Inko’s white energy tea is one fo the more interesting energies I have had, as it supposedly comes from the White tea buds – the rarest of all teas.
The way teas work is this. Most regular tea comes from one plant. If it is fermented, you get black or orange tea. If non-fermented, you get green or white. The thing about white tea is it needs to be picked from just the buds of the tree, so they only grow one time a year and for a very short window. I was pretty excited that I got this very well designed can from energy drink haven – as I a white tea energy drink should be something unique and very complex.
While not being a stunner, this is a decent can, with some energy, OK taste and nice enough ingredients to make it worthwhile. I was hoping for something extrodinary in here, but it just did not have enough special about it in taste, buzz or nutrition to set it above the pack.

Taste:7
Usually, white tea is very subtle. That means the flavor is not very strong and should be light and refreshing. While this drink tastes yummy enough, I could not really taste any white tea in here at all. I did taste the ginger and lots of lemon juice, which gave the drink a nice bite I was not expecting. I thought the drink could have done with less sweetner – from crystalline fructose (almost the same thing as high fructose corn syrup), but was overall pleasant. It did not have the usual chalky flavor present in many green teas – but tasted a more like what you would find with a strong black tea energy drink.

Buzz/Nutrition:6
After some online research, it seems Inko’s energy is a mix of white and black tea, so the antioxidant properties of white tea are not that strong in here. Plus, I disliked being told in big letters that this “contains no high fructose corn syrup” when crystalline fructose is more or less the same thing. White tea also normally has much less caffeine, so that explains the addition of white tea to teh drink. If you are looking for that one tea drink that will help you acheive new levels of health, go back to our Yerba Mate – this is the wrong path.

In therms of energy, this can has a decent 184 milligrams of caffeine derived from tea. All the other ingredients are more of less natural and healthy, from the ginger to straight on lemon juice. The buzz is pretty normal – a couple hours of energy from the sugar and caffeine found in most energy drinks.

Packaging:8
I love the background blue on the can – it looks very intricate and appealing – and their font choices are really nice. My only proble with the can is the word energy looks almost tacked on, in a wierd thin font and a color that ruins the whole design. Also, making a big deal about not using HFCS and then putting in a crystalline form of fructose based corn syrup is just silly and misleading. Vitamin water and gatorade have the same sweetener and don’t make a big deal about it NOT being hfcs. If they were really anti-HFCS, they should have used sugar or a dozen other things.
In terms of mechanincs, they did not double face – so getting placed on shelving is more of a challenge, and the lid is on top haphazardly. They do list the caffeine which is nice – as well as all other ingredients. Extra point for getting it Koshered, but orthodox seem to have a problem with Tablet K.