158-Tea For Two And Two For Tea

So I was sitting here confident that I had done a pretty damn good job trying to make the house look pretty for all the party peoples, drinking a mug of my favorite tea. See for the last few years I have been totally in love with tea. I don't mean that Lipton tea bag crap either. I mean gourmet teas. The good stuff. The expensive stuff. Back in January for my birthday I got a box of Mighty Leaf tea bags(these are loose leaf tea bags) and inside was an organic earl grey. I had never had earl grey tea, but new it was pretty much the pride of England. I brewed up a bag and it was amazing. One of the finest black teas I have ever had. So I was browsing the aisles at World Market a few weeks later and picked up a tin of their new loose leaf earl grey. I got home and brewed up a cup of the most awful turpentine tasting teas I have ever had the misfortune of drinking.

Of course I returned it right?? No, why would I do that? So I decided tonight that I was going to try again. Maybe I did something wrong. So instead of using a full tea spoon for each 8oz serving of water I used a tea spoon for 12 oz of water. Instead of brewing for 3-5mins I went for 2mins. Well it still has this really awful paint thinner taste, but not as bad. I don't think I can choke down this whole mug of it though. Ugh, so bad. I highly recommend you DON'T buy World Market early grey. ick.

Oh and last, but not least, with the way the internet is, and people constantly spoiling stuff, how did Cloverfield stay so secret for so long? I can't wait to see this trailer!

148-Ramblings 5/3/2007

Alright some quick hits for you today. First up a new Gears of War map pack hit the Xbox Live Marketplace it's 800 points for four really interesting looking maps. I am going to probably buy em tomorrow or Saturday, I will let you know.

Spider Man 3 comes out...tonightish at Midnight, I can't be there, but am hoping to see it ASAP on Friday. I keep hearing nothing but good things.

I picked up another new flavor of Jones Pure Cane Soda and it's Blueberry Pomegranate. I had one that was a little warm, and kinda went "eh". I'm drinking one now that's ice cold, and it is definitely in my top 5 flavors of Jones. I don't know if I taste much blueberry, but there is a pomegranate/cherry flavor that's nice.

Someone leaked more Halo 3 beta footage, it's not great, but it's something. Thought you might want to see it.

Alright that's all I got for you right now.

143-Jones Pure Cane Soda

Earlier this year one of my favorite soft drink makers Jones Soda announced that there were doing away with HFCS(High Fructose Corn Syrup) and replacing it with Pure Cane Sugar. Now this is a big deal, because HFCS is for all intents and purposes a chemical. So if you use Sugar your soda should be cleaner tasting.

Now I have been drinking Jones for almost a decade now, and when I originally started drinking it, it came in glass bottles and in a rainbow of flavors. You could also buy it loose by the bottle which was fun. Going to the store and buying a couple of dozen bottles of Jones in a bunch of different flavors. Then suddenly you could only find half a dozen "core" flavors. Then it started coming in four packs of bottles in those core flavors. Then they started coming in 12 packs of CANS in the core flavors. Jones struck a deal a handful of years ago with Target and you can now find a good selection of Jones flavors in cans. Well now that they spent a million dollars replacing all their factory machinery so it can handle the sugar even Wal Mart is carrying cans of Jones Soda.

So this afternoon on my way back from the gaming store I bought two 8 packs. Green Apple and Blue Lemonade I have drank one can of each and I must say...it does taste a lot cleaner. It reminds me of Goose Island Root Beer, which is a brewery in Chicago that does Pure Sugar sodas alongside their beers. If you have never tried Jones or haven't had any in a while I recommend hitting up a Wal Mart or Target and finding Jones Pure Cane Soda and see if you can taste the difference between Jones and regular HFCS sodas.

128-I Guess People Like Beverages

So my post on Enviga got like..a ton of hits. So maybe writing about beverages is the way to go. Regardless, I have been drinking Jones Soda for quite a long time now. I used to be able to go to a grocery store by my house and get loose bottles in ANY flavor I wanted. I used to come home with grocery bags of like 50 bottles at a time. Then it started to disappear little by little. Next thing I knew it was in cans at Target. Not my preferred way of drinking Jones, but I did what I had to did. Well Jones is making some big waves this week by taking the High Fructose Corn Syrup out of their soda and replacing it with (gasp!) Sugar. Now rebranded as Jones Pure Cane Soda I can't wait to get my hands on a can or bottle and taste the simple clean taste of sugar in my soda. Goose Island a popular brewery in Chicago already makes a line of sugar sweetened sodas which are just amazing.

Jones had been moving in a more "diet" direction in the last year or so, replacing many of their sodas with a sugar free version using Splenda. Which actually didn't taste too bad, but now with sugar in their sodas they can feel good about selling full calorie beverages again. So good job Jones I applaud your decision and I can't wait to try some.

122-Kudos To Coca-Cola!

So Coca-Cola in conjunction with their Nestea brand have come up with a new hybrid energy/calorie burning Green Tea drink called Enviga. The claim is that by drinking 3 cans a day you can burn 100+ calories a day. The combination of Green Tea(a natural metabolism booster) with Caffeine(which can stave off hunger amongst other things) you can get your metabolism so worked up you will actually start burning calories. Which is pretty insane, a negative calorie beverage is a pretty crazy idea. So is it any good? Well it comes in three flavors, Green Tea, Berry, and Peach. Forget about the Green Tea and the Berry they are god awful. However, the peach is divine. It tastes exactly like a peach iced tea should, throw in the fact that it's sparkling and you have a winner. It's a little too pricey for me to be drinking 3 cans worth a day, but I have managed to drink one or two a day for the last couple of days. The peach flavor is worth giving a try. It's on sale right now at most places it couldn't hurt.

Unless of course you are a complete douche and you feel like suing everyone. Two groups are suing Coke over Enviga saying that Coca-Cola is claiming that by drinking Enviga you will lose tons of weight, which by the way is not a claim Coke is making. You can read the ridiculousness here.

So if your not a douche go pick up some Peach Enviga I think you will be glad you did.