from many sources, but the classic variety consists of portions from the Camellia sinensis plant. This accounts for white, green, oolong, and black tea. Green tea consist of leaves that are fresh so they’re wilted, but unoxidized when brewed. Black tea is at the end of the spectrum being wilted, crushed, and oxidized.

What does this mean? Well, it just really gives you a different taste for the most part. People will claim this and that about the antioxidants in these types, but the research is sketchy. All teas derived from the Camellia sinensis plant contain polyphenols, the main health component championed these days in green tea, so green or black, you’re still ingesting it.

The reason I explain this is to demonstrate the duplicity in the term “lemon tea.” Herbal teas are not true teas. They are not made from tealeaves. Is that bad? No! I heart herbal teas. But the name lemon tea implies the consumption of tea that has been flavored with lemon. Rather, according to the taste and ingredient listing, it seems like sugar water flavored with lemon and tea.

This review might seem a bit harsh, but I don’t think it’s undeserved. The Snapple people are trying to sell you a product, and they have every right to do so. You as a consumer can buy it or not, but it’s my job to help you delineate the quality and actuality of these products by seeing through brilliant advertising campaigns. Is this disingenuous? About the same as those “Real Facts” found under Snapple that have often been proved untrue (you don’t consume spiders when you sleep).

Again, I am not the target audience for this drink because I dislike sugary drinks, so I can see many people out there enjoying it more than I did. My main beef is simply that this product promotes itself as something it’s not. In fact, a regular soda has the same amount calories as the original formula. And please note, “all natural” is not an FDA regulated term. Cyanide is “all natural,” but I would never recommend consuming it.

Editor’s Note: I had a fan of regular Snapple try the new version, and she declared that it was “quite tasty” and she was more likely to consume the new one over the old. So if you’re already a Snapple fan and aren’t bothered by the health benefits/detriments, you should give the new formula a try.

• Snapple Website

Buy Snapple Procuts Online:

• at Amazon.com

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