0:00
- People say that if you want caffeine, you need coffee or energy drinks. - Woo! (energetic music) - Well those people are wrong. (upbeat music) I'm making the best God damn tea. I'm starting a tea company, I'm trying to do the whole thing for under $500 and I'm showing you guys the whole process so you can learn what it takes to start a business.
0:27
Oh my God. I'm not selling products yet. Do you have something to sell? I need to figure out what these flavors are, huh? Today I'm sampling from over 50 different teas in a quest to make original flavors. Something that combines the punch of my favorite caffeinated teas with the health benefits and anti-inflammatory properties of my favorite herbal teas. And oh yeah, it's gonna be really, really yummy.
0:52
And while I do that, I've asked my friends to sample from some of the world's most popular caffeinated beverages to see what they like and if there's anything I should incorporate into my tea. - Mm. Yeah. Woo. - Where does tea come from? - True tea comes from camellia sinensis can you say that? - Camellia sinensis. She was dating Shaun Mendez, right?
1:16
(laughing) So you sent me like well over 50 different samples. I have all of these teas to try. What am I looking for as I'm drinking these? - Just think, what would I want to drink every day? - We are launching with two original blends. One for waking up, and one at the end of that day for chilling out. I just wanna make something that you sip and it makes you happy.
1:40
Did I just create a new blend? My mission today is to better understand flavor. - According to Ayurveda you have the tongue, right? So you have sweet, you have salty, you have pungent, and then the far back of the tongue and along the sides of the cheek is astringency. High quality food has that puckery effect that drawing astringent effect. As you start to define that pallet you can really tend to appreciate it so much more.
2:03
- I need to get in touch with my lil' taste buds. My little flavor buddies. My lil' flav homies. What's going on in my mouth place? - I don't know what Zach's doing, he's off having a spirit quest somewhere. But the boys today are gonna be sipping the caff. Hello, and welcome to the ultimate caffeine taste test. We're gonna get (beep) up. - Zach did text me and say, "Eugene, don't drink the entire bottles "of everything we've given you." He's not here, there's no oversight.
2:31
I'm gonna do whatever I want. - We did consult with medical professionals. (laughing) We googled some stuff about like is this okay, can caffeine kill you? And it turns out you have to have like a lot a lot of caffeine to even be close to dying. Disclaimer, whatever. We don't have legal. Well we do have legal, but like not that type of legal. - You have a way that you taste tea specifically.
2:56
- Yes, again, this isn't something that you do on a date. This is something if you're like really honing in and you're evaluating a tea. Ideally, it's best to taste tea early in the morning. - Good morning, campers. It is 6:45 AM. - Because your senses are more awake. You're more alive, you're more charged. - I certainly don't feel alive. - You should have as clear of a palate as possible. You just wanna make sure your tongue, that instrument is fully ready to really understand the single ingredient components.
3:27
Make sure you have a clear bladder. - So you're telling me, that to taste up here I gotta empty out down there? - Yes. (trickling) - First up, coffee. I certainly have coffee everyday, something I'm very used to. - Yeah, that's good. Tastes like waking up. Tastes like getting me going.
3:49
- What is caffeine? - There's about five botanicals that we know of that naturally have caffeine. Coffee, tea, cacao. Lot of people associate side effects of caffeine because of coffee. - Is my hair making myself glow? Is that what it is? How dark and black my hair is, is making me turn into Edward Cullen? - Typically, you'll get a much more balanced caffeine experience when it comes to tea than you will with coffee.
4:14
- Next up we have some black tea. - Steaming up my glasses, I'm steaming up my glasses. (slurping) - Sorry, that was gross that I slurped. - Honestly, I just want more, I'm just so sleepy, the coffee's I think all that's gonna help me. - I think a lot of people, there's this assumption that tea isn't enough. - Tea has its time and place. Coffee has its time and place.
4:37
- Yeah, coffee's great. - That if I'm sleepy, if I need that kick of energy. (upbeat music) - Yeah, the tea's just super underwhelming. - That tea can't do what the other things can do. - What can I say? Let's chug this. - So I would say they're 100% right. If they're used to buying the scraps that are left over and put into most supermarket teas, you're not gonna get all the other polyphenols, flavor notes, the natural oils, amino acids that could be left in a whole tea.
5:10
- Now white teas are quick. You only need to brew them for about one to three minutes. So let's put time on the clock. And then I'm not gonna make you wait three minutes. Let's cut to them being done. So I've got my teas here next to what I'm sampling, next to this puzzle that I gave up on. Let's do it. - So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna draw the liquid in the front of my mouth. Just take a normal sip and swallow. This helps me get baseline in terms of temperature, I don't wanna burn my mouth.
5:37
I then swirl it around in the front, swish it back so it covers all of my taste buds. (slurping) Swallow, and with my lips closed, I take a slow breathe out through my nose. - Now here we go. (slurping) (choking) (slurping) (choking) - Almost everybody coughs like the first couple times that they try this.
5:59
- I think I need to try that again. - [Steve] Okay, let's do it. - First up, I'm gonna do silver nettle. (slurping) Oh yeah. It's like if you could take all the dew off the grass on a spring morning and sip it. White acai. Cheers. Lot of sweetness up front. Feels very summertime to me. But it's not what I want when I first wake up in the morning. In the mornings I want something that feels like a warm hug, but then slaps you across the face.
6:27
White tea and organic green tea together. That's really nice. That's really good. With having my autoimmune disease, I don't sleep great a lot of the time. So I really need something in the morning that just kick starts my day. White goji blossom. Mm. This is already so hard. It's like, okay, that was good tea. Hey, this is a good tea too. I don't (beep) know. So I just decided to ask Twitter what their favorite tea flavor was, and I have over 830 responses already.
6:53
- And by the way, tea people are very vocal. They're gonna be like, this sucks, or this is the best experience I have ever had, and I need to have it again. I need to have it again, and I need to have it again. - This is both very exciting. It shows that people are tapped in, they really care about this. But it also makes me nervous because I know that invariably I'm going to disappoint some people. This is tough. - [Ned] The ultimate caffeine taste test.
7:17
Matcha. (clinking) Is it Ned who doesn't like matcha? - I have never tasted a matcha that I have liked. - Absolute blasphemy. - Smells like I'm just tasting grass clipping here. - Really straight up smells like some grass up in here. And not the Friday night kind, you know what I mean? All right, we're having fun. (slurping) - Oh I hate it.
7:42
- I feel like I wanna drink this, I'm a cow. - Like a sexy cow. - Makes me feel like I'm on a farm. And somebody just blasted a shotgun full of grass in my face. - I love this so matcha. Dumb, dumb, it's dumb when it comes out of my mouth. Something that Keith would probably say, it sounds like a Ned joke. - I'm gonna probably start steeping multiple. - Yes, you can get super scientific and it's gonna be one minute, or three minutes, and this particular temperature.
8:07
But if it's a great tea, then it should allow you the wiggle room in terms of how it comes out. Try it at three minutes, try it at four minutes, try it at five minutes, and try it at, like eight minutes. - If you do it too hot, or if you leave it over steeping it needs to still just taste great. Now we are into the black teas. English breakfast. If you've ever even heard of a tea flavor, you probably know English breakfast.
8:33
Oh yeah. You know what, I'm just gonna say it right now. I think I want the wake up tea to be a black tea. There's something about the way that this makes me feel that just tells me like, hey, it's the morning. It's time to wake the (beep) up. - The one thing that's gonna drive the most amount of caffeine is how long you steep it. That's why white tea and green tea, by nature, have more caffeine, but black tea you steep longer. - I really like black tea.
8:58
And I'm trying to find one though that is more interesting. All right, let's move on to monk's blend. (jazzy music) (eerie music) Yes I am so stoked about this. This is like what you expect black tea and want it to be. - Usually from Assam, India, the flavor profile's almost like fresh baked bread.
9:28
It has that multi-ness that you might be attracted to. - The ultimate caffeine taste test. Espresso. Espresso, no, no, no, it's an espresso not expresso. E-spre-sso. Espresso yourself. Oh my God I can't stand what I'm saying right now. I'm just talking.
9:50
- Salut. (electronic music) - Woo. - Delicious. - This is plum olong. Oh wow. This is what I've been looking for. Plum, dates, cherry, stone fruit. These kind of deeper flavors I think really go well with the black tea.
10:13
Oh my God, I am so excited. - Can you say ultimate caffeine taste test? (babbling) Woohoo! (rock music) Oh yeah, we're getting this party started. Did I shake this up? Oh, oh. - I'm not the biggest fan of this no sugar, no calories, aspartame flavor.
10:36
- I have aspirations, but not aspartations. What's that mean? - Okay, next round of teas. We're moving into the herbal blends. We've talked a lot about caffeine in this video, but one of my favorite things about tea is its healing properties. Tea can calm you and soothe you, and there's a lot of really cool stuff in it that has great effects on your body. I want the herbal tea to just be something that gives you permission to say oh, let's relax.
11:01
First up, we've got bright eyed. Oh this kicks ass. (rock music) - Woo! Let's go. (belching) (intense rock music) (slurping) - Hell yeah. That's good. Oh it makes you smile.
11:24
- My heart's beating faster actually. (slurping) - Okay next up I have the ginger ginseng. Balanced really nicely. The ginger brings it to a place that I like. We got rooibos. Oh I love this. Very multi-nutty and then cinnamony. It's just such a fun herbal flavor. Rooibos chai, it's got that delicious flavor but then the chai is giving me this tingle and it's this spice, and it's aromatic.
11:50
- You remember yerba merty. - [Ned] Smells like flat coca-cola. - Yerba mate y'all. (growling) - Hey, hey. Children, children. Father is filming. (sighing) (rock music) (gagging) - Talk to the people, Bean. Hello, my name is Bean and I'm a dog. How's your quarantine going?
12:14
Oh pretty good, I like barking at all the people walking by. - Feeling a little, little crazy now. - Feeling pretty lit. I'm feeling litty city. (upbeat music) - Mm. - Woo. - Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. (tongue clicking) - It's now 8:30 AM I'm two hours into this.
12:42
I've sampled from 12 different types of tea and I'm feeling really nice. - Wow it is starting to hit me. My brains is going da-da-ling-ding-ding. (humming) - My mind feels clear. - I'm right, you're wrong, shut up. No, not right. Zach zach, zach zach, zachitty zach. Zach's tea. - I'm awake but I'm not feeling crazy like this. - Cute.
13:07
Cute. Cute. - I feel like I've had a nice steady ramp up in the morning and I just feel good. - Feeling crazy. I do need to do work today. Or do I need to play skee-ball? Skee-ball. Skee-ball. Skee-ball. (techno music) Gimme the ball, gimme the ball, gimme the ball.
13:44
- Time to have a dance party. (techno dance music) - Oh the bees are out again.
14:13
(techno music) - The bees. - It gives you wings. - I am starting to crash. - I'm just tired. (metal clinking) Oh no, somebody dropped a fork. - If you're drinking coffee at this really high spike and you come down below your natural state, and it takes a long time to come back to normal.
14:42
- They're all like a little party. They're all like getting to know each other. They're all like, "Hey, how've you been?" - Bad for the body, it's bad for the adrenal glands. It keeps people up at night. - Oh I've been in quarantine. Oh my too, I blah blah. I haven't seen you in so long. I haven't seen anyone in so long. Get a sip of coffee. - Now there's nothing in the bean itself to combat the negative side effects of caffeine.
15:08
Now the type of caffeine that's in tea is chemically similar. - They're the same thing. They're the same thing. - But they effect the body a little bit differently. There's polyphenols and flavanoids and catenins that naturally combat the negative side effects of caffeine. - I wonder do I seem a lot more animated and happy than when I started this video? I feel wonderful right now. I just feel alive.
15:31
(electric whirring) - Thank you. - Yo. - Hey man. Where's the rest of the guys? - Oh well, Ned threw is back out. And Eugene was up until five in the morning, so you just got me today. - Oh my God. - Yeah. (chuckling) - I guess, what'd you guys learn? - (beep) nothing, man.
15:55
Maybe don't drink that much caffeine. - Uh thanks, I guess. - Yeah you're welcome, man, it was fun. - I have some flavor ideas. - That's great. We probably had the same day. - Okay, well bye. - Okay, bye. - So after my flavor adventure I have settled on blend ideas that I am stokes about. For the wake up tea, we're gonna do Monk's Blend mixed with stone fruit. For the calm down tea we're doing rooibos, just a really beautiful, flavorful red tea.
16:18
Then we're gonna try mixing it with chai, ginger, turmeric. Wake you up, tastes great, make you feel great. In about a week I'm gonna get the samples back and be able to try different versions of my tea for the first time. And then in about a month and a half it'll be in your hands. It's happening. The next episode is all about design. What do you think my logo should be? I want you to illustrate, Photoshop, send me your best, wackiest, funniest, craziest designs using the hashtag #korndiddytea.
16:47
I'll have instructions up on my Twitter and Instagram. And I will review them in the next episode. And very exciting, I finally have a name to reveal for my company. Next time, bye. (upbeat music) - Zach's tea, I love Zach's tea. I love to drink Zach's tea.