Xing tea – when you can find it, is a fantastic drink just in time for summer. Other than opening a Smirnoff Raw or an Enviga, Please try one of these instead – yes they are much bigger, but soooo much tastier too. In terms of caffeinated tea drinks, I think I may even like this better than the Arizona energy tea – if only by a small margin. This tea is all natural, and is sweetened with just honey and cane juice, so it is free of the fakiness of Splenda and the syrupiness of High Fructose Corn Syrup. From the look to the price to the nice happy buzz, this drink is a sure winner.
The Cott Corporation in Tampa, Fla. partnered with New Age Beverage in Denver, Co to produce and distribute Xingtea – and though Cott is not that small ( they produce the soft drinks and waters for Wal-mart, and are responsible for the RC cola line) New Age IS a small company, who hopefully have partnered up to their benefit, as the drink they produced together should make them both proud parents.Xing was HUGE when just in Colorado, jumping to the 6th most distributed tea in this state. This partnership should send Xing to a convenience store near you soon.
“We are delighted to have Xingtea round out and upgrade to more premium products Cott’s total portfolio of non-alcoholic beverages,” said Dave Vautrin, vice president of innovation and marketing for Cott Corp. “Xingtea is superior in taste and efficacy versus other national brand competitors.”

Buzz/Nutrition:7
This green tea energy drink is basically the normal tea only with added taurine, ginseng and guarana. Not that this is at all bad, and if anything add just a touch of tang to the taste. In terms of added health benefits, there is the use of green tea for the EGCG antioxidants, plus a very very cool Employee for Xing informed me that they have 166mg of caffeine per Huge can, which is actually very easy to knock down, despite it’s size. Even my darling wife, who is a chronic sipper of drinks can finish a can in under a half hour. So even though that is just under usual energy drink standards, it is about par for energy teas, and you can seriously knock this whole 23.5 oz can back without even thinking abut it. There is about 210 whole calories in the can, and there is absolutely no talk of doing this one in diet. Arizona trumps them here by providing a diet version, and adding a stronger dose of caffeine to the drink as well.

Taste:8
This drink is basically Xing’s Green Tea with honey – so it tastes very clean and crisp, and still eaves you craving another drink once you are finished with the first. Like the big Arizona teas, sometimes more is better, and in this case the can gets empty very quickly. The honey and tea is very flavorful here, and the metal can does not get noticed at all. You can tell that even though this is only one of the 500 kajillion flavors Xing has in its line, this one took some careful tasting and labwork. This one actually outperforms Arizona – in creating a tea that is easier to drink and feels more healthy going down.

Packaging: 8
Another great gain is this beautiful package. Unfortunately, the can design will always put this drink on a different class as the Arizona Teas, Both because of the sloppiness of the design and the quality of the printing job. I wish they found a better ad company to design and market these drinks, as the Energy drink looks almost identical to the other flavors, minus an orange “energy” written on the front. There is also not much info on the nature of the drink, and the website listed does not do anything but tell you that the drink is indeed in the newagebev.com lineup. While definitely a forerunner in about every category, Arizona tea trumps this one again.

Website:0
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It doesn’t drink like an energy drink, although it does have a bit more bite to it than other Xing flavors. Plus, there’s additional caffeine from the guarana, which, given the drink’s 23.5 oz size, will likely give a jolt to anyone who finishes the whole thing. Overall, we really like the taste, but we’re not sure if this will really pass as a credible energy drink. However, as far as “enhanced teas” go (if there is such a thing), this is definitely a worthy entry.

23.5oz size