Guru lemon lime Tea does not quite measure up to "Guru Standard"

After the original Guru and the diet guru, I was, without doubt, a big Guru fanatic. For a couple months, Guru was all I drank, shunning all for the grape seed fueled diet guru love I had.  It wasa short lived crush - as there were so many others out there for me to get excited about, but when I heard that my beloved Guru came out with new flavors I searched them down. Finally, after weeks of waiting, my local Whole Foods had a small display of them in the back, surrounded by muscle supplements and fruit jerky.  I quickly bought snatched the 3 flavors: Guru Sports (Lemon-Lime flavor), Guru Iced Tea (Green Tea Honey-Lemon flavor) and Guru Juicy (Tangerine flavor).   The first one I cracked open was the deliciously packaged bright green Iced Tea.  I have had good luck with caffeinated teas, as only a few have been a disappointment.

Taste:7
Unfortuately, it did not stun me, like the original guru did. But that was to be expected.  After all that wait it is like the drink would have to be made of mana from the heavens (not the mana potion from the Hot Topic).   So I waited, settled down, and looked at the drink from my "professional" perspective.  I poured it into a glass and examinerd the head, color and flavor.  Thankfully it was non-carbonated, like real tea, and was quite refreshing, albeit a little syrupy,  on a hot day.  It was not as tasty as the Arizona line of teas, and the calories seemed empty, not containing much nutrition or nutrients, even though it was natural and organic. I dont know if I was expecting little orange pekoe fairies to pop out or have my mouth explode in EGCG goodness. For an energy drink this is fine, but its like that brilliant kid turning in just a good term paper - You know they could have done so much more.

Buzz/nutrition: 7
guru tea is organic and all natural, which helps me justify the 200 Calories and 50 grams sugar. That just seems excessive for a tea, which basically has the amount of calories as the sugar you put into it... Guru tea also has echinacea, panax ginseng, and gingko biloba to round out the energy drink mix. As for the buzz, the can delivers 160 mg of caffeine in the form of guarana, so it was a nice buzz without being excessive or keep you bouncing off the walls too late if you drink this later on in the day. All of this is perfectly fine, just nothing unique or fantastic.  160mg is the same as a red bull or monster and is not even up to the energy of a Who's Your Daddy or a T-Fusion.  While Guru did a great job of keeping me moving, this was not as powerful as it certainly could have been too.

packaging: 9
One thing about Guru is their fantastic gorgeous packaging. The lime green can speaks of both health and sports, looking like a futuristic wheatgrass supplement. there is a ton of info as to what you are drinking - from the amount of caffeine from guarana, to the effects of Ginko Biloba. They managed to convey a sporty look while still using their basic design scheme for logo and content.  I can definitely see sporting this around the tennis court  as well as lazing on a porch on a hot summer day.

Web Site: http://www.guruenergy.us- 7
Their new website is an ineresting mix of working elements and big missteps by a company trying hard to capture the "urban" feel.  They now have cute 20ish kids talking about how much they love guru.  Problem is the video is horrible - just a bunch of testamonials filled with bad lighting while they drone on about their facebook friends.  And there is no stopping them.  No matter what links you click on - the video will keep going, with nary a pause button in sight.  Once you look at other clips they give you a stop button, but from the first page you just have to sit tight while a guy talks about going down on his girlfriend drinking a guru .... Not to mention, the flash movie does not have a loader so it skips and freezes.  the overall look and scheme is very nice - but can be confusing.  To get more information on the drink's properties you have to click on some mysterious badges that most people would not have any clue were even links.  The rest of the site is nice - with the blog tool helping get across that this is a company with hip urban attitude, and the shopping cart is nice and well designed.

The rest of the flash movies are small and work well enough - and the code is pretty clean  - but that main video definitely needs to go.  Or at least be able to stop.

Picture from great review by energyfanatics.com
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