Volvic Thé – or as its sub-line says: “The vert avec saveur de citron”. This is another big-brand ice tea, from the French Volvic beverage company known for its mineral water.
It is the first ice tea reviewed on here thats based on green tea, instead of the usual black tea. This gives it a very fresh flavor, reminiscing of peppermint. The lemon-taste makes it even fresher, but you can’t get around noticing how artificial both flavors really are.
It says on the label that they use real sugar and certainly this ice tea is quite sweet for a green tea. But its taste is not as sweet, as most of the black-tea-based ice teas. (And nowhere near the sweetness of an Italian ice tea like San Benedetto.) This lack of sweetness, despite the sugar content, probably stems from the dominance of the green tea in the overall flavor. Nevertheless you can’t help but suspect they used some artificial sweetener in the production too, because of this fake-sweet taste. And as always with these additives, the artificial taste keeps on lingering at the back of the throat, and in this case at the edges of the tongue, long after you has your sip of ice tea.
- green tea
- light and fresh
- medium-sweet
The color of the tea is an extremely light, clear yellow – fitting to its light, fresh taste. On the label it says that they use the Volvic mineral water (“‘l’eau minérale naturally Volvic”) and this automatically gives you the impression, that you can feel the freshness of the water.
Overall it is a fresh, light, easily drinkable ice tea that is not too sweet and an ok refreshment for once in a while. But with the artificial flavorings, a certain sweetness keeps sticking in my mouth and makes it so, that I can’t drink too much of it.
Still, due to its lightness and sweetness, one of my more preferred green tea-based ice teas.
In Europe this ice tea is quite easy to find, though it is not quite as ubiquitous as Lipton and Nestea. As far as I’ve seen, it mostly comes in 0.75L and 1.5L PET plastic bottles (pictured). Especially the small bottle is a really good size bottle for the road.
The packaging-size also indicates that this is a mid-price range ice tea – usually slightly more expensive than your local (non-)brand and big-brand ice teas, but way cheaper than the ‘specialty’ ice teas in small-form packaging.
One thing I really like about this ice tea, is the labelling (which I’ve already quoted from). It’s nice to actually be able to read that this ice tea contains: 96% mineral water and 3.8% sugar (even if I personally can’t verify that).
+ light, easily drinkable
+ fresh
+ good labelling
– artificial sweetness
– sticky after-taste
Overall Rating: 7/10