amp Rebuild (Black Tea with Lemon)

The amp line and me don't have the best history. Though only a few amp varieties have been good, Pepsi still feels the need to release more flavours, and one of the newest is amp Black Tea with Lemon. amp Black Tea is one of the two tea flavours in the amp line(the other being green tea), and supposedly the best of the two. Now, since I'm a fan of tea energy drinks, I'm rather curious to see how amp Black Tea turns out. But judging by amp's previous efforts, I'm expecting nothing over mediocre.

FIRST IMPRESSION: The can to amp Black Tea with Lemon is a mixed bag. While I like the gold colour and the bizarre background, the can is just too cluttered. Not only is there writing at the very top of the can, but there is a lot of writing at the bottom as well. Under its sub name "rebuild," there are five lines of text. This makes the can hard to enjoy and makes figuring out what to call it more difficult than it has to.

TASTE: I opened the can and took a sip. The flavour starts out a mildly bitter yerba mate-like tea flavour, only to be quickly overthrown by a sweet lemon flavour. The bitter taste is brief, and gets briefer the more you sip it, where as the sweetness gets sweeter, to the point where it is too sweet for my tastes. Like all amp varieties, amp Black Tea leaves a slippery syrup coating in your mouth, which is a disappointment. Overall, the flavour to amp Black Tea with Lemon isn't terrible, just more like mediocre.

KICK: Each can contains: 180 mg of Caffeine, fifty g of carbs, 296 mg of Taurine, 248 mg of Guarana, thirty four mg of Ginseng, 126 mg of Maltodextrin, 700 mg of Beta Alanine, 200 calories, fifty g of sugars, brominated vegetable oil, and two hundred percent of your daily intake of Vit. B6 and Niacin. This blend of ingredients gave me a fairly decent kick, which is surprising considering it is an amp. For around three or so hours I felt more alert and aware of my surroundings, but nothing I haven't seen before. After the three hours I got a pretty hard crash, but again nothing I haven't seen before.

FINAL WORD: All in all, I feel that amp Black Tea with Lemon is a fair energy drink. Nothing about the drink is revolutionary, new, or even good, just average. The can was a mixed bag, the taste was mediocre, and the kick was standard. Every time I review another amp drink, the wonder of why the line is so popular builds. I know people who are huge fans of the amp line, but I just don't know why. I guess I just find it hard to like a run of the mill, syrupy mess of an energy drink all housed in a cluttered yet otherwise interesting can. Overall, I feel that amp Black Tea is an average energy drink that doesn't bring anything new to the shelf and unless you have the amazing ability to look past its shortcomings, skip amp Black Tea with Lemon...2.8/5

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