AMP Energy Drink: Amp Energy with Green Tea (2009)

Amp’s Green Tea enhanced entry comes to the party pretty late and, unfortunately, seems to have taken a step backward rather than forward. Specifically, it delivers very little tea flavor, with something that’s more like a citrus soda than a tea based drink. Further hurting the situation is the lingering syrupy coating from the sweetener that they’ve chosen (high fructose corn syrup). Nothing against corn syrup, but this seems like a poor pairing, since green tea is typically light and corn syrup is viscous. Packaging doesn’t feel much different, with lots of words slapped on top of a busy backdrop. Plus, it just lacks the personality that the brand had back when it was co-branded with Mountain Dew. We think Pepsi can do a lot better than this.