Jamba Juice to offer
free shots (of green tea)
at happy hour

The company is hosting what it calls a "Healthy Happy Hour," giving away four-ounce shots of Matcha green tea to promote its new line of energy drinks. Matcha is a premium variety of Japanese green tea and it will be served shaken with soy milk and ice or orange juice and ice.

Jamba Juice's previous energy drink formulation was its top-selling "boost," said Marketing Director Sherri Rigg.

Energy drinks are a $2 billion-a-year segment of the nonalcoholic beverage industry, she said.

Jamba's new energy line is about more than a caffeine jolt, Rigg said.

The combination of complex carbohydrates and fiber in fruit, the caffeine found in tea and proteins from soy milk "metabolize more slowly in the body for sustainable energy."

The company's new menu also includes smoothies such as the Acai (pronounced ah-sah-EE) Supercharger, Matcha Green Tea Blast and Turbo Tropic.

The Acai, a Brazilian staple, is infused with guarana, from a seed that also originates in the Amazon rain forest. "What guarana does, it makes you alert and gives you the ability to focus, instead of just being wired from caffeine," Rigg said.

"Our whole office, we've been trying it," Rigg said. "We've been doing these Matcha shots. It doesn't make your jittery and it helps you to be alert."

Her habit had been to have a diet caffeinated soda in the afternoon to perk her up for the rest of the work day.

A cup of coffee contains about 130 milligrams of caffeine, while a diet soda can range from 35 to 45 milligrams and the Matcha shots have about 37 milligrams, "so it's about the same caffeine as a can of diet soda, but with some nutritional value" and no processed sugar, Rigg said.

"I'll never give up my tall nonfat, one Equal latte, but I'm definitely leaving diet soda behind."

The University of Hawaii location will offer the free shots from 3 to 4 p.m., but all others statewide will run the giveaway from 3 to 6 p.m. Radio personalities will make appearances for the promotion at the Kaneohe, Ward Village and Mililani stores on Oahu; the Queen Kaahumanu Center location on Maui; the Prince Kuhio and Kona Coast stores on the Big Island; and on Kauai, at the Kukui Grove shop.

The newest Oahu Jamba Juice, at Hawaii Kai Towne Center on Keahole Street, doesn't open until April 12. It will be Hawaii's 26th Jamba Juice and nine staff positions are still available. The store is accepting inquiries at 396-8912.

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