Philippines - 11 Reviews

"Four Seasons" starring four fruits. Watch this fall as your favorite fruits get together for the first time since high school and see what each one has been up to. In this heartwarming, yet hilarious tale, we learn about the four characters both as individuals and as a group and watch as them meet and grow apart. Tears are shed, punches are thrown and laughs are had.

We start out with Mango, a tough kid from the wrong side of the tracks meets up with Orange, a pretty, do-gooder who just wants a change of pace are playing basketball when on to the court comes Pineapple, a shifty-eyed kids that can't help but get into trouble. Finally, Guava, the youngest of the crew meets them at the mall and just doesn't leave them alone.

Together they get part time jobs at a juice factory where they made juice that tastes like them. It is a company run by Mango's dad who started it in his garage just to stay busy and out of trouble. Together they learn how to manage school, work and women all at the same time while making a nice juice that they all agree was better than almost any fruit punch. It is made with real ingredients (and heart) by four scrappy kids from all walks of life. It was not too sweet and everyone had their time in the sun.

Watch as they all say their goodbyes and go away to college but come back for a holiday several years later and talk about what their lives have become.

Find it today in your nearest gas station's "Straight to Video" bin.

Some mornings you wake up and you inexplicably feel like garbage. You know, just run down and dehydrated. It's what I imagine a lesser hangover would feel like, except no alcohol was consumed. In fact, yesterday I didn't consume anything out of the ordinary, or do anything too crazy. Perhaps it's just that all the little stresses I put on my body have all collected and culminated in one day of feeling like doo doo.

To help combat this I'm taking it east and drinking some coconut water, as it's known for being a crazy hydrator. Luckily I had this carton of Cocozia on hand. It's all organic, and in fact the only ingredient is organic coconut water. There are no extraneous sweeteners added and no wacky flavors. This is 100% just pure coconut liquid. It's good, but to me there is not much difference between all of the non-sweetened coconut waters on the market, which keeps it from becoming outstanding. I would certainly drink it again, but in the increasingly competitive world of coconut water I'm afraid it would be lost in the crowd for normal consumers. I will say that it has helped me a bit in my time of need, and for that I will have some brand loyalty.

When I was in junior high there was a girl who briefly lived down the street from me. She was a terrible excuse for a human. She was such a hood rat that I'm surprised her parents didn't name her Holly. Now for some reason this girl took a shine to me. I have no idea why as I made it perfectly clear that I thought she was horrible and wanted nothing to do with her. Even so she would show up at my house every day and just walk in. One day I was in the basement putting my trucks on a new deck, and she wandered down offering…€¦well I'm sure you can guess. When she wouldn't leave after me screaming at her, I grabbed a fire extinguisher and fired it in her face. That solved my problem, and she never came back.

This juice requires no screaming or C02 cannons. I expected it to be budget, because of the look of the can. That is a design from several decades ago if I ever saw one. Luckily it is anything but. This is a great tasting juice that spotlights some of the best that the tropical islands have to offer. We have mango, papaya, guyabano, pineapple and calamansi. This could have been solely any of those juices and I would have been a very happy boy. When you take a sip of them mixed together you can almost hear the tide coming in. It creates one of those flavors that just tastes tropical, but if you stop and think you can make out each of the individual flavors.

A word of advice to the youth of today: always keep a fire extinguisher and a can of juice handy and you'll have nothing but smooth sailing.

If this line of beverages is any indication, I believe I am long overdue for a trip to the Philippines. So far we have reviewed mango, calamansi and guava juices, and now we're on to pineapple. That's one hell of a foursome of juices to have readily available in your country. Do you like how I assume that all of those fruits grow rampant everywhere? Oh of course you can walk down any block in the Philippines and pick each of these fruits from trees you will pass. It's just like in America where you can't look more than 50 feet without finding apples, pears and grapes.

The other juices from this brand that we have done have had sugar added to them. It was unnecessary, but I could live with it and enjoy the juice. With this pineapple juice, they decided to throw caution to the wind and leave out the sugar. It was a wise choice. All that is in this can is pineapple juice, it's not sweetened and it's not watered down. It's wonderful, and not too acidic. It tastes like you're biting into a fresh pineapple that you cut from the bush you just passed on vacation, except you don't have to fear about your tongue bleeding from the amount of acid in it. Life is good in the Philippines.

Every morning I get up, use the facilities, pour myself a bowl of store brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch with unsweetened almond milk and check the internets. It's a ritual that I need in my life. When I'm out of town I try to mimic it as best I can, and if my body is not satisfied, it's going to be a rough day. I need to change up this ritual a bit and add a glass of juice to it. How great is juice? It tastes great, and if you drink the right kind it can be great for you.

I decided to start this change today with this can of mango nectar. Unfortunately this isn't the healthiest of juice due to the unnecessarily added sugar. It's also only 25% juice. When a company brags that their juice is not from concentrate I feel like it should be 100% juice. Oh well.

Mangos and pineapple both have this weird thing where they occasionally smell vaguely like vomit. I don't know what causes it, and I don't know if anyone else has the same reaction as me. One would think that if something has that scent it would be absolutely disgusting, not me. I love both fruits and all their juices. This falls on the average side of mango juices. Sure it tastes like mango, but it doesn't taste like you just bit into the fruit, which is what I'm always looking for in a juice. I guess you shouldn't expect much when juice comes in a can.

Is there a more perfect fruit than the guava? Side thought: what sort of contraption/green house would I have to build in my apartment in order to grow a guava tree that would bear fruit? I think the biggest allure of living in a tropical location would be that you could have a guava tree in your back yard. Imagine just waking up, rolling out of bed, strolling into the yard and picking some guavas for breakfast. If there ever was a heaven you now know how I would spend eternity.

The only way this drink could be any better would be if they cut out the sugar and had it be 100% juice. That's the dream right there. Since I'm from a climate that is opposite of tropical for most of the year I will take what is offered. This is sweet and wonderful, just like the fruit. It has the slightest bit of grainy texture due to the sugar, but I can overlook it. When are guavas in season? When is that one week out of the year you can get them in the grocery store in NY? I just want fresh fruit now.

"...and then we harvest our patented green tea apples."

Wait, what? Can you repeat that? I have to admit I wasn't really paying attention to your three-hour dissertation of your apple crop. I love apples, there's no disputing that, but I don't think I have the patience to listen to anyone talk about any food for that long. I mean even if I could ask Jesus anything and he would answer truthfully, I still don't think I would do it if I had to listen to him talk about wine or fish for three hours. It's just not worth the boredom. Sorry, but you were saying something about "tea apples?"

"Why yes, since you're a jerk and didn't listen to me, I will give you a brief summary of it. We grow our apple trees in a semi hydroponic environment. Every three days we replace the water they grow in for green tea. The result is a very plump, juicy apple that has a green tea flavor to it. You see the apple soaks up the essence of the...."

That's enough, friend. I understand what you're saying and I have to say that it's pretty ingenious. It's just too bad that the apples cost $10 each. No one is going to buy those. What's going to happen when no one buys them and you're left with bushels of semi rotten fruit?

"Actually that is a problem that we have already experienced. We decided the best course of action was to juice those tea apples and bottle it. You can buy bottles of it in the gift shop. They are only $2 each."

Well that's nice. I would definitely pay that. Let me go grab one. Wow this is good. It tastes exactly like what you described. You guys definitely added some sugar though. Wait a minute this says it was made in the Philippines. Last time I check we were in Akron, NY! Also it doesn't say anything about actual apples in the ingredients list. You're a liar!

"Yeah, well you're a jerk for not listening to me. Do you think it would actually be possible to make tea apples? I was just making stuff up to see how long it would take you to actually pay attention. This isn't even an apple orchard. It's a pumpkin patch. You're a jerk and idiot!"

I bought this because I had never heard of calamansi. The back of the can says it's a Philippine lemon, but a quick Google search brought up that it was more like a lime. Either way, it's some sort of citrus fruit. I was hoping this was going to be really tart and sour, but sadly it wasn't. It's good, but it tastes like a boring citrus drink. There's nothing special to this. Although, I just realized this is the first time I've had juice in a long time. Maybe I should drink less soda and more juice? I doubt that will happen.

After I had the Pomelo Alo drink I was on a mission to find an actual pomelo. After a few tries I found some at the local co-op. They are a bit on the pricey side, but they are surprisingly good. They are known as Asian grapefruits, and they taste like a less acidic version of it's Floridian cousin. I can't say I would go out and buy another one (it's quite a bit of work to eat), but it was enough to get me excited for this drink.

This was more like a sparkling juice than a soda. It's made with actual grapefruit juice, and it's not insanely sweet. It tastes like you cut a grapefruit in half and soaked it in sugar water. After a few days you extract the grapefruit and squeeze all of the juice out of it. It has a specific taste of the sugar being added before the fruit was juiced. It leaves it smooth, without any hint of harsh acidity that comes with citrus fruit. I really wish I had more than one can of this.

This is not nearly as good as I had expected it to be. The mango flavor somehow isn't very strong. It's actually pretty acidic. It seems to be on the verge of having that post vomit burn that everyone hates in their throat. The bits of mango are nice though. They are bigger than expected. It also comes in one of those cans that have the heavy bottom. Those have always annoyed me for some unknown reason.

I found this bottle of Sarsi at a large international supermarket near my house. Judging by the color, ingredients, and uncanny similarity to the Pepsi logo, I thought this was going to be a cola. I also didn't see the "I" at first and was really excited that there was a drink called Sars. After i pried off the non-twist bottle cap (all I had was a staple remover to help with this), it didn't smell nor taste like cola. It's more of a light sarsaparilla, but with a bitter aftertaste due to the use of aspartame instead of sugar or high fructose corn syrup. It's not bad, but it's not amazing. If you're a fan of sarsaparilla and don't mind artificial sweeteners, it's worth a try.