Taste Test: Enviga Sparkling Green Tea

Last fall, we mentioned Enviga, the new energy drink from Coca Cola and Nestea. The drink isn't just a "diet drink," because it is low in calories, but it touts an ability to burn calories with ingredients like caffeine, calcium and most importantly, "naturally active plant micronutrients that allegedly increase the body's rate of calorie burning." Not low calorie. Not even zero calories. Negative calories!

It sounded way too good to be true -- could someone just sit around on the couch all day drinking Enviga and lose 10 pounds? To be quite honest, I am not as concerned about the true ability for Enviga to burn calories, but relying more and more on energy drinks these days to get through a mountain of work, I was curious about how the "energy" part of the drink and its taste stacked up to my current favorite, Tab Energy. Would Enviga unseat the incumbent? I bought a case of the drinks the other day because they were on sale.

Hm, on sale already? That's interesting.

External Aesthetics. The Enviga can has the same long, tall, narrow shape as many of the energy drinks on the market now. However, unlike Red Bull and a few others that must pack a more powerful punch in a smaller size, Enviga is actually the same volume as a regular can of soda, a full 12 fluid ounces. I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying.

Appearance. There are three flavors: Green Tea, Berry, and Peach. I went for Green Tea because I am a marketing sucker like that. Green Tea just sounds healthier. I poured about half of the caninto a glass just to see the color, not that color matters much. It fizzed a lot, so Enviga is certainly true to its tout of "sparkling." The liquid looks vaguely like a duller, murkier version of the bright yellow Mountain Dew (which is, in my opinion, the original energy drink).

Smell. I am not sure that I like to smell my drink so much before I actually taste it, but the smell from the can definitely hit me before it reached my mouth. Knowing it was Green Tea flavored, I could tell it was green tea, but if I were doing a blind taste of the drink, I wouldn't have been able to place the flavor or smell. I don't mean to make this sound like a serious wine tasting, but Enviga's Green Tea definitely had a berry-like character to it moreso than a green tea flavor.

Taste. More important that whether the flavor actually matches the claim, is whether it tastes any good. I didn't mind the flavor, and though I am becoming more and more sensitive to sweetness, I didn't find Enviga to be too overly sweet. It certainly didn't taste like a natural sweetness, but then again, that would be asking too much from a calorie-burning drink. The only issue I had was with a slightly bitter aftertaste that I noticed when there were long breaks between sips. It almost felt like there was a thin coating on my tongue, which of course, I tried to rinse away by drinking more.

Energy-level. I can't say that I felt any noticeable difference in my energy level, but at least I didn't have that wired, jittery feling I get from Rockstar, Monster, and especially Red Bull. As far as whether the calorie-burning part of the equation actually holds true, I'll let you all know on my next weigh-in!

Conclusion. Enviga isn't bad, and it's certainly a good alternative to my favorite, Tab Energy, especially with three different flavors, but for now, I am still sticking with Tab.