If you’ve been watching the Giro d’Italia then you might have noticed maglia rosa sponsor Esta Thé, especially if you’ve been following via the RAI or Gazzetta.tv internet streams.
Esta Thé is a sweet tea soft drink. It’s made by Ferrero, the Italian food giant that makes Nutella and more. It’s name is a play on words, estate is Italian for summer, Esta Thé is pronouned the same way and té means tea, hinting at “summer tea”. It comes in three flavours, lemon, peach and green tea.
It was first commercialised in 1972 at time when carbonated soft drinks were the big thing thanks to the arrival of plastic bottles and drinking cans… but Esta Thé is flat. It’s a good way to use tea in the summer but Ferrero don’t have any normal tea brands.
Tasting notes
It has a strong taste of weak tea with lemon, and a thicker feel in the mouth thanks to the sugar. You certainly taste it is made from tea but as if the tea has been boiled and boiled, like someone reusing a tea bag for the third time, trying to squeeze out some flavour. There is some lemon too. It’s very easy to drink though, it is not sour because of the tea or lemon thanks to the sweetness. The first taste is the lemon and it finishes with the tea.
Served cold it’s refreshing but personally I’d prefer to make some home-made iced tea, the sugary nature is vaguely medicinal, of cough mixture.
If the drink is visible to cycling fans now this is only one component of the annual marketing drive to make this “the summer drink of Italy”. Ferrero funds other publicity campaigns and in-store promotions. It’s available in bottles, cans and plastic cartons. Rival products exist from the likes of Nestlé and Lipton too.
Ingredients
Brewed tea (water & tea), sugar, dextrose, lemon juice (0.2%), flavour enhancers and flavourings.
This is part of a series on European foods with links to cycling or simply for fuel:
Part I: Nutella
Part II: Pâte de fruits
Part III: Stroopwafels
Part IV: Coffee
Part V: Frites
Part VI: Pasta
Part VII: French Bakeries
Part VIII: Water
Part IX: Sirop
Part X: Pharmaceuticals
Part XI: Summary
Part XII: Esta Thé
Part XIII: Grated carrots
Part XIV: Speculoos
Part XV: Belgian beer
Part XVI: Oman Coffee
Part XVI: Italian Ice-cream
Your article reminded me of “carbonated tea” that I used to buy in Belgie.
That stuff was fantastic and I can’t seem to understand why it is not sold here in the States?
and here I was hoping you’d review it 🙂
~thank you
I did taste it but it’s cold cheap tea with lemon/flavouring, not a fine wine!
A flask of sweet black tea was always de-riguer post race for me.
My local italian deli in London stocks 500ml and 1500ml bottles which apparently makes them pretty unique over here. The lemon is meh but the peach version is pretty tasty.
Is it just me or is the Maglia Rosa a lot less Rosa this year?
“Esta The” covers way too much of the leaders jersey.
I tried it in Italy but, personally, don’t like it. On another note, it seems very difficult to get good tea in Italy. I always make sure to bring tea-bags with me when I visit.
As much as we’d LOVE to buy and drink this stuff, we can’t do it. There’s some odd, perfume taste to the stuff that gags me. If we want cold, sweet tea in Italy, BelTe or San Benedetto’s are more enjoyable. But Italy is the land of CAFFE anyway, though iced coffee’s not one of my faves either. The slightly sweet, fizzy white wine that’s on tap at most bars and ristoranti here in Italy is my first choice after cold, fizzy mineral water for refreshment purposes.
Couldn’t do it either….
sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood should try it