Celestial Seasonings Fast Lane Tea

This tea tastes like dirt.

I’ve tried to like it.  Several times now I’ve brewed it up, putting lemon in it, putting various sweeteners in it, etc.  No matter how I change the taste, the underlying current of dirt water lies beneath.

"Fast Lane" is a "high-energy caffeinated black tea with eleuthero" which is something that reindeer supposedly love to eat.  According to a chart on the side of the box, the caffeine jolt this is supposed to give lies somewhere in between drip coffee and a double espresso.

But it still tastes like dirt.

I think the dirt flavor I’m tasting is actually the ground up cinnamon and nutmeg they’ve added into the mix to, oh — wild guess here — cover up the horrid taste of the eleuthero.  I’m guessing this because other common names for this herb is "touch-me-not" and "devil’s shrub," which doesn’t put it into a very good light.  You would think that an herb that tastes good would be named something more positive, rather than sounding like a additive your local hedge witch might use to poison mice.

To be fair, eleuthero — often referred to as "Siberian ginseng" in the US — does have redeeming medical qualities, such as helping to support the adrenal gland function when the body is challenged by stress, as well as enhancing mental acuity and physical endurance without the letdown that comes with caffeine.  Research has also shown that eleuthero improves the use of oxygen by exercising muscles, which would mean that you should be able to maintain aerobic exercise longer and recover from workouts more quickly.

If true, maybe that would make up for the fact that the stuff tastes like dirt.

According to the Celestial Seasonings website, Fast Lane Tea contains these ingredients:  Black tea, cinnamon, eleuthero, licorice, natural flavors (contains soy lecithin), caffeine, cola and nutmeg.