Berry Bliss Smoothie review (9.0/10) – “Naturally fruity and textured bliss, bit too sharp and insufficiently sweet, for perfect balance though”.
The Good
“Stylish and colourful branding”.
“Relatable backstory”.
“Cheap”.
“Practical”.
“Company website apparent”.
“Confident tartness”.
“Natural fruity flavour and smell”
“Lasting rich, and natural smell”.
“Non-sickly aftertaste”.
“Smooth texture”.
The Bad
“No assertions of health benefits on website or bottle”.
“Slightly lacking sweetness”.
“Not fully even in taste and texture”.
“Tartness dominating a little”.
“Not fully balanced taste”.
Packaging
After reviewing the rather pongy and sickly green WOW smoothie from The Juice Company, my taste buds have finally recovered enough to take the plunge into Berry bliss. Berry bliss isn’t the name of my female friend, but another smoothie ! This time I bought from Tesco for just £1.50. Far more reasonable than WOW, at £2.69 from Aldi.
Here you still get 750ml, but a different spectra of ingredients.
These include in no particular order:
(Apple juice and purée with Strawberry purée comprising 10% ), (Banana purée and beetroot juice providing 4%), and (blackcurrant juice with flax seeds), making up one more percent.
As you may have guessed, this leaves quite a lot unaccounted for, which I’d suspect would be water. Particularly disappointing, when you consider approximately 15% in total juice and purée here, compared to almost 1/3 in the WOW smoothie. WOW “green”, featured Broccoli and spinach, neither found in this smoothie. Thankfully though, some banana has been kept, helping heart health and stroke risk improvement. Beetroot juice provides numerous benefits, whilst strawberry contains anthocyanins which can help lower diabetes risk.
I was slightly underwhelmed with these low percentages though, until I saw the drink contains 98% of your vitamin C allowance, for just 1/3 of a bottle. This was artificially added though, so could’ve been provided by additional natural fruit juice. It was a shame that I had to research all it’s health benefits again myself (see below and above ), with none detailed from Tesco, or the drinks’ labels.
Time for science ….
Lets look at purée benefits rather than juice.
Since no purée was incorporated in WOW smoothie, benefits over WOW come from apple, strawberry and banana purée present here.
The process of blending provides a thicker mixture with “pulp”, rather than just juice. Juicing on the other hand, uses solely the liquid part of the fruit.
According to a number of studies, fibre content is higher in blended smoothies with pulp (purée), rather than exclusively juice. This is because the inclusion of this pulp (purée) helps thicken drink consistency. It isn’t due to the extra “lumps”.
This extra fibre provides numerous health benefits, such as assisting the passage of digestive matter through the GI tract, reducing the risk of constipation and colon cancers. This fibre also assists the feeling of fullness, and reduces blood cholesterol.
Clearly then, purée fibre here, hugely favours this drink over WOW, with just lower fibre juice.
So looking at the bottle, it’s vibrant purple is clearly more appealing than the “pondwater green”, of the drink previously reviewed. The front of the bottle displays “Tesco” as the brand, upon a “sweet and earthy” assertion.
This was far better than WOW smoothie, which allowed no expectations whatsoever to be established for taste.
Whilst there was still no backstory detailed on the bottle here, at least it’s plastic bottle was practical for carrying. Due to the fluids’ vibrant colour, the plastic appeared rather stylish too. This created a stronger brand image than before. When combined with Tesco’s possessing it’s own website, this supported the product better online too.
On it’s website, Tesco provided this necessary backstory. They explained how the product had evolved since 1932, when juicers set up their own family business in southern Spain. Today, these juicers still produce the product for Tesco. Whilst the detail of whether the romantic notion of picking fruit still applies to the orders made by Tesco, who knows, but at least there’s a story behind the evolution of the product, which I like. Clearly, experienced juicers have had their say here, according to Tesco at least.
With this pleasant backstory, vibrant colour and numerous healthy ingredients, I’m rather hopeful here.
Let’s see if things continue to go smoothly for the smoothie after opening.
Smell
The smell wasn’t sickly, and was highly natural and fruity. It was so rich, it supplied a wealth of fragrance which didn’t fade. It resembled berries, perhaps explained by it’s name, Berry bliss. I guess the bottles’ assertion of “earthy”, could be explained with the smell. It definitely wasn’t “sweet” though. Still, I prefer fruity to sweet anyway, and the smell was clearly that.
Taste
On first sip you could immediately detect the pulp in the purée.
This thickness made the smoothie very creamy and indulgent. The fruit caressed the palette following this texture. It lasted into an inoffensive non-sickly aftertaste.
The fruit was slightly tart, naturalising any natural sweetness. The balance was very good though, with no flavour dominating into the aftertaste. I’d perhaps like a little more sweetness, to combat the confident tartness.
This tartness provided natural bite so was highly pleasant if overpowering. Balance whilst good, wasn’t perfect.
As for mouthfeel, it was certainly thick and full. This was good, since it created a truly enjoyable and fulfilling experience to rival any alcoholic drink. Thickness prevents “guzzling”, which can occur moreso with soft drinks due to lack of “impact”. Impact, clearly is an innate part of an alcoholic drink due to it’s effects. It was therefore good to have that factor working so effectively here.
Berries I guess are earthy, and fruit by nature is sweet. The fact that this predominantly tasted of earthy berries, combined with tart and fruity character, made sure the brand taste expectations were correct. All in all then, quite a difficult drink to fault.
Clearly no dryness or carbonation were present, but here that would have detracted from the smooth experience. Slightly better evenness of texture and taste throughout the bottle, with greater sweetness would’ve been needed to perfect. I’d suggest otherwise though, a very difficult drink to fault.
Before you ask, this lack of evenness was still apparent after shaking well.
Summary
Naturally fruity and textured bliss. It’s a bit too sharp and insufficiently sweet, for perfect balance though.
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Sources
1) https://www.washington.edu/wholeu/2015/03/11/juicing-vs-blending/
2) https://www.umass.edu/nibble/infofile/fiber.html
3) https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FS/FS20900.pdf
4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7898413
5) http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-61.pdf
6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5613902/
7) http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2515e/y2515e03.htm
8) https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/297753898
Products
(Make your own fruit smoothie) guide below
Reasonedandseasoned 