Bolthouse Farms Protein Plus Vanilla Bean

Due to a label that reads “New & Improved” and a flavor name that is similar enough to “Perfectly Protein Vanilla Chai Tea” I was pretty sure this was just a rebranding of one of their classic flavors. I mean even the image on the front is very similar.

The sad truth is that this is not the case. While the Vanilla Chai Tea flavor had a wonderful borderline soynog taste to it, this is more along the lines of a traditional protein drink. It has a very strong vanilla flavor, which is nice, but it also has a perhaps even heavier dairy flavor that I could do without. It's also very thick in a weird kind of way. It makes me think that I'm drinking something I shouldn't be for the sake of healing muscles, you know like when people eat raw eggs. This may not be as gross as that, but it's still a weird drink, especially for someone who doesn't consume much dairy.

Another weird note about this is that there are 40g of sugar in this bottle (mostly from cane sugar). That just seems counterintuitive for a protein drink to me.

I really hope they haven't discontinued the flavor I thought this was, because now that I think about it I don't think I've come across it in a while. That was one delicious flavor, and this just seems like a functional beverage that you would drink out of necessity and not out of want.