Naturewise - 3 Reviews

What are we celebrating? Did someone get a raise? Did someone get fired? Was it Carol? I never liked her anyhow. Oh, she's still here? Oh, she actually got a raise? Oh, she's standing right behind me? Does she look mad? She does? Oh. Well. I guess I'll have to face this like a man. Hello, Carol. It's so nice to see you. Lovely day outside, isn't it? Did you get your hair done? You didn't? You actually have baby puke in your hair? I thought someone was eating cottage cheese. Congratulations on your raise. You are a hard worker and it's good to see all your hard work didn't go unnoticed, which is more than I can say for myself.

I've brought these celebratory drinks. They taste like a mimosa made with orange juice and non-alcoholic champagne sweetened with Erytritol, you know, to keep it diet. It tastes fine but that artificial sweetener is really prominent as if to scream to the world and make it as apparent as possible that you're on a diet. No, I didn't say it looked like you had to go on a diet. No I didn't say that I didn't like you. I said...I said I didn't like "shoes." I didn't like your shoes. I don't like your shoes, Carol. They're just too cool. "Too Cool Carol" is what I'm going to call you. You're making the rest of us look bad, Carol. Everyone hates you because you're too cool. Look out everyone, "Too Cool Carol" is coming through with her baby puke shirt and cool shoes and a raise. Look out! Everyone get out of the way.

A large part of me wants to dedicate my life to science in order to create/discover a zero calorie sweetener that has no real taste, other than that of real sugar. I completely applaud people for watching their calories and realizing that there is far too much sugar in most mass marketed consumables. On the whole we are not a healthy country and I appreciate when companies and consumers step up to try to do something about it. The problem is that the healthier sweeteners that sugar and corn syrup are swapped out for have specific tastes of their own, which just also happen to be very strong. I will happily admit that erythritol and stevia are preferable to other garbage zero calorie sweeteners out there, but they are still overpowering. If they were not included in this beverage it would taste wonderfully like raspberries. You can tell that this is a beverage that would actually taste like raspberries and not some generic fake berry flavor. Unfortunately it is buried under the flavor of the sweeteners.

This could have been incredible tasting, and still healthy if only another sweetener option existed. I'm going to don my lab coat, get out some beakers and get to work. I will not rest until I have an answer that will let this beverage be what it so desperately wants to, and deserves to be! Either that or until it's lunchtime. I'm actually kind of hungry not. I'm going to make a PB sandwich.

I'm always interested in trying “alternative” energy drinks. I'm not really sure who dubbed them that, but at some point a person or a sentient computer decided that any beverage that was meant to give you energy, but did not contain taurine and a bunch of chemicals wasn't of the norm. I'd like to think that ingesting artificial ingredients would be out of the norm, but who am I. Naturewise tried to remove the stigma by labeling their beverages “Whole Body Vitality Drinks.” They give you a little pep, enhance focus, suppress food cravings (don't we all need that?), and reduce stress. That all sounds like a good deal to me and I will take the change in moniker to have it.

This is sweetened by erythritol, stevia and monk fruit and it has a strong fruity/bubblegum taste that always accompanies the latter of the three. The first time I ever came across monk fruit was in Vemma, and now I always relate anything with it to that weird pyramid scheme energy drink. It's a very specific taste and a strong one at that. In fact it is a contender for the prize of being the strongest flavor in this can. The magic trick that monk fruit plays is that the more you drink of a beverage the less you notice the taste and the other flavors take over.
The flavor of this is supposed to be citrus matcha, which sounds great. The thing is I don't really taste any specific citrus, nor do I get a strong green tea flavor. What I do get is something that, to me, tastes kind of like Juicy Fruit gum. It's actually kind of great, but it's not what I expected. Towards the end of the can I got a bit more tea flavor, and I think the bottom ¼ of it was the peak of the flavor.

I am always pleased when a company can make a beverage that uses zero calorie sweeteners and the don't taste like specific garbage. It's nice to be able to enjoy a beverage and not feel bad for all the calories you just ingested, and that is from someone who has never been on a diet in their life.