The Juice Company Wow green smoothie review – (6.5/10).
“A naturally tangy, practical yet fruity, smoothie. Unfortunately, expensive and sickly, with an unpleasant smell. Mix well before drinking !!!
The Good
“Smooth and natural flavour”.
“Some texture “.
“Plenty of healthy ingredients”.
“Practical, lightweight bottle”.
“Pleasant tangy tartness”.
“Some tartness and sweetness balance”.
The Bad
“Sickly taste and aftertaste”.
“Unpleasant smell”.
“Expensive”.
“Poor branding”.
“No backstory”.
“No company website”.
“Horrible colour in bottle”.
” Not fully balanced”.
Packaging
Well, as dry January continues, I’m searching for tasty alternatives to my usual drinks. So far this month, I’ve substituted these, for fruit smoothies. Below is my first ever fruit smoothie review. Wish me luck …
So here goes. Yesterday from Aldi, I purchased this “wow” green smoothie for a costly £2.69. With the majority of fruit juice supplied by apples here, my comfort zone wasn’t stretched much, since apple juice is my favourite fruit juice. The additions of broccoli and spinach here, provide a dark green colour.
Broccoli provides high levels of vitamin C, aswell as multiple B vitamins, including 1,2 and 3. Broccoli also provides important minerals such as magnesium and iron. With banana present too, helping control blood pressure to reduce stroke risk, which comprises 9%. Spinach gives 7% of the juice, which supplies numerous benefits including reduced risk of heart disease and cancer.
With these 3 ingredients constituting almost a third of the juice, plenty of health benefits may be assisted with consumption.
The packaging supports this, with the assertion of “1 of your 5 a day”, from just 250ml of the 750ml bottle. Not that 5 is a magic number, but this refers to a government campaign to help people get healthier through the consumption of more fruit and vegetables.
But health isn’t the only reason you should settle down to a drink in the evening. Enjoyment is also key. Not just the look, smell, or texture of the drink, but the whole service that the drinks provides. I’m not talking price or practicality, but more what the brand says. Additionally, how that brand meaning, combines with the drinking experience to resonate with you.
So what is the branding like here?
The front labels the fruits and vegetables inside, in pale green. This contrasts to the clear plastic bottle, revealing a dark and dull fluid, one displaying suspended sediment throughout. Sorry to be honest, but the colour resembles pond water. The bottle with plastic material, clearly doesn’t say luxury either; Yet the price does.
This means for an evening drink, the branding isn’t aimed well. The feel is nutritious and healthy, yet not stylish or tasty from the bottles look.
The labels informative assertion of: (fruits included, “no added sugar”, and correct storage instructions), lacks any kind of “fun” backstory that many drinks have. So many products have a story labelled on the bottle. A tale of where the fruit is from, or the traits those fruits possess.
Here, there are numerous fruits mentioned, yet no interesting story to promote them. Even if “fun” isn’t the idea, a story could still reveal health benefits, or perhaps a reason why those fruits were chosen.
Whilst the plastic vessel does offer practicality, and some meaningful assertions for the health-focused consumer, it doesn’t expand on those to excite you, or encourage you to drink. It blurts out multiple, well-known healthy ingredients on the label, to make the drinks consumer, feel guilty for not drinking. It then waits patiently, hoping that they will.
This isn’t great marketing in my opinion, and doesn’t cater for the relaxed evening consumer, who doesn’t want to just be lectured on health. Even if they do, it lacks the detail to elaborate on health benefits you may enjoy following drinking. Fortunately, for the reader here, I’ve spelled that out for you, from my own reading, in an earlier paragraph (information sources below).
My fruitless search for any kind of (brand supporting website), was in vain. I therefore couldn’t salvage any better conclusion than “weak branding”. Even for taste expectations, other drinks provide some level of clarity on sharpness or sweetness expectation. Having sampled smoothies before, their thickness and mouthfeel vary distinctly. All of this isn’t even mentioned anywhere on the packaging.
Still, if anything is positive it’s practicality. This smoothie is far more pleasant to walk back from the shops with, due to a lightweight plastic bottle, than clanking your way back with a heavier glass receptacle. For 3 of your 5-a-day, one bottle sounds like an efficient and practical solution too. It saves me prepping up a few broccoli florets with Brussels and carrots for 15 minutes anyway.
So far then, I haven’t discovered what to expect for taste, except some influence from each of the fruits mentioned. I know the drink is weakly branded and expensive, but it’s quite practical. Let’s find out if it’s actually bearable, or even enjoyable to drink. Either way, it may stop me getting cancer this evening …
Smell
The smell was of very rich, green vegetables, one confidently escaping from the plastic lid. Slightly sickly too, almost like overripe banana.
I can’t say the smell was pleasant though, as it was far too overpowering.
Taste
The mouthfeel certainly wasn’t thick or syrupy, yet wasn’t totally watery. It was certainly a little thin though. That said, it was very smooth. Immediately you could tell that the drink had lots of sweetness. Thankfully this sweetness appeared natural, but was just too strong, even after some tartness could be detected in the sediment to help balance. The drink wasn’t “well” balanced though.
The sweetness lasted into the aftertaste, tempting you to swallow to remove it. I’d suggest mixing well before opening, to enable the rather sharp “bits” to balance the sweetness better. This would be a good idea.
Whilst too strongly sweet, the flavour itself had a good variety of tastes, dancing across my mouth. The taste was dominated by sweet fruit though. From my ” very brief”, days of pear cider drinking, I know how sweet pear juice can be. With 20% pear juice here, I think that was probably the culprit. As I reached halfway down the bottle, things were now very sickly, the taste began clinging to the inside of my mouth. I did get a pleasant surprise from some of the sediment though, as it provided some texture at this stage. This became thicker towards the end and provided more tartness.
I’d suggest you invert several times before drinking though. Mainly because I didn’t …
The aftertaste remained sickly, and of course the drink wasn’t carbonated, dry, or especially full of character. Sharpness would have benefited the flavour from the word go, perhaps a good mix would have helped offset some of this sweetness early on.
Summary
A natural and tangy, practical yet fruity, smoothie. Unfortunately it’s expensive, sickly, with an unpleasant smell. Remember to mix well !!
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Sources
https://www.healthyeating.org/Healthy-Eating/All-Star-Foods/Vegetables/Article-Viewer/Article/91/health-benefits-of-broccoli
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1772873
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268516190_Nutritional_attributes_of_spinach_silver_beet_and_eggplant
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280084961_Banana_Medicinal_Uses
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-5-a-day-logo
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