Trader Joe's - 22 Reviews

This was nice. I've got a head cold. I wish I could appreciate this more. Instead, it's just a flavored water. It's not super minty like Metromint. I miss Metromint. Man, that chocolate one was great. It doesn't taste like toothpaste which, while doesn't need to be said, should be noted at very least. The lemongrass, yeah, she's there. It's not strong but it's present.

Trader Joe's on a Sunday with your kid who just spit potatoes au gratin in your hands isn't the best way to close a weekend but this was a nice, pleasant way to kind of "round the edges" a little bit.

Ahh ginger beer. Always a welcome guest in my house. Gosling's, Goya and now Trader Joe's. Sure, there are other ones. What? Do you want me to make a list? Well it's not going to happen. Alright, fine. Here. Happy?

This is good. It's sweet. I could put this in the category of "entry level" since it's not going to burn the skin off your mouth. Tame. Could you give it to kids? Sure if the kids you are giving it to aren't wimps and if their parents aren't around. If I saw you giving my kids pop, I might say something. If I saw you giving my kids ginger beer, I might say something after I saw the look on their dumb, wimp faces as their tiny, young mouths are on fire.

This is sweeter than I like my ginger beer but makes up for in earthy, ginger flavor. It's like losing a game only to come up a couple points short in the fourth quarter. Everything was against you and you are still going home a loser just not as much of a loser.

What is that, a raccoon? Hyper, those raccoons. Them washing all that cotton candy in the stream. Calm down, raccoon. Man. Stop eating all that sugar and drink some of this tea. It's good, subtle and calming. Like chamomile but less on-the-nose. This dude who works here has been sweet enough to let me drink some of his tea and drink it I did. Sure, he's not breaking the bank buying a box of tea from Trader Joe's but who's bringing money into this? No one. He's generous. Let him be.

That raccoon had the right idea with this. Sure he's tangled up in Christmas lights probably doing something he shouldn't be doing but he's at least chilling with a nice, hot cup of tea. The cinnamon is subtle and the vanilla rounds it out. Think of this like the biggest dandelion. You could lift it without even thinking about it. This is like that, as strong as it is, it's still calm and smooth.

Also, for those of you not "in the know," this is the video I am referring to:


Sad, right?

Darren, what are you doing? I don't think that's how it works, man. You can't just not eat vegetables for a month and drink a green juice to try and facilitate your body's lack of proper vitamins and minerals. Can I have a sip? Bleh! I would rather eat vegetables every day like a normal person than drink a bottle of this. It just tastes like someone juiced up vegetables and is making you drink that. Do you remember when Sally had her jaw wired shut because of some jaw alignment issues and she didn't have anything to eat or drink for like two weeks? This would be perfect for her but you are an able bodied man and have the ability to actually eat food. Yeah, I know they claim there is an apple and lemon in there but they also claim to have seventeen kale leaves, one whole pound of spinach, and a handful of other stuff in there so one apple isn't quite cutting it.

Is something wrong with eating peas? You're in your late twenties and although you don't like to be reminded, you have to eat your vegetables, dude. There really isn't any way around that. This is not a solution to anyone's problem. Anyone who would drink this would already be eating vegetables and doesn't need to be binging on them anymore. Strange demographic Trader Joe's. Terrible choice Darren. Terrible choice.

Ahh summertime. Hot dogs raining from clouds made of hamburgers. The air filled with the scent of noodle salad and freshly cut grass. That's what summer is all about. I found something we can add to the mix and it is this drink. Watermelon cucumber? Are you kidding me? Summer, dude. Well, I don't know if people are making...wait...I'm on to something...pizza...where the pizza is a slice of watermelon and the pepperoni is cucumber...Mike, you're a genius. I'd like to patent pend this, please, if you don't mind. I'll be right back, hold on.

I just got back from the patent office and you can't patent the idea of putting vegetables on fruit for some reason unless you sell it as a product which I don't have the energy for but if you'd like to take it and run with it, I ask for ten percent of all sales.

Why should this be another staple in summertime drinking? Watermelon is a limited time, summer fruit. Ever eat watermelon in winter because it blows. Cucumber is fine year 'round but teamed up with his (or her) friend watermelon. BAM! Summertime Emeril style. Great watermelon taste with a light cucumber aftertaste all while not having to deal with any syrupy garbage. What more could you ask for? Oh, the hot dogs from the burger clouds are spoiling in the street? Yeah, but it cut down on your dog food spending, didn't it? Not so bad after all.

You know something is all the rage when grocery stores start selling their own version of it. Cold pressed juice has been on a steady climb in the world of popularity and now we have Trader Joes with three juices of their very own. I admit they are not your average grocery store, but this is still a big step. They have released onto the world a veritable Ethiopian flag of juice with their red, green, and yellow flavors.

This juice smells strongly of apples and yellow bell peppers. It's a weird combination of scents, but it lets you know exactly what you're in for. I took a sip and thought, “Wow this is amazing!” As I kept drinking I realized that while this is a good juice, I had gotten caught up in the cold pressed craze. I certainly enjoy this, but it's not over the top good. It's nothing that is going to make me salivate just thinking about. That exact response should be a requirement for beverages that get 5-Bottles on Thirsty Dudes. I mean if it were served to me I could pound bottle after bottle of this, but at the same time I could walk away after a couple of sips and not think about it again once the aftertaste faded away.

The contents of this juice are: 2 large apples, ¼ pineapple, 1 medium yellow pepper, 1/5 of a cucumber, 2 limes, and 3 mint leaves. For having so many ingredients that normally have such potent flavor, a bunch of them are very faint in the mix. The mint is only there as a coolness, and not as a flavor. I can't believe that two whole limes were squeezed to make this, because their flavor is so much in the background. In regards to flavor this is basically a hyped up apple juice. I want so badly for the pineapple to be stronger, but it doesn't quite get there. That yellow pepper is certainly there though. It's strange at first, but once you get used to it being mixed with the sweetness of the apples, it's quite nice.

I really have nothing bad to say about this at all, I just wanted more from it. It has all the health benefits you could ever want from a juice, along with a nice flavor. I'm just so hard to please these days.

Do you think Joe was originally known as Trapper Joe? For some reason, I always imagine him being from Canada, even though I know his origins are German (at least in some capacity). I just picture him out there in the wild wilderness of Canada, setting traps and collecting his bountiful pelts. He lived like a king, and then slowly, but then very suddenly the pelts dried up. Joe found himself without work, and started to lean on his other skills more, and got more into the commerce side of the game. It wasn't long until he started working with an entirely new set of people, who referred to him as Trader Joe instead of Trapper Joe. Eventually he made his way down to the States and well, the rest is history.

That whole scenario has nothing to do with this drink, but oh wait it does. For some reason they decided to name this juice “Heart of Darkness.” At first glance this seems to make no sense what-so-ever as neither mangos nor passion fruit are native to the Congo where Joseph Conrad set his short story. Since the actual juice has nothing to do with an ivory transporter in central Africa, I can only assume that the name is in some reference to Joe's history as a trapper come trader. Maybe the owners of the company are just fans of late 19th century literature. Either way it's a strange name for a juice.

No matter what the name, this is one tasty juice. While it's not solely mango and passion fruit juice, it is still 100% juice with apple, white grape and pineapple filling out the missing space. It does taste more like a tropical fruit punch then it's namesake, and even though that is a bit of a disappointment at first the taste is more than good enough to make you forget your woes.

Everyone is sick, right? This has been a brutal winter. It's the worst one in a long time. Not so much for the snow but man have you ever lived through so many consecutive sub-zero days in all your life? Frozen pipes and hundred dollar heat bills will be the death of me.

One thing that I think, psychosomatically, makes me feel better is tea. Hot tea and cold tea. It doesn't matter. Unsweetneed. When I went to the store and saw this, after the way that I felt the last couple days, you'd better believe that I got this. The whole gallon. I bought it, pretty effortlessly. "Green and white tea with a hint of mint. That will clear me up." I thought to myself.

Now I'm three glasses into this gallon and it's a very fine tea. It's unsweetened so there is nothing getting in the mix. You can taste the green, you can taste the white, and, if you think about it, you can taste the mint. "Hint of mint" is about all you get. Am I letting that get the best of me? No. I'm picking my battles and if it's being mad at a tea for not having enough hints, I'm wasting my time. I've wasted a lot of time in my life but being sore at mint has never clocked any time on the board and trust me that board has a lot of gripes on it.

Today has proven to be quite a blustery winter day even for me. What do I mean by that? Well here in Buffalo, you gain kind of a winter skin every year. You begin to not really care about the cold too much and by late January through March, you'll have days that are in the high thirties where you just don't wear a coat at all. You become accustomed to it. It's completely different that those people that wear shorts in the wintertime. Those people are just idiots.

Part of the whole "Being From Buffalo" thing is that I just drank iced tea and ate ice cream after walking my dog outside in six degree weather with twenty five mile per hour winds. That's not right to those of you from the South but up here, we handle the cold like you handle your sweaty, sticky, hundred degree weather.

The iced tea I drank was this large bottle from Trader Joe's where Jay and myself went last week. We bought the dumbest stuff available; mochi, iced tea, dried mango, and juice: Hardly grocery shopping. This tea took the backs seat while I destroyed the original green that I love so much. This is a different animal in and of itself. If I were to taste this not knowing that blueberry and/or pomegranate touched it, I don't think that I would have been able to guess what it was specifically. The more I drink it, though, the more I will just accept that they're in there messing around like a bunch of college teens who's parent's went to the grocery store and left them alone. It's half way between floral and fruity but that's only fifty (or twenty five percent each) of the drink. The other fifty is that nice base of a bitter green tea that loves me more than I've loved many girlfriends.

Would I take this over the regular green tea? I don't think so. This is "special occasion" stuff. Not because it's any more expensive, but just because I'd have to be in the right mood for it. The green tea I'm always here for like a truly supportive companion that takes all his melodramatic girlfriends to the hospital as soon as they complain about a headache or stomachache. He'll learn. I did.

It's not all green, but you might say that it's mostly green. Let's tally up the ingredients and see where we stand.
Apple …€“ Could very well be green.
Banana …€“ Could be green, but probably wouldn't taste very good. The fact that there is a very distinct banana flavor in here makes me think it was ripe and yellow.
Mango …€“ Orange, brown and yellow.
Pineapple …€“ Not even a chance of it being green.
Kiwi …€“ This is a glorious green, and I wish most of this drink were made of it.
Spirulina …€“ I had to look it up, but it certainly is green.
Chlorella …€“ It's green. I think it has something to do with chloroform, err I mean chlorophyll. I don't think this drink it going to make anyone pass out.
Other greens used: Broccoli, spinach, barley grass, blue green algae and parsley.
Ingredients included in the “Dried Greens Blend” that are not green at all: Garlic and ginger.

So as it stands we have nice green ingredients and five none green. I will give them their very green moniker. It looks like green sludge, so why not? It tastes pretty good. The base of this is similar to the Bolthouse and Naked “green” drinks. It's pretty sweet tasting and mostly taste like fruit and not the other additives. The only difference I can really tell is that it has a stronger presence of banana. It's a nice alternative, at about the same prince point.

Many a sailor has been known to warm his belly on dark stormy nights with a large bottle of whiskey. What is there out there for those teetotalers of the high seas who have lost their families and their former lives, not to the harshness of the sea, but to that of the bottle? The answer is simple, get each and every non-drinking sailor on your holiday shopping list a bottle of this Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Brew. It may not numb the pain in their lives, but it will give their throat and guts a similar warmness as their former love once had.

An employee has told me that all Trader Joes private label products are really other company's products that they have worked out a deal that they can slap their own name and label on. I really wish I knew the original producer of this soda, because I would sincerely thank them for creating such a treat.

The label announces to the world that this is “Ginger ale with a kick!” Don't be fooled, this is most definitely a ginger beer, and if you go into this expecting a nice pale dry ginger ale you're certainly going to get that aforementioned kick to the throat with the burn on this thing. It's simply wonderful. The thing is not only does this have a nice little kick to it that is better than most ginger beers, it also has an incredible flavor. Most companies just use ginger and maybe a little lemon in their ginger brews and while that is fine and good, it's a pretty straight forward flavor, albeit with a lot of kick. The mix in the bottle not only contains the usual suspects, but it also have honey, lime juice, spices and most importantly pineapple juice. Even though it's barely noticeable that little bit of pineapple makes all the difference and puts this ginger beer at the top of the game flavorwise. This is sweet, bubbly, throat burning and slightly fruity. I couldn't think of anything more to ask for in a soda. Oh wait, they did think of something else. They put it in a classic looking green glass bottle with a swivel top. Now that's class.

Now this could be trouble. Here's what happens; I drink countless drinks per week, between ten and fifteen new drinks per week. That's a lot, right? Not many of them grab me but in the case that I do find one that grabs a hold of you like some sort of starving hawk in the middle of a desert, I crave it. A lot. I think about the next time I will be in the area and I can get some. Currently, I'm riding the proverbial horse of Panera's Tropical Hibiscus. I Just Can't Get Enough.

I bought this and didn't think much of it other than I was thirsty but a couple hours later and three quarters of a thirty three ounce bottle later, here I am trying to wonder when the next time myself or someone I can will be out at our new Trader Joe's to get me like four bottles of "the stuff."

Now this is not perfect but it's darn close. It's got the smell and the taste. The only thing it's missing is that little thing in green tea that people that like green tea like and people who claim they don't like green tea don't like. That strange, back of your tongue bitterness that makes your mouth water and crave more. It doesn't have that but it does have a very good taste and just tastes like an honest, home brewed green tea.

At two dollars, you have no reason not to at least try it. They have a fruit one, too that I will get next time I'm there stocking up on this habit. Darn it, Joe. You've caught me like a fish at some sort of fishing derby. A little secret about me, though? I'll get hooked so hard that when you stop selling it, you will miss me like the deserts miss the rain.

Back when things on this planet were younger and simpler there was no such thing as money. Sure gold and jewels were precious and held value, but for normal transactions a barter system was used. If you're like me an image of Mad Max and Master Blaster just floated through the sea of your thoughts. While that may have been a utopian society in the making, it is nothing but fantasy. In the real world bartering did occur, and I'd like to think that the king of bartering was Joe, or the Trader fame.

Joe was the master trader. He was able to tell the way the winds of favor would blow, so he knew what to trade and when. It was like a predecessor of Wall Street. He would trade grapes for cherries in a town where cherries were prevalent. Then he would move on and trade those cherries in a pit free village for some animal furs. He was always trading up and eventually he trader for land and opened a store. Since he knew where he could get all of the highest quality products for the cheapest, his stores prices were low. It was the birth of an empire.

Nowadays things are run differently but Trader Joes remains. One actually just opened up in Buffalo. For those who don't know the company buys products from other companies in bulk and then slaps their own label on it. It's a lot cheaper than buying and running a factory to make each individual foodstuff. I'm not sure who originally made this spiced apple cider, but my hats off to them. It's just apples and spices to flavor. There is nothing artificial, and there is no added sugar. They have bottled the taste of autumn.

I'm from the area of the country where cider flows like water during these months. I am very picky about my cider and normally I do not like any that was not made at a local mill. This though, this is wonderful. The levels of the spices are at a perfect balance with the apple flavoring. It's a dangerous drink in that I could easily be a glutton and drink all 64oz in one sitting. I'm going to do my best not to do that, even though I just finished my second glass.

I have one question; do you like creamsicles? If the answer is no, don't even bother with this soda, because that is what it is in a bubbly liquid form. If you do, then I urge you to get your hands on one of these. As I said it tastes like a creamsicle, but one that was made with actual oranges. It's probably the most natural tasting orange cream soda I've ever tasted, which is always a good thing.

An employee of Trader Joes once told me that all of their products were actually the ends of the batches of other company's products with a Trader Joes label on it. It makes sense. I want to know what company is the rightful heir to this cream fortune, because I'd guess we already reviewed it, and for some reason I think this version tastes better.

Dude, I'm so glad I caught you. You'll never guess what happened last night. I was walking around, minding my own business when aliens abducted me. I know it sounds nutty but it really happened. It was kind of clichè, honestly. A UFO, round with a glass dome on top, flew over me, shined a light and I was sucked up into it. How did it feel? Um, it was just like it sounded, actually. Not painful, a little slower that I expected it to be, and just kind of like they turned down the gravity a bit.

So I'm in the spaceship and everything is chrome and white. There are aliens in there that started speaking a strange language to me and when they saw that I didn't understand, they just kind of switched over to English, but British English like in the movie Dreamcatcher. They said they were marketing some new drink and wanted someone "out of this world" to try it. I told them that it was a very lame line but I would help them anyways. Then they sat me down in an uncomfortable looking but incredibly comfortable chair and started pouring some drinks down my throat with a carafe that looked like it had been stolen from Denny's.

I've got to tell you, though. This drink, like their odd target demographic, was out of this world. It was somehow light but super flavorful and they said it was "tropical" but I've tasted a lot of fruit and a lot of "tropical" drinks and aside from a little lemon, everything else was indistinguishably fantastic. I mean it. I asked if I could take a carafe home but they said that this was a survey and all they could pay me was $20. I said that was fine, they beamed me down, and that was that.

I know you don't believe it but it's the truth. I gave them my mailing address and they said if it goes through the proper approved process and makes it to production, they would send me some. Here's hoping to that. I hope they ask me to do another survey.

Dear Trader Joe,
You don't know me but I've been a shopper at your grocery store for a few years now. I will admit I am not loyal to your establishment, but I do shop there as much as I am able to. I especially enjoy your veggie chips and hummus. It's easily my favorite hummus ever.

I haven't had the best of luck with your beverages in the past. Your so-called "vintage" sodas were quite bad if I may say so. I must say that I was a little skeptical of this limeade when I picked it up. I hate to judge a drink by it's bottle, but this screamed, "watered down artificial flavors" when I saw it. I was pleasantly surprised to find only 4 ingredients in the bottle: water, sugar, limejuice, and lemon juice.

I don't know whom you traded to get this, but you made a good trade. This is easily one of the best limeades I have ever tasted. It's very quenching, but also has a great tartness to it. I wish it was sourer, but that's only because I am still searching for that drink that is so sour that it hurts.

Good job Joe! You're good at trading.

Sincerely,
Derek

This went bad. Really bad. Terribly bad. Did I still drink it? Yep-ahh. I'm a glutton for punishment. I'll give you the back-story:

My girlfriend went to Vegas. She only won $100 but with the proceeds, she went to Trader Joe's, a store we don't have where we are from, and bought a handful of stuff that you can't get here. One of those drinks being this watermelon juice. She then came home, gave it to me, and I brought it to work to review.

So here I am, thirsty. After all, I am a thirsty dude. I say to myself that I'm going to try this watermelon juice because, after all, I like watermelon. I open the cap, hand it to my friend Mike (pictured) and he tries it, and quickly shows a face of utter disgust. "It tastes like someone crushed the watermelons with rubber." he says handing the bottle to me. I smell it, and it's putrid. I taste it...equally putrid. It tasted like you ate two day old, thrown out watermelon.

Think like you are a homeless person and you go through the garbage on a Monday after a back yard barbecue held the previous Saturday. You find what looks like a perfectly good slice of watermelon, but lo and behold, it is not. Put that in a bottle and sell it and that's what you've got.

This was probably out of the fridge for too long during transport so I might re-rate this at a later date. If someone else has had this with better luck than myself, please tell me otherwise. If this is how it tastes, share this link with your friends so that they stop making garbage watermelon juice.

First off, how awesome is the old time golf guy on the front of this? I'm pretty sure it's their way of incorporating the well-known name of this drink (an Arnold Palmer) without the ability to use the famous golfer's name.

This is the first lemonade/tea mix that I've found that is organic so I was very happy about that. While I have not had many, I must say this is my favorite I've ever tasted. Arizona's half and half is good, but the HFCS and aspartame just don't go well with how delicious this drink is. For that reason, I was so happy to see this was made with organic cane sugar. A glass of this goes down really smooth, and it's the perfect mixture of tea and lemonade. My only complaint is that it isn't available in smaller bottles. I would love to stock up my fridge with 20oz bottles of this. But for now, I'll still enjoy this out of the 64oz containers it's sold in.

First of all, please, for me, be careful with this. It might be the darkest juice I've ever drunk and I don't want you spilling it on your white Polo shirt and off white tennis skirt.

Onward to the review:
Stuff is good. It has no sugar in it but somehow only with fruit clocks in at a whopping 300 calories. Seems high but I'm not a nutritionist. This juice is filled with pomegranate, blueberry, apples, and grape juices and purees. This might actually be a healthy drink if you split it in its recommended serving size of half the bottle.

It's not bitter and it's not gritty like you might think a partially pureed and pomegranate drink would be. Maybe a little tart but who doesn't like that tight cheek feeling?

Get it. You will like it.

Did cola 40 years ago taste bad? Because if this is vintage cola, I'll stick with the modern recipe. This is made with can sugar, yet has the bite and aftertaste of HFCS. Usually cane sugar cola's taste much better than the normal 99 cents per 2 liter store brand stuff, but this one tastes just like them, if not worse. This is my 2nd bottle of Trader Joe's "vintage" sodas. The only one I haven't tried yet is Orange Cream, and I don't know if I want to see how bad they messed up one of the best soda flavors. I'm going to try it though for the sake of Thirsty Dudes, so check back soon to see how that goes