Red Rose - Ice - Kiwi Strawberry Iced Tea

I was walking around the local Big Lots looking for condoms when I stumbled upon this beverage concoction.  Now, I like tea.  A lot of my friends are more inclined to partake in a soda, but tea is good in my book.  When it comes to flavored tea, well, Snapple is the king hands down.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad Snapple.  You can see where I had my doubts when approaching this one.

First off, I want to discuss the name and packaging.  Red Rose?  OK, that sounds like the name of a 1930’s bordello worker.  I’ve never heard of the company, and probably never will again.  Secondly, what’s with the use of the word “Ice” in the title?  I can’t discern its usefulness.  Is it a catchy buzzword?  Or perhaps it’s something more sinister?  Now, Kiwi Strawberry has surfaced as a flavor with growing popularity over the last 5 years or so.  Where did it come from?  Kiwis were not traditionally mixed with strawberries, so it begs me to ask the question who thought up this taste combination, and furthermore, are they single?  Rounding out that packaging you’ll notice the transition from white to blue, from the top to the bottom of the wrapper.  This is common effect most people utilize after one day’s training on any computer-imaging program.  I guess it does provide a little more visual flair, and the artist rendering of the fruit isn’t that bad, besides the fact that in realistic relation to the kiwi this strawberry pictured would be about 3 to 4 inches big which is a little overkill.

Now, let’s talk about the beverage itself.  I took the first drink with reckless abandon, although you can tell by the picture above that I was somewhat inquisitive.  Interesting.  Allow me to put it like this, my initial thought was that if I was blindfolded and told to take a drink of this Kiwi Strawberry juice, or Kool-Aid, or other form of fruit drink, I would have tried it and accepted that fact and believed it.  The reason being is that I couldn’t taste the iced tea portion of the beverage, which was supposed to be the base for it all.  I made sure that this thing was thoroughly chilled, as the last thing I wanted was a warm iced tea.  Although the flavor wasn’t too strong, and the cold liquid felt good going down, there was a bit of a residual aftertaste that tickled the throat.  Eventually, about halfway done with the bottle, I recognized that hint of iced tea flavor I was desperately searching for.  In the end, I thought that the drink wasn’t terribly bad, and I know you can do a whole lot worse for 59 cents.

Overall Grade: C+