Old Orchard - 4 Reviews

We don't get around to reviewing too many large bottle juices. There are so many drinks out there for us to review, that it sometimes seems wasteful to drink the same thing more than once, even if it is different servings from the same bottle. In reality I drink mostly water or unsweetened iced tea that I brew. With all of the sugar that I intake doing reviews I try not to drink too many sweetened drinks for pleasure and refreshment if we have already reviewed them. Taking all of that into consideration I felt I had no choice but to buy this juice when I saw it sitting on the shelf. I love apple juice. Who doesn't? I don't think I could trust someone who told me they didn't like apple juice. They would have to be lying. So there we have it a fairly generic base, that you can't really alter much, but that I love. On top of that you mix in some passionfruit and mango juices and you have an instant party in a bottle. I've never tried anything to do with mango that I didn't like, and you obviously can never go wrong with passionfruit. The result of mixing this holy alliance is a fruit punch like you have never tasted. My initial thought was that they all blended together into one new flavor, but then I realized that if you swished it around in your mouth waves of each flavor rolled over your taste buds. Once you swallow the aftertaste is distinctly apple juice.

My only real complaint about the drink is that the bottle says that it is “naturally sweetened,” which led me to believe that it was sweetened by the fruit juice. It seems Old Orchard tried to pull a fast one on us. You see while they are still natural sweeteners they did add cane or beet sugar and stevia. The result is that there are 21g of sugar in an 8oz serving. It's my humble opinion that the drink would have tasted fine, if not better with no additional sweeteners added, or at the very least have the amount of sugar added cut down. The flavors of the fruit juices would have been enhanced even more, and I wouldn't have to feel guilty about downing half the bottle in a sitting. God I'm a glutton.

When I saw this, I thought to myself, "This is going to suck." Why? It was dark and I thought it was a juice, regardless if it said "tea" or not. Anything in such a large container has to suck. Mass produced, so-called "premium" drinks are typically nothing but sugar water. Was I wrong? Yep-ahhh. I'm man enough to admit it, too. Ladies, did you hear that? A man, man enough to admit he was wrong? Trust me, ladies that are currently totally into me, Jay can attest to the fact that you want nothing to do with me.

This is good. Not too strong at all. A nice, well sweetened tea with the added, strange flavor of current. I don't know how I feel about current, yet. Jay tells me that it's huge in Europe, but here in The States, we're just getting into it. It has a berry taste, but a bitter berry taste. I purchased some current jam for PB&Js that's not too bad, so I'm getting used to the taste, and wanting to get used to the taste.

I don't know where my mom got this, but it's good and if you and like eight of your friends are ever together and want to try something new and you're all thirsty and this is there, get it. Most of you will like it. What a swimming endorsement. "Most out of eight like it!"

There is a paragraph on this bottle talking about how the company searches the globe for the rarest, and most exotic teas. I can just imagine tea-pickers scaling treacherous cliffs on mountains just to clip a few leaves from a tea plant growing near the top. These fine folks risk life and limb everyday so that the populace may enjoy the highest of quality tea. As a fan of tea I applaud them for that. Think of how pissed off those tea-pickers have to be when they see what is to become of their sacred harvest. They probably think that their tea is going to be sold in high-end markets or in expensive restaurants, not sold in 64oz plastic bottles. Worst of all to them has to be that they have gone to the far corners of the globe to get this tea and then their employers have mixed in peaches from the southern United States. I can just see them sitting around base camp grumbling about how their work is going to waste.

What I have to say to them is get over yourselves. Sure your tea isn't being served to kings, but it is being made into one hell of a product. Also, peaches are delicious and are way better than most exotic fruits. They are exceptionally great in teas. Old Orchard has taken the work of these self-righteous tea-pickers and turned it into a wonderfully light tea, with just a hint of peach. If I were them this tea would make me proud of my life's work.

Being sick is horrible. You're all stuffed up and you have that annoying itching in your throat. You make yourself cough to try and scratch it, which leads to you coughing uncontrollably for real. Ugh. You go for some cough drops that don't really do much, but you convince yourself they do. Hey anything to keep your mind off that annoying self inflicted cough.

This bottle makes me think of those previously mentioned cough drops. Everything about the label screams cheap cough drops to me. It turns out that it kind of does taste like the cough drops, minus the medicinal taste. That sounds completely horrible in theory, but in practice it's not bad. It's comforting without grossness. It's all natural/organic so you can really taste the lemon and honey. Thank goodness I'm not actually sick, but I can still enjoy this tea.