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.
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Snack Review: Safeway Green Tea Ice Cream

I was so excited to see green tea ice cream in my Safeway - in the Safeway store brand! If Safeway is making this flavor, it must really have become mainstream. And if green tea ice cream is mainstream, can black sesame be far behind, at least in specialty brands?

Well, if you are a fan of green flavor, I will have mercy and not torture you with suspense: this was sooooo disappointing.

The first hint should have been that this green tea flavor comes with a big swirl of vanilla ice cream in it. I wondered, did they think that Americans would find this so scary that they needed something comforting and familiar mixed in?

Well, it’s worse than that. They thought that Americans would find this flavor so scary that they left all the flavor out.

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Snack Review: Enviga Sparkling Green Tea - The Guilty Snack Counter-Attack

I was thrilled to learn, a few days ago, that the Mighty Snackerrific Powers-that-be consider certain drinks to be snacks. This has several positive implications for me. First of all, as a fan and near-daily consumer of exotic sodas and energy drinks, there’s a whole category of reviewable snacks that will require no extra effort or purchase on my part. I’ll also have the opportunity to share products with the snacking public which I’ve been using for a while.

Third, this will aid my ability to eat more healthy. Recently, I stepped on the scale to find the number less than acceptable, and pledged to lessen my caloric intake. Most of my favorite (non-alcoholic) beverages are either calorie-free or close to it. Thus, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share with this site’s readers a great soda which I’ve been drinking for some time now: Enviga Sparkling Green Tea.

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Snack Review: Mochi Ice Cream

The typical Japanese sweet mochi treat is a chewy, sticky little ball with red bean paste in the center. While I love Japanese food passionately, I have never been able to develop a taste for red bean paste. I don’t like beans in my dinner and I like them even less in my dessert. The taste isn’t bad, actually, but the texture… eeeeuw. Maybe there really are some things you just have to grow up with.

But ice cream – who can argue with that? What’s more, the mochi coating on these isn’t as sticky or chewy as traditional mochi, so it’s probably more acceptable to an American audience.

Or so I would have thought. Personally, I am crazy about these. But when a friend served them to her family, she says that they all basically ate the ice cream out of the inside, and said that the mochi was a nice coating to keep the ice cream off your hands. And these were Californians, who in general have plenty of chances to be exposed to Asian cuisine.

But, Trader Joe’s has faith, apparently – they’ve started carrying the Mikawaya brand. So I was planning to tell you to run right out and get these wonderful things, right at your Trader Joe’s, even if you aren’t near an Asian market.

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