The 'Invigorating' Arizona Iced Tea We Found To Be Anything But

AriZona iced teas, still in their famously enormous 23-ounce, $0.99 cans, are an American staple. They come in different flavors to appeal to every taste; they're thirst-quenching, often delicious, cheap, and convenient. Like any beverage brand you might find at any of America's best convenience stores, AriZona continuously adds to its flavor lineup. On its website, you can find 23 different tea options, with unique varieties like blueberry white tea and cucumber and citrus green tea alongside its iconic original green tea. With so many choices, it's helpful to know which varieties are musts and which are misses.

In our ranking of every AriZona tea flavor, from worst to best, we concluded that there is one you should save your dollar on and your tastebuds from: the RX Energy Herbal Tonic. What went wrong with this tea that's also an energy drink? Its garish yellow hue doesn't do it any favors, since we tend to eat and drink with our eyes. But what matters is its flavor, which is somehow simultaneously tooth-achingly sweet and earthy in a clashing way instead of a complex, harmonious way. It boasts "an invigorating blend" of green tea, tropical and citrus fruits, ginseng, eleuthero root (a cousin of ginseng), vitamins A, C, and E, guarana (a caffeine source), and the adaptogen schisandra. But what you really taste is the 37 grams of sugar in one serving, which equals 74 grams per can; or the 62 total grams in the 20-ounce bottles it also comes in.

AriZona's RX Energy Herbal Tonic doesn't just pack in a lot of sugar. When it comes to ranking energy drinks by their caffeine content, this one is medium-to-high: It might provide less energetic buzz than something like Monster, but for a green tea you'd associate more with a natural boost, it can be a doozy. Depending on which size you get, you can expect around 100 to 120 milligrams of caffeine. Compare that to Rockstar Unplugged, Red Bull, and V8 Energy, all at around 80 milligrams; Celsius at 100, and more high-octane varieties of Rockstar, Monster, and NOS at 160, with outliers like Bang as high as 300.

Shoppers on Amazon report a bland flavor as well as a fake-sugar, Splenda-like taste — one customer contemplated adding real tea to their tonics just to get through the cans they'd ordered. Another reviewer pointed out how high on the ingredient list high-fructose corn syrup was, which throws a wrench in the real green tea flavor wheel. While the RX Energy Herbal Tonic does have some fans on Reddit, some users opine that it has a medicinal taste and also wish it had less sugar, which is the sentiment most frequently expressed — one Redditor even notes it makes their teeth hurt. There are plenty of places to find either a more authentic, pleasant tea flavor or caffeine that tastes better.