No Sugar Added - 718 Reviews

There is a video game that you should know about called "Trials HD." I have easily invested hundreds of hours playing it. It's a simple motorcycle game where you accelerate, brake, and lean your way to the end as quickly as possible. There is a level in it called "Dreamscape" that is all over the place. Ramping up and down through someone's crazy imagination with floating planks, scaffolding, and twisted wood. You can see what I'm talking about here.

This drink is the liquid equivalent of that track. I've made a few mugs of this before and liked it, but preferred "the original" variety. After drinking it today, I might change. It's so spicy. It's almost woody and peppery. If you like light drinks, you couldn't drive your car away from this drink fast enough. It's a lingering drink, too. So spicy. It caught me off guard because I didn't know that it was going to be so bold. If you're in the market for a change and need to pull a total 180, this is the place to go. Oooh. So spicy.

We don't have Jamba Juice in Buffalo. It's not here, so I complain about it. Truth be told if we did have them here, I would probably go there once, maybe twice. I make a decent amount of smoothies at home, but I rarely go out into the wild world to purchase them. The closest I've ever come to going to one was in DC when we were walking around and a member of my traveling party yelled, “OOOHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! JAMBA JUICE!!!.” It was the most effeminate that I have ever heard a straight man say, and it turned out it was actually a hardware store and not a juice emporium His enthusiasm was enough to pique my interest in the chain. That experience was five years ago, and I still have ever had Jamba Juice. I guess I wasn't all that interested.

While my attraction wasn't enough to have me actively search out one of their locations, I was still pretty excited when I saw this in the store. What we have here is O.N.E. coconut water mixed with fruit juice and an antioxidant boost from Jamba Juice. It was a great marriage of companies. A company that makes pretty great coconut water merged with a company that I can only assume makes pretty great juice and the result is, as expected, pretty great. It tastes more like juice that it does coconut water, which works for me. It has mostly a mango flavor with some hints of orange, and the slightest flavor of banana (not enough to ruin the drink for me). I could drink a carton at least 7 times as big as this one and probably still want more. It's tasty, it's refreshing and I can only imagine that getting the juice fresh from a Jamba Juice outlet would warrant someone yelling, “OOOHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! JAMBA JUICE!!!.”

For the first time ever I will now claim that scientists don't know what they are talking about. Sure they know the answers to pretty much about everything, but when it comes to the sun, they have it all wrong. I don't know where they got all of this malarkey about the Earth spinning and revolving around the sun at the same time. It's pretty obvious to every single person with the sense of sight that the Earth sits still and the sun moves in regard to us. All you have to do to know that is the truth is to look up at the sky.

I can even explain why the sun moves the way it does. It's simple actually, being the sun is a lot of work and requires a lot of energy. After awhile the sun just gets tired. Literally the sun gets exhausted and needs to take a rest. The sun's parents didn't raise a fool, so our friend in the sky has manners. He knows that it would be rude to just turn off his flames and take a nap where everyone can see him, so he goes off and hides on us and takes comfort in slumber.

I guess I wasn't completely correct when I said that all scientists were wrong earlier. There is a small faction that work for the Solixir company who know what the deal is. They have known for a while how the sun works and have devised a way to harness all forms of its power. They had a team go up to the sun in this crazy fire proof/heat resistant suits to collect both it's daytime energy and the anti-energy the sun uses to help it to relax and fall asleep (aka the sun's sleeping pills). They used these samples to synthesize the way the sun works and have used it in their functionality beverages.

The drink I have in my hand is one that harnesses the relaxation power of the sleeping sun. The thing is that they don't want other companies mimicking their discovery, so they don't just come out and list “the relaxing properties of the nighttime sun” on the ingredients list. Instead they just list the other things in this beverage: chamomile flower, passionflower herb, lemon balm, jejube berry and hibiscus flower. They lightly flavored this mixture with blackberry juice and added some carbonated water to create a nice little product. The botanical blend kind of gives off a slight fennel taste, but it's more like a memory of a fennel flavor. Overall the entire drink tastes very light. There is no sweetener in it and it tastes more like a flavored sparkling water. Knowing the potential power of this drink Solixir did the responsible thing and only put the smallest traces of the sun's power in the drink. They didn't want people just passing out everywhere as soon as they took a sip. In fact the drink doesn't make you tired at all, it simply relaxes you and let's you enjoy the day as the sun flies by overhead.

Do you remember Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock? Well, he's back in a big way. What they never really delved into during the show was that the whole reason for Matt's travels was that he was searching for a fruit that he had once tried as a child. He was so fixated on a fruit whose name that he had never known that he traversed the globe and tried every fruit he could get his hands on.

His trip would have been cut way shorter if it wasn't for the great blunder of `93. That was when he first visited Florida and tried an orange. He thought that it was similar to the fruit of his memories, but it wasn't quite there. It was on that same trip that he passed a grapefruit orchard, but he kept right on going because he mistook them for unripe oranges. Since that time he had gone all over the world and felt that he must start over. On his second trip to Florida a few years ago he finally tasted a grapefruit and the memories came flooding back. The way it's sour juices spilled over his throat in such unique way. He had tried it with sugar, and sure it was tasty, but he felt it ruined the magic of the fruit. He spent the day as if it were a dream wandering the orchard and gorging himself on the yellow fruit.

The next morning he took what was left of his monies and purchased the orchard. He then went to task or juicing the wonderful fruit for the world to enjoy. He sent a case back to Gobo and the rest of the Fraggles, but they never received them. After Doc passed away the Fraggles never seemed to receive their mail anymore. It was a travesty.
“Oh well,” thought Matt at least the world could still experience his juice, which was made of nothing but the nectar of organically grown grapefruits. He never made it from concentrate, nor did he ever add sugar. Matt was a purist when it came to fruit juice and the world thanked him for his wonderfully sour juice.

It's been a rough day at the gym and you are beat. You spent an hour just juicing your pecs and then went to a three hour spin class. You didn't even know what spin class was, it was just on the activities board and you had time. You're still not sure why it was three hours long, but your muscles are screaming and you can barely move. Lucky for you there is a small concessions stand in your gym. They sell a lot of juice and smoothies, but the thought of drinking something with such substance is enough to make you want to vom. You need something that is cold and refreshing. The employee working the stand suggests you try a Phenom coconut water. “Oh no” you tell him and then you proceed to tell him how you had coconut. The man assures you that it is nothing like coconut in a cookie or dessert, it is it's own thing. Who are you to argue with a professional? You choose the orange guava passion flavored one because you are no fool and anything with guava or passionfruit is always going to be the option you pick, put the two of them together and you have a no-brainer on your hands. You take off the cap and gulp down half the bottle (who could blame you after three hours on that damn bike?). The employee was right, this doesn't taste anything like the garbage coconut your aunt puts on everything she calls dessert. Actually, you quite enjoy this and you actually feel yourself getting re-hydrated. Unfortunately neither the guava or passionfruit are very upfront but the collective tropical flavor of the three fruits (which really doesn't taste like any of them individually) is quite tasty. Before you know it the carton is empty and you go to buy another one. The employee suggests you stop being such a glutton and drink some water instead. Isn't the whole reason you're in the gym to get in shape and stop being a slob? You tip your non-existing hat, which makes you look like a moron and head to the locker room a person forever changed.

I feel sort of stupid reviewing these drinks, because they are essentially just water. Sure each one has a little something added for a benefit, but you can't taste it at all. Well, maybe you could taste it if you had insanely powerful taste buds, but I assure you I only have an unnaturally strong sense of smell.

What we have in this instance is a bottle of vapor distilled water with magnesium added to it. One would think that this is some kind of energy water since it's called “Power,” but the name is just because magnesium helps to build strong bones and muscles. The bottle says that it's a nice change of pace from eating spinach. I say they are wrong. Spinach is delicious and I eat it all the darn time. I also drink a cubic butt load of water a day, so I guess it's for those of us who don't get enough of either, but yep…€¦it still tastes like water.

Wait, I thought that Fandango was that service where you could order movie tickets? Oh, it is. I'm not crazy. When I asked you to bring up Fandango, I meant for you to bring it up on the computer, not bring me a glass of sparkling juice. Yes, I know we have plans tonight to go to your niece's stupid recital. Oh good we get to go listen to four year olds pretend they know how to sing and play instruments. I just wanted to try and pre-order tickets for Batman. Yes, I know that it doesn't come out until mid June, but I want to make sure that I get tickets for the midnight showing. I mean it's Batman, he's the greatest “super hero” of all time and he's fighting Bane. Have you even watched the preview yet? I told you to about a million times. Obviously you haven't though, or you wouldn't be questioning me.

Okay, you've gotten me sidetracked. Back to the question at hand: What is this drink? Oh, it's a spritzer that is names “mango fandango.” I guess that makes sense that you brought me it. I mean it's not bringing me any closer to seeing Batman, but it is tasty. I appreciate that there are no added sweeteners, just the glory of fruit. It seems like a lot of companies use apple juice as a base for everything, and I understand that. Pure mango juice would be way more expensive. Luckily the addition of mango and passionfruit juice to the apple juice gives it a great flavor that stands out. It tastes tropical in a completely non-citrus way. I like citrus, it's helped me out many times in my life, but I would choose this type of tropical any day. This is actually very sweet for not having sugar added to it. We should bring a case of it to the after recital party tonight. Those youngsters these days eat/drink way too much garbage and they all seem to be getting overweight. If we turned them on to this instead of regular soda they will thank us in twenty years. Oh man in twenty years I bet there will be at least 3 new Batman franchises. I can't wait.

So this is it, friends. This is my last drink review before I board two planes and a ship on voyage to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. No friends for a week. No Thirsty Thursday with Jay and editor Dan. No Trials Evolution. No work. No baby. No dogs. No email. No phone. No internet. I will be handwriting my emails, which I am partially excited about since it will make me feel like a proper writer. "Why don't you bring your laptop?" you ask? Well the answer is that it is incredibly cumbersome to travel with a 17" laptop and virtually pointless if you don't have internet.

To send myself off with a bang, I decided to drink this drink. Now there are several reasons why I chose this drink.
1. I should have drank it when Jay told me to because it expired two weeks ago. Actually, three weeks ago. April 5th, to be exact. I just assume that things keep longer and I don't really trust expiration dates which has gotten me in to trouble before, but I'm still alive so in the long run, I win.
2. I knew this could either be really good or footy. Blackcurrant has exclusively tasted like feet for everything I've drank since doing this site so why would this be any different? Sure, the rest of the Red Jacket stuff has been exceptional, but the powers of blackcurrant are not to be messed with.

These two reasons together invited me to drink this, and only this drink. Sure, I drank that horchata earlier, but my mom got it for me and I couldn't let it sit there. It's milk!

I drink and I drink until there is virtually no apple juice left. It doesn't smell bad and it doesn't taste bad. It tastes like a strong natural apple juice. It actually doesn't have any essence of "foot" at all which leads me to believe that they either forgot it all together or they put just enough in to be able to say they put it in there making it partially but not really exotic at all. There might be some aftermath of the blackcurrant's bitterness, but still, it just tastes like an orchard-ready apple juice to me. For that reason, it's delicious. Nothing really special, just honest-to-goodness apples, vigorously crushed and strained into a bottle that would end up in my fridge only to be drank almost a month past it's "Enjoy By" date.

I made a mistake in the past by not buying a lot of drinks when I went overseas. I might wager a guess to say that 50% of the reason that I got a passport was to go to Canada with Jay to get drinks and not to go with my girlfriend to Ikea and get lamps or something. The latter was actually holding me back. The strength of my love for Thirsty Dudes lured me to fill out that form for the fifth time and actually follow through with it.

This time tomorrow I will be in Fort Lauderdale at a hotel, or if I'm lucky, at some seedy Florida bodega searching for some new drinks. Wish me luck friends, as you might not hear from me for a week.

Dear Red Jacket,
I am now under the impression that there is no juice that you cannot master, well at least not one that is apple based. Everything I have tasted that you have produced is beyond great. You take fresh fruit and cold press them into perfection. This drink has no added ingredients, just apples and strawberries. It's the way juice should be and it tastes incredible. Each sip is like I'm picking a strawberry fresh from the patch and shoving it in my mouth, which is already overrun by delicious apples. That is something that I really feel I must do now. Does gluttony count if it's with fruit? Isn't that just healthy? Either way, keep doing what you're doing and I hope that some day you will expand your juices into the realms of other fruit.

My ladyfriend recently watched a documentary about a man who went on a strict juice diet for some insane amount of time. He lost an insane amount of weight and improved his health immensely. I keep toying with the idea of trying it myself and see how far I can take it. I'm not exactly overweight or anything, it's just that winter is ending which means that I have been incredibly lazy and inactive for the past five months and I don't like the way it makes me feel. I have already started to get active again. I've broken out my bike and gone for a few rides, but a little help never hurts. Also, I like challenging myself.

So there I sat with the idea of this juice diet swimming around in my head and I saw this bottle of Fave juice sitting in my fridge. In the documentary the guy only drinks fresh juice, but I know I can't afford that so I figure anything that is 100% juice with no added sweeteners would work for me. I thought to myself “I'm going to start this right this very morning.” I grabbed the juice, poured myself a decent size glass, and began my journey. As soon as I took my first step of my journey the problems arose. This doesn't taste quite right. Let me rephrase that, this tastes like it should, but not the way I want it to. I wanted it to be a nice citrus juice that masked the flavor of the vegetables contained, but retained their nutrition. Instead what I got was a vegetable juice that had a citrus flavor to it. There are two distinct juices in this bottle and they are battling it out for the top flavor. Unfortunately for me the vegetable juice is winning out. I have no problem with vegetables. I love them. I eat them daily. My problem is that the fruit juice has sweetened the vegetable flavor and it just tastes strange. I'm sure there are loads of people out there that would love this juice, so I'm going to give it a three-bottle review. There is nothing intrinsically gross about it; it's just not really my thing. I've already begun rethinking this juice diet, and I'm pretty sure that by the time 4pm rolls around I will have eaten some bagels and hummus. I am a weak man.

If there was one thing that Izze was great at when she was young it was remedial art. Actually it was just the mixing of primary colors that she excelled at. She absolutely loved the concept that mixing two separate colors could result in a completely different color. If she mixed blue in with red, she got purple, blue and yellow got her green, and red and yellow brought her orange. It was simple, it was science and it was wonderful. She would spend her days mixing different proportions to see what shades she would achieve. She never tried mixing more than two colors though. That would just cause unimaginable chaos.

When Izze got older she found herself a part of the soda game. She was sick of the everyday sodas that that no redeeming values other than taste. She watched the world around her grow fat from ingesting far too much of it. She decided to take a stand and offer the world a soda that was mostly fruit juice. She added no sweeteners and let the fruit do its job. Things were going well, but then the bills for the fruit started to add up. She wanted to make some out of the ordinary flavors, but purchasing the fruit to make those juices was expensive. That is when the light bulb of genius lit above Izze's head. She would use her old knowledge of color mixture to simulate the flavors that were too expensive. She would start with the blueberry. After doing a little math in her head, she deduced that the blueberry flavor was simply nothing more than grape and apple juice mixed together. She whipped up a batch and threw in a little bit of actual blueberry juice in the mix, so that she wouldn't feel like so much of a liar to her customers. When she took a sip she instantly realized two things: Apple, grape and blueberry juice mixed together is pretty delicious and also that she was a complete moron for thinking that color theory had anything to do with the flavors of fruit juice. Apple and grape juice mixed together, while tasty, tastes nothing like blueberries. It tasted more like a light grape juice than anything. There was a hint of some sort of berry flavor hidden in it, but you really had to look for it. What Izze should have done at that moment was change the name of the flavor, because it was tasty and she was on to something, but it just wasn't blueberry. Unfortunately she had already ordered all of the bottles for the soda, and there was no way she was going to waste money on new ones. Screw her customers.

If I were stuck in a forest, I would forage for berries. I was never a Boy Scout, although I enjoy their fundraising chocolate, caramel popcorn. I don't know what's poisonous and what is not. I would probably be dead in four days if I was stuck out in a forest. I like to think about it, though. I would eventually have to kill something to make a sweet but necessary jacket/sleeping blanket to keep warm. I wouldn't want to do it, and I have never killed anything before and don't ever want to but it's a necessary and I'm cold.

I think that I would know what raspberries look like enough that I could sustain off those. I haven't seen enough episodes of Man versus Wild enough to really learn the intricacies of "bug eating," so once I get to that protein-deprived state I'm probably eat any bug. Wrong, but I'll eat it.

I would eventually get very grizzled and start hallucinating. I'm grizzled now, but I would get worse. I think when you are in the forest, you grow beards faster and due to the immense amount of thorns and stuff, you rip your clothes very quickly. If I would somehow find a bottle of carbonated water, I could make this drink. I would find a nice, round stone, another round stone, and squish the berries on a leaf or something and pour the juice into the carbonated water. It would be a little bitter because it's natural but everything is natural in the forest, you dunce. That's all it would take to refresh myself. Seriously, though, the odds of me finding an unscathed bottle of anything, let alone carbonated water or something useful, is pretty slim. My luck I would find something like crab juice in a can and with that it would almost be essential to put raspberry juice in it to mask the, you know, crabbiness of it.

Stumptown Coffee is what made me fall in love with coffee. I recently moved back to Portland, OR, the home of Stumptown Coffee. I would love to say it was because I missed it so much, but in reality it was to open a custom button/zine store with my friend Alex Wrekk called Portland Button Works.

We recently signed a lease on a storefront and have been slowly moving things into it this week. I felt it was fitting that the first drink I reviewed here was a drink I've been waiting to try for a long time. Stumptown came out with this lovely glass bottle of coffee just before I moved back to Buffalo for 10 months. I didn't get a chance to try it before I left, but now I finally found a nice cold bottle.

I don't know much about cold brewing coffee, besides that it tastes better than other methods of iced coffee. After opening this bottle, it smelled like I just walked into a coffee shop. It has that classic/awesome coffee aroma. I usually drink my coffee with soy/almond milk and a little sugar, but under certain circumstances I can tolerate black coffee. I wish all black coffee tasted like this, because it's incredible. It's really strong, but has so much flavor. I don't know blends of coffee well enough to wax on about the different subtleties in the beans. All I know is that this is delicious, and I would probably drink it every day if it weren't $3.50 a bottle.

There has been an apocalypse. You and your family are deciding what to do. Sure, solar blankets, Twinkies, Spam, et cetera. Those are given. Now it comes to hydration. Now everyone, and by everyone I mean everyone except you, is going to get water. Why water? It's the best thing for you. Yes. It's true. Here's the thing, though. Have you ever stood in line to buy something that everyone else has wanted at the same time? Think Black Friday times fifty thousand times. Everyone needs and wants one thing, everyone but you. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to go for the perishables. Everyone thinks that they need water because it doesn't expire, but have they ever thought about flavor? Yeah, who cares if it's only going to last like three days unrefrigerated. You are going to be able to sell that juice for a mint because all the watered-down people are going to crave flavor and flavor you've got.

You've got apple juice, dude. Apple juice: the purest of juices, the simplest of juices. This isn't just any apple juice, though. It's fuji apple. Red delicious is what the poor pour. Sure, it tastes like regular apple juice but a little different, more tart, and it even has regular apple juice in it. You can't have all fuji apples or else you'd be paying $10 for a small bottle of juice. This is better than basic apple juice. I'll say it. It's better. You may be able to get $10 for this juice once people are sick of water. You might want to trade some of them since it's not a terrible idea to have some water on hand.

I don't know what caused the apocalypse. It might have been that small issue where the power authority thought that they could control the market so they blew up the sun. That might be it. That or that one time you peed in the lake that one summer in 1998 because you really needed to go and the bathroom at camp had that spider that might or might not been alive but was scary right next to the toilet. One of those two things led to the apocalypse.

I wasn't expecting to drink this today, but then I noticed that it was going to expire this week, so it moved to the top of the priority list. There are two ingredients in this bottle: apples and grape juice. I love that it says apples instead of apple juice, because it just makes you think of exactly how fresh this juice is. I can only assume they juice their grapes and then instantly press some apples into said grape juice. The results are beyond delicious.

Grape juice has the tendency to overpower other juices they are mixed with, but Red Jacket knows what they are doing and both juices exist in perfect harmony; neither overpowers the other to any extent. The most important thing to this juice is that there is no sweetener added to it. It's juice and nothing more, the way things should be. It makes me never want to purchase another “shelf juice.” If it's not in a cooler, with a short shelf life it's pretty safe to say it is inferior to this beverage.

Wat-aah! Sent us samples of each of their “flavors.” I use the word flavor as loosely as possible because I have tried two of them thus far, and they both taste like water. I have no problem with that. I drink more than my allotted share of water in a day, but it's hard to find something to say about a beverage that basically tastes like every other bottled water out there. According to the bottle is has a 9.0pH, which according to the chart I just looked up is the pH level of baking soda and sea water. Luckily it tastes like neither of those things. It's clean, cool and refreshing. I definitely enjoyed it, but there is nothing special about it, but that also means that there was nothing wrong with it and it is a stellar example of water, so I gave it a five-bottle review.

Sir, I'm sorry but I cannot let you in with your current attire, as this is a Red Jacket party. Yes, I know that the party is for the company Red Jacket Orchards, but they wanted to take it to the next level. The idea behind it was that “black tie” affairs are far too stuffy, but it would be fun to have a party where everyone just wore red jackets. If you want we have some extra coats here, since we knew people wouldn't get the idea. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find red suit coats in this town. All I could find was this array of “jackets.” Yes, I had to take liberty with the word jacket and a bunch of these are actually coats and other. Sir, you are kind of a big man, so this parka looks like it will be the only one that will fit you. I know it's the middle of August, but you need to ask yourself, “Do I really want to go into this party? Is the juice worth it?” Before you answer reach into the pocket of the parka. I believe there is a small bottle of Red Jacket apple cider in there. Taste that and then choose your fate. Well that sounded dramatic. Just taste the juice and then either put on the parka, or be on your merry way. It's that simple.

Well it took only one sip and you're all parkaed up. Sir, you don't have to zip it up all the way. All that is required is that you have the jacket on. I know the juice/cider is delicious. I do work for the company, I'm not just some hired gun here to sling out jackets at the front gate. I also know that it is kind of weird to drink cider in the summer. It's traditionally an autumn drink, but its not written on any law books that it must be drank during a certain season. The juice is sweet and appley just like a cider should be. It does taste a little lighter than most other Western New York ciders I've had, but I'll blame that on the season and the apples that must have been used to make it. It doesn't make it gross by any means. Obviously it's a completely wonderful juice as you are willing to don a parka in 95 degree weather just for a chance to drink some more of it. No sir, I don't think you are dumb at all. If our positions were reversed I'd be doing the same thing. I mean where else are you going to find a more than decent cider at this time of year? The answer is nowhere. Now get in there and drink juice until your heart is content.

Did you know that chia seeds are what demigods grow from? True story. We've all heard the storied about how “primitive” people used to sacrifice virgins to their gods in order to appease them and ask for any number of gifts in return. Well that is just plain silly and barbaric. Somewhere along the line someone messed up a translation. You see in ancient times sacrifices were all the rage, but they had absolutely nothing to do with virgins. What does a god want with a virgin anyways? Nothing, that's what. They are gods they can jut conjure up anything they like. Anything except one thing that is, and that thing is chia seeds. They are a sacred, sought after item for gods. You see much like Link needs to collect rubies in The Legend of Zelda in order to trade them for various weapons and dry goods, the gods much also collect chia seeds in order to trade them in for demigods. You see our life is meaningless to the ancient gods, except for the fact that they can use us to help gather chia seeds in order to win the game. Oh didn't I mention that part? You see at the beginning of time, there were a bunch of bored gods. They sat around each other's houses all the time bored, complaining that there was nothing to do and that being omnipotent was such a burden. One of them, maybe it was Odin (he always had the best ideas), came up with the idea for a game where all of the gods had to collect as much as something as possible, and then at a predetermined date they would count them all up and the one with the most one. It sounded boring at first, but then Odin, being the world's first dungeon master, created an elaborate world in which the game would take place. In order to make the game harder, he created a new item called the chia seed. The gods could not just magically wish for them and they would appear. They had to have the inhabitants of the world gather the seeds for them. For every million seeds that were presented to them they could create an item that they were to be collecting. Everyone agreed that is was better than what they were doing so they began the game. After a while it seemed that it was taking all of the gods forever to collect the appropriate amount of chia seeds so Odin amended to rules so that the collected items would be demigods, and those demigods could also be used to raise more chia seeds. It was actually quite elaborate and Odin won a bunch of awards for it at the Omnipotent Awards that year.

So there you have it the true history of the gods and chia seeds. Now that the game is winding down the humans who once harvested the seeds for the gods have lost interest. To be honest they have pretty much lost all awareness of their task. Instead of gathering the seeds in order to present them to their specific gods they instead have started putting them in their beverages. You see not only are they good for creating demigods they are also chock full of fiber, omega-3 and antioxidants. Chia\Vie has made this drink with the seeds. They mixed some fruit juices and then ground down a bunch of chia seeds and added them to the drinks. It's a little gritty, but not too bad. This specific flavor is supposed to be mango, but it ended up just tasting like cheap orange juice that had sat out for a long time and then rechilled. There's a bit of mango in the mix, but old-orange is definitely the prevalent flavor.

Finally the world has combined tea and coffee into a single drink. Only the finest coffee beans and tealeaves are used to create this unholy alliance. Oh wait, no that is wrong. This drink actually has nothing to do with coffee at all. It has java in its name solely because the tealeaves they use to brew this from on the island of Java. To be honest I am actually relieved. I don't think I would really like a hybrid drink. I mean sure I would drink it, and I bet tons of people would actually love it, but I can't see it being for me, especially if it was unsweetened. This drink on the other hand is wonderful because it's unsweetened. They microbrew the precious Java tea leaves and that is that. There is absolutely no reason for them to mask the taste of this tea, and they know it. It is the best tasting unsweetened black tea I have ever tasted. It has the subtle bitterness of unsweetened tea, but it is also very, very smooth. It's incredible flavorful, and it tastes like it is made from some specialty tea that would cost way too much from a store in the mall. Well done Tejava.

When you grow up you unfortunately are supposed to leave childish things behind. Lighting things on fire, playing with dolls, brushing your teeth with chocolate syrup, and so on. That's kid stuff. You're an adult. You wear a tie three out of five days a workweek and the other two you wear collared, golf shirts. You drive a sensible sedan that gets adequate mileage and you have two kids, one wife, and a dog. Your life is...regular.

You every once in a while you get a hankering to change it up. Sensibly that is. Responsibly. You usually do this by doing something that no one can see or doesn't affect your appearance and doesn't have any consequences. Today you went to the store to get something to drink before work and you grabbed a cup of coffee and you came across it. There it was, very red and very inviting, like a trashy 80's harlot. I'm talking high-heeled red leather shoes, red lipstick, short red dress, and hair with more volume than a Poison concert. Red Jacket Tart Cherry Stomp. The name was fun, the ingredients were minimalistic and you love cherries.

You pay the cashier, walk out into the street, open the bottle, take a sip, and let out a loud, "Wooo!" that Rik Flair would have approved of. Your cheeks involuntarily sucked into your face and the smile on your face went all the way from cheek to cheek. This drink tasted just like it said, tart cherries. You turned around and your boss was right behind you. You, quick on your feet, handed your boss the bottle asking him to take a sip. He did and let out a less convincing but still heartfelt "Wooo!" and handed the bottle back. You both saw eye to eye at that moment and would occasionally let out a quiet holler in the halls of the office at each other. Your boss was now your bro, and that's cool. You're a cool dude. You blended in a little bit over the years, but you've still got it.