RATING: 7.7 OUT OF 10.
For those of you who have been hoping for a new review since January, you're finally in luck. I never announced it officially, but I had retired this project due to loss of interest and lack of new products. However, it appears that 2nd reason is completely illegitimate because I have received several emails from companies asking me to try their product. What's interesting is that none of them were actual energy drinks. Instead they were items such as caffeinated gum, energy shots, and even caffeinated peanut butter. It almost seems as if energy drinks are going out of style and the cool innovative products are here to stay. You see, when you've reviewed nearly 400 products, there's not much that surprises you. Unless it's something like caffeinated peanut butter. Apparently the folks at Steem thought it was a good idea to jack up peanut butter with some good ol' fashion caffeine. Let's see if they're right.
Judging by its initial appearance, Steem has gone for a fairly simplistic design, which fits well with their ingredients list, which I'll discuss in the next section. I decided that it would be best to use this product while making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but first I had to try it on its own. The texture of the peanut butter isn't quite crunchy, nor is it creamy. It's somewhere in the middle, like finely ground. It has a natural peanut flavor and isn't overly sweet like Jif. There is some caffeine bitterness peaking through, but that is to be expected and it isn't overpowering. As for being on my sandwich, I thought the peanut butter worked well with some raspberry fruit spread. So far, Steem has received the seal of approval when it comes to flavor. Can their ingredients do the same?
If you want taurine, glucuronolactone, guarana, and all that other stuff commonly found in energy drinks, you should look elsewhere. Steem provides a very simplistic ingredients list, which I find very satisfying. The only stuff in here is peanuts, salt, peanut oil, organic agave nectar, and caffeine. Specifically there is 170 milligrams of caffeine per 2 tablespoons. I commend Steem for using agave nectar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup. It really shows that they created a quality product.
I did not measure out how much peanut butter I put on my sandwich, but it was easily enough to completely cover 1 side of bread. At least 100mg of caffeine, probably more, was in my sandwich, and I must say the effects weren't too drastic. There was a slight increase in energy and alertness, but nothing too serious. Then again, the efficacy of this product depends on how much of it you consume. I could have slapped on a ton of it on my sandwich and gotten my socks knocked off.
The folks from Steem did a nice job here. I appreciate their efforts in making peanut butter that is of high quality. In fact, the only flaw is that there is some bitterness from the caffeine. Another complaint of mine is that I wish it was a bit crunchier, but that's just my personal preference. It's not very often I see a product that makes me think "wow, I haven't seen that before", but Steem has successfully pulled that off.
