Agave - 11 Reviews

Of the things I don't understand in life one of the big ones in the realm of family matters is why my father has a Kokopelli tattoo. I have no idea why in his late forties he decided to get a tattoo of a fertility deity. I know it also representative of agriculture, but my father is not a farmer, and I have never known him to tend even a houseplant. He also represents the spirit of music, but my father isn't a big music guy either. The tattoo is just one of the mysteries of the universe. I mean I could ask him why he got it, but that would take the fun out of it, and then he might talk to me about my tattoos, and who wants to explain to their parents why they have a llama and an ostrich dressed as Batman and Robin tattooed on them. I'll keep the mystery in all of our lives.

I'm also left wondering why Coco Libre uses a Kokopelli on their bottles as well. He is a symbol embraced by the Native American tribes of the southwest. They are located in Palo Alto (northern California) and neither coconuts nor chia; the two main ingredients in the company's products are native to that area of the country. The deity's presence is as puzzling on this bottle as he is on my father's skin.

Their choice of mascot aside, this is a nice little beverage. As far as I know Coco Libre is the only company out there combining coconut water and chia seeds, to which I give them a tip of my hat. I am a fan of chia seeds in drinks, as I enjoy a beverage with some texture to it. I have also been fully converted and love coconut water. The added flavor is very strong in this. 26% of this is concentrated fruit juice, and that is a high percentage seeing as the seeds take up most of the bottle. They also put out unusual flavors for coconut water. This leaves me wishing I had cherry coconut water available to me. I like cherries, and I love cherry drinks, well as long as they don't taste like cough syrup, which this doesn't at all.

On recommendation of the generous woman that gave us this drink, I mixed this with seltzer water. Now what did I think of it. Let me think...how would you feel if someone gave you a hand-crafted tea mixed with your favorite ingredients? Huh? Tough one, right? How much could it possibly suck to have something like a darjeeling tea with hibiscus, strawberry, and lemon peel in it? Hmm. That's a good one. These are tough questions you are asking, brain. You can tell, because you're my brain, that I am being facetious…€Ž because clearly it's freaking awesome.

Starting from the outside in, this is a piece of art as much as it is delicious. It comes in a heavy-duty matte black, glass bottle. You open that bad boy up and it is fruity and floral and inviting. I did what they said which was two parts Owl's Brew to one part sparkling water. I drank a glass of it without even flinching. It tastes like it smells like, and it smells how it tastes, back and forth. It is a true gift for many of your senses.

You can buy this online. I encourage you to do so. If you are in the New York City region, this can be found on shelves. It might seem like a lot but come on. Be honest. You've spent more on dumber things. This is worth it. Split it with a friend if you can't seem to make ends meet on it. You can sit and talk about how the job market blows together over your high echelon tea mix and feel like you are working that dreadful office job you don't want but if they call you back, you know you're going to take it. Hey, they've got cheap vending machines in the office, free garbage coffee, casual Friday's, and the receptionist you saw when you walked in for the interview is at least a seven. Sevens count when times are tough, man. We can't all be hanging around with dimes all the time. Got to put it into perspective.

Let's play a variation of the classic Easter game guess how many jelly beans are in the jar to win a big stuffed bunny. This time we're dealing with neither beans, nor jelly. Well, I guess there is a little jelly coating these seeds we're counting. Yes, you guessed correctly; today's game is guess how many chia seeds are in this bottle of CoCo Libre. There are certainly hundreds, possibly even thousands (but not very likely).

There are a handful of brands that have been making beverages with chia seeds in them, as they are rich in omegas and other junk that make them healthy. They also help to curb your appetite. So while this is nothing new in that regard this is the first company I know of to add them to coconut water. Even though I was greeted with a mouth full of dozens of tiny slimy seeds, my first thought was, “Why have I never come across strawberry kiwi coconut water before?” Seriously, with all of the flavors on the market, I never thought of this one, and it works. The base of this drink is coconut water that I wouldn't mind drinking on its own. Yes there is agave added to it for sweetener, which I wouldn't need in its non-seeded form, but yeah…€¦I want that.

So you probably want me to mention more about the seeds, huh? Well I don't think they have much of a flavor, but they are slippery and provide enjoyment for your mouth. I do not suggest chewing them. Actually try to chew them as much as you want. Their slimy coating makes them slip around your teeth and it takes quite an effort to actually bite into them. I just prefer to swish them around my mouth and then swallow.

I did mention a prize, didn't I? Well whoever guesses the correct amount of seeds, gets a life sized chia llama. Actually screw that. I'm keeping it for myself.

I cannot stress enough how this is not for everyone. I mean I think it's pretty obvious from the name and the ingredients listed right on the front that Joe and Sara Hamburger stand would never buy this in a million years to try, but I still feel like I needed to give a disclaimer. While it is not as intense as the vanilla bean flavored one, this ton bottle packs quite a punch. It's an extreme anti-oxidant cleansing formula full of turmeric, ginger, cardamom, spearmint, agave, lemon, sea salt, cayenne and cinnamon. Think about all of that mixed together. Doesn't it sound more like some sort of fancy soup, than a health drink? Well, that's pretty much what it tastes like a cold fancy soup that tastes like it just has to be insanely good for you, which it is. I know Tumeric is going to a niche market with this drink, but if they wanted to reach a wider audience perhaps marketing it as a healthy cold soup would interest more people. Who knows though, I'd gather that a large majority of the people in this world wouldn't care regardless. At least people would know what they were getting into before trying it though. If I were told this was a soup, my body would have been more prepared. As it is now, it's telling me, “Are you sure we should be ingesting this?” The answer is yes, of course.

The sweetness of the agave takes away a lot of the harshness of the other ingredients. It still tastes the way a spice shop smells, but that is what it is essentially. If you think about each of the ingredients while you are dinking it, each are easily identifiable. The ginger and the cayenne give it a nice little burn that I enjoyed a great deal, but my ladyfriend thought was a bit too much. What does she know though? She's no professional.

I currently have a sore throat and I was hoping that by drinking this it would help. I remembered last time I had a chia seed drink, it felt like it was massaging my throat as the slimy little things slid down. While it does indeed still do this, it didn't give the desired relief from pain that I was expecting.

Drinking this is weird because since there are so many seeds, you feel like you have to chew on them before swallowing. I have been trying for 5 minutes now and they just slide out from under my teeth anytime I try to chew. Now I'm thinking about all these seeds I'm ingesting and irrational worrying about that urban legend about swallowing seeds and plants growing inside you.

"We did an x-ray and we found a full size Chia Pet in your stomach". That would probably get me on the cover of Weekly World News, or at least #4 on a blog article titled "10 of the weirdest things found inside a person's stomach".

I was expecting this to have more of a mint taste. Maybe they forgot to mix it in, because all I taste is pomegranate. I love pomegranate, but I was excited to see what pomegranate mint would taste like. Maybe I should drop a 'wint-o-green' Lifesaver inside to see. Rats, I don't have any.

What else is there to say about Mamma Chia drinks that we haven't said before? They are certainly unique. They are also very tasty. They start with a wonderful tasting juice (cranberry and lemonade in this case) and then fill the bottle with the insanity that is chia seeds. The hard seeds are coated in a slimy substance that helps them go down very smooth. They are slimy, but not in a gross way. It adds more of a thickness to the consistency of the drink. It makes drinking fun. And there are health benefits to it.

The flavor of this is strong, but not overbearing. It tastes like mild lemonade with a mild cranberry flavoring. I say mild only because it's neither tart nor bitter like both of the fruits are in their normal form. There is nothing mild about the taste.

Grandma, thanks a lot for inviting me and Bobby over for dinner. It was very nice of you. I know your eyesight isn't that great anymore so if there is anything I can do to help, let me know. Yeah, I can carry this turkey in the other room. What else? Scalloped potatoes? You've got it. Bobby, can you get the carrots and the peas?

Yeah, dude. I love corn, too. I don't know why she didn't make any. She wasted the time to make lima beans and that time would have been better spent making corn. I might just do it. Man, I love corn. I saw this weird thing on her counter. Did you see it? Do you know what I'm talking about? It was in a bit pitcher. It was purple and had little seeds in it. I don't know what she did there. I hope that her eyes didn't deceive her when she was making something and she mixed a whole bunch of stuff together like we used to and then dared each other to drink it.

What was that grandma? Yeah, I'll have something to drink. Whatever is fine. So Bobby, what do you want to do after this? Do you want to play that new Sonic game? It looks awesome. Oh no. Dude. She's...oh no. Thanks grandma. Dude, she brought us two heaping glasses of that stuff. What is this, Bobby? Hey, grandma? What is this? It smells good but it looks kind of weird. Oh, just drink it and we'll like it? Well, can't say you aren't anything less than a wonderful salesman...er...saleswoman. Sales lady? Dude, we've got to drink this. It's grandma. I'll go first because I'm older.

Oh that's strange. It's actually good, Bob. It's like raspberry Jell-O. Why anyone would want to drink that I don't have any idea, but it's there and she made it and we've got to drink it. What are those seeds? You can't taste them, but they're there. Grandma? What are the seeds in this drink? Chia Seeds? Like the same things that are used in Chia Pets? Why would you put it in a drink? Oh, for your B.M.'s. Fantastic, that should make the rest of this dinner, which I have a giant, untouched plate of, taste delicious.

Well Bobby...prepare for a strange dinner, great tasting but oddly textured drinks, and award winning poops later, brother. I call the bathroom first.

Let me tell you the tale of Chia Steve. His cousin Joe is the founder of the Chia Pet empire. The fortune that he amassed during the late 70's an the 80's was enormous. We're talking Scrooge McDuck money here, like swimming pools full of money-money. You're probably thinking "Well good for him. He had a great idea and he ran with it and it paid off." Chia Steve would break your thumbs if he heard you say that. Steve was, and I guess still is, a botanist. Early in his career he came across the salvia hispanica (chia plant for you non-scientists out there). He became obsessed with how easily the seeds germinated and it was his life goal to discover all of this plants secrets. He spent so much time with the chia plants that the seeds would often get lodged in his unruly beard. It was at Thanksgiving 1976 when Steve went to his family dinner. He had been up all night with his plants and had yet to sleep. He didn't have much time so he just jumped in the shower to rinse off. Steve didn't realize that there were a whole mess of seeds in his beard and by the time dinner rolled around they had begun to sprout on his face. The entire family, including Steve, had a good laugh about it. He gave everyone a quick lesson on the plant and then ate his weight in mashed potatoes and stuffing. Steve had no idea that Joe was even paying attention until six months later when Chia Pets hit the market. Joe wouldn't even return Steve's calls and the infamous "Chia Court" battles ensued. It really broke poor Steve's mind grapes and he became a bit of a shut in.

A few year ago his sister finally got him to open his door to her. She came over weekly to drop off food, and clean up the place a bit. Once she got grossed out because she thought thousands of tiny spores had sprouted in one of Steve's juice glasses. It took quite a while for him to convince her that they weren't spores and were in fact chia seeds. He had been adding them to his morning juice for years for their health benefits. That was the moment that turned Steve's life around. His sister convinced him to market this juice. He was reluctant at first until she convinced him they would give cousin Joe a run for his money. Thus Mamma Chia was born.

Their flagship flavor was the cherry lime. It's weird because in a world obsessed with mojitos whenever you taste lime you expect the cool crispness of mint to follow. That is not the case with this beverage. Instead you are met with the tartness of cherry juice. It's not a combination of juices that I could drink a lot of, but the seeds really work with it. They are coated with some sort of gelatinous casing that makes them go down smooth. It's almost frothy feeling. The taste of the lime and the cherry mixed in with the entertainment of the coated seeds make this a tasty and interesting beverage. Here's to hoping that Chia Steve will soon be diving into Olympic swimming pools full of gold doubloons.

ps. Everything stated above with the exception of how awesome the drink tastes is a complete fallacy. Sincerely, Known Liar Jason.

Yesterday we did this video review for Mamma Chia. That's right it has the same seeds in it that are in Chia Pets. With any luck I will grow a plant beard where my normal one is now.

It looks like it would be a pretty rough drink as there seem to be approximately 50 million seeds in each bottle, but they are covered in some sort of coating that makes them go down smooth. They actually give the impression of the drink being really frothy.

As far as flavor goes, it's pretty great. It has a very strong blackberry flavor. Actually the seeds kind of feel like someone systematically separated all of the "balls" from a berry.

In the 80's there was nothing cooler than skateboarding. It's all my friends did and talked about. Somewhere along the lines skate videos came out. Companies took video of their best skaters, put it to music, and made magic for kids everywhere. My friends and I all had Powell Peralta decks, so we were obsessed with the "Bones Brigade" series. My favorite out of them all was "The Search for Animal Chin." The plot of the video was that the skaters were looking for a wise man named Won Ton "Animal" Chin. They searched everywhere for him and skated everything in their path. It led to some pretty intense sessions. At the end they find a half pipe in the desert with a Chinese symbol on it. The message is that "As long as skaters keep searching for Chin, they've already found him." I feel the same way about iced tea. We search high and low for the perfect tea and we come across a ton of incredible stuff in our adventures. This may not be the ultimate tea that we're searching for, but it's good. It's a blend of a bunch of different teas mixed together. It's "barely sweetened", so it's nice and bitter with a slight peach flavoring. This may not be Chin, but it's certainly a tea he would drink.

This is an iced tea for adults. I might go as far as to say this is an iced tea made specifically for grandmothers. I could never in a million years imagine a child drinking this, let alone enjoying it. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. There are tons of different people out there and everyone likes different things. It's not really my thing, but I'm sure others will love it.

This tastes like a kindly old grandmother brewed a kettle of red tea. She put some slices of lemon in it and lightly sweetened it with agave (okay so maybe this grandmother lives in Portland or Austin, who am I to say?). She then realized that it was the middle of the summer and it was blistering hot out (looks like she lives in Austin). She then poured the kettle into a nice pitcher and put it in the fridge. A couple of hours later she had company over so she poured some glasses and everyone sat out on the porch enjoying the Texas summer (I knew it was Austin!).