The other night I was invited to attend a mommy blogger dinner near my old Rogers Park neighborhood to meet the enthusiastic and engaging co-founder of an organic tea beverage business: Steaz.
I happened into the invite because a fellow blogger wanted to go, but needed a ride back to Oak Park. I agreed to do the driving. But it turned out she had a conflict and couldn’t go.
I like to think I’m pretty outgoing. But the truth is I’m pretty shy. I decided to buck up and go anyway. The dinner was at a restaurant I’d wanted to check out, Uncommon Ground (which houses a certified organic rooftop farm), and I’ve never been disappointed with a meeting of moms who blog.
This was no exception. I had a lovely evening, meeting some fascinating women bloggers and learning about what motivates them to share their lives online.
Of course the reason we were there was to learn about Steaz and maybe spread the word a bit about its line of organic, micro-brewed tea products.
I have to admit I was pretty impressed with Eric Schnell and his commitment to running a green, health-conscious company. He’s started a blog and a Twitter feed. I’ll be curious to see how this young entrepreneur connects with customers and potential customers via social media.
Unfortunately for Steaz, besides not having a huge readership (yet) at VFG, I’m not much of a fan of bottled and canned teas. I’m pretty much stuck on hot herbed teas.
Still, when I realized that I’d been given a sack full of Steaz products to sample, I decided to check them out and get the opinions of my SoCal sis and the iFarmer while I was at it.
So here’s what I did: I stopped at Whole Foods and picked up similar products and conduct a non-scientific, but blind, taste test.
They weren’t perfect product matches, but I got as close as I could in a single shopping trip.
I bought low cal Izze to compare with Steaz zero calorie berry soda; Tazo teas to compare with Steaz canned peach and blueberry tea drinks; and I bought a Hansen’s natural energy drink to compare with Steaz natural energy drink.
The results?
Not surprisingly, I wasn’t much of a fan of any of the drinks. I did prefer Steaz over Izze in the soda match up.
In the flavored/iced tea test, I much preferred Tazo to Steaz. Both were good, but Tazo didn’t actually taste like tea, yet more like a peach in a Dixie cup.
I didn’t much care for either energy drink (or energy drinks in general). Neither tasted particularly good, but Steaz was the least offensive for all of us.
Here are the total results from the three of us. Winners in each test were each given an asterisk.
SODA
Steaz: ***
Izze:
Flavored TEA DRINK
Steaz: *
Tazo: **
ENERGY DRINK
Steaz: ***
Hansen’s:
Disclosure: Dinner and the free product were on Steaz, but I didn’t get any money from the company. Indeed, I ended up spending a decent amount to conduct my quirky little taste test.
Virtual Farmgirl 