Trader Joe's Organic Coconut Smoothie

I tend to think of "smoothies" as containing blends of a bunch of different things. But here the ingredients are stripped down to the essence: Coconut water and coconut. Basically, they've pureed coconut meat with coconut water. It's like drinking a shelled coconut, without the work, and without bits of it getting stuck in your teeth.

As you can see, it was pinkish. It looked even more so in a glass. I don't know why, but it's apparently a sufficiently common phenomenon that the label alerts you to the possibility: "Some coconut smoothies may take on a rosy hue." Mine was more than "rosy"; it was about halfway to Pepto-Bismol. But it was just an oddity, didn't bother me.

I liked it. But given that I like coconut in just about any form, this was to be expected.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes, at least once in a while.

Trader Joe's Coconut Crispy Rolls Wafer Cookies

Pleasant enough, but nothing special. Strong coconut flavor, which is nice. A little bit large for comfortable single-bite eating, but if you try to bite one in half, it will shatter. The brittleness is probably why they come nestled in a thick-ish plastic tray instead of loose in a bag, the result of which is that there's a lot of packaging waste.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Coconut Macaroons

Day 3 of Cookie Week.

Macaroons are only kinda-sorta cookies. But Wikipedia defines them as "a small biscuit/cookie"--so I say it counts!

They're basically shredded coconut and sugar, held together by egg whites. What's not to love?

Well, they could be a little chewier on the inside and a little crisper on the outside. But they're pretty darn tasty just as they are.


Will I buy it again? 

They won't be part of the regular rotation, but I can definitely foresee occasional return appearances.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Coconut Macaroons

This one isn't complicated. These things are shredded coconut held together in a dense, sweet cake, covered in chocolate. How could I not like them. How could ANYBODY not like them?


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Organic Coconut Sesame Seed Clusters Snack

This is a new product; see Trader Joe's own description of it here.

But that's not how I learned of its existence. I learned of it when Nina brought me an empty bag--with apologies. She had intended to eat just half and leave the rest for me to try, but found it so deliciously addicting that she couldn't stop. So I bought my own.

It's pretty good, but I didn't flip for it the way Nina did. It's kind of just crunchy bits of toasted coconut. The sesame seeds are pretty, but I can't tell that they add anything in terms of taste. The whole thing is pretty heavily sweetened, which I thought was its biggest flaw.


Will I buy it again? 

Not for myself, but now I know that I can get Nina to do anything I want by holding a bag of this stuff in front of her.

Trader Joe's Sparkling Island Colada Spring Water

I've complained that some of the other products in this new line have too little flavor. This one, conversely, has too much. Where's Goldilocks when you need her?

The label lists only "natural flavors," without disclosing what they're supposed to be. But neither Nina nor I could discern anything but strong coconut--and to me it tasted strongly artificial, more like "coconut" than coconut.


Will I buy it again? 

No. While some of the others have been underwhelming, none has actually been unpleasant--until now.

Trader Joe's Just Coconut Chunks

As you'd expect, the contents of this bag are just chunks of raw coconut, cut away from the shell, but otherwise unprocessed. No added sugar, preservatives, etc. You just pour out what you'll want to use, let the chunks thaw, and eat them--or add them to a fruit salad, or whatever.

The chunks are quite uniform, about an inch square, and maybe a third of an inch thick. I think they're excellent for just munching on, but not everybody shares my affection for unadulterated coconut.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. The main factor limiting my snacking on coconut is the work involved in cracking open the shell and separating the meat from it. This completely eliminates that barrier, and makes eating plain, raw, delicious pieces of coconut easier than I've ever known it could be.

Trader Joe's Salted Caramel Coconut Cookies

This is Day Seven of Cookie Week. 


These ought to be a slam-dunk winner. Put coconut and caramel together, and I'm in.

But somehow Trader Joe's managed to screw up an unscrewuppable combination. There's a huge amount of packaging material for just a few cookies (eight, if memory serves). The cookies are sticky and floppy. Both the caramel and salt are barely noticeable.


Will I buy it again? 

No. They're not awful, but they're a big letdown from what you'd expect from the picture on the box.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Coconut Macaroons

This is Day Three of Cookie Week. 


I love these. Rich chocolate outside; soft, sweet, full-flavored coconut inside. How could I not love them?

Nitpicking: The chocolate is a little too soft and melts too easily while you're holding it. But so what?


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I want more.

Trader Joe's Crispy Crunchy Mixed Fruit

This is excellent. Pleasant textures. Vivid and compatible flavors--I liked all of the four about equally, so I didn't care which I picked up next and felt no urge to select one over another. Nicely sized pieces with relatively few broken, tiny bits. There is apparently a small amount of sugar added, and I've previously said that I don't want sugar in my dried fruit, but it wasn't prominent enough to bother me here.

One oddity: The package warns not to eat the included desiccant packet. I didn't notice that warning until Nina and I had noshed our way through the whole bag. So either I had picked the odd package with no desiccant, or one of us ate it without noticing. The latter seems unlikely. The only reason I mention it is that this bag had sat in my cupboard so long without being consumed that we were a full eight months past its expiration date when we finally tore into it. (It had become buried under some other stuff and forgotten.) And yet the contents remained in perfect texture, even without the desiccant it was supposed to have. It kind of makes me wonder why they bother with including it.

I don't know why they make the package with a resealable opening, cuz it's never going to be closed again after it's opened. They even specifically assert that the number of servings included is "1." So it's, like, illegal not to eat the whole bag at once.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. This is a superior late-night snack.

Trader Joe's Tropical Mango Complete Salad Kit

This is OMG Day 21 of New Products Week, and Day 12 of Mangopalooza. 


The salad base here is acceptable, though I would prefer the lettuce:spinach ratio to be higher. (The exact contents apparently vary depending on what's available, so YMMV.)

Two extra packets are included. One has dried mango chunks, dried coconut flakes, and chopped cashews. The other has a salad dressing that the bag says is a "mango tamarind dressing." It's pretty decent.

Nothing about this is too mango-y or too sweet for a salad. At the same time, nothing about it is especially creative or desirable.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I didn't mind it in my first two servings, and I'll finish off the bag without complaint. But I just don't like it as much as any of my usual salad blends.

Trader Joe's Mango Chia Pudding With Cultured Coconut Cream

This is Day 19 of an apparently never-ending New Products Week, and Day 10 of Mangopalooza. 


No two ways about it, buying this was a mistake. And I knew it.

I was looking for the Mango Coconut Pudding, but its marked spot on the shelf was empty. This was next to it. So on an impulse, I decided to try it, though even as I put it into my basket I was thinking, "There's no chance I'll like this." I almost never buy products to try and review if it's virtually impossible that I'll like them--because what's the point? I'll be unhappy, and you won't get a fair-minded review. I broke that rule here, and I'm sorry.

It wasn't quite as bad as I expected, but three small spoonfuls was all I could stand. There is definitely a mango flavor, but I couldn't taste any coconut, despite the presence of coconut chips.

What I couldn't get past was the texture. It's slimy as all get-out. Really gross. And it looks just as bad--like some sort of semi-gelatinous green swamp water teeming with frog eggs.

Despite the unfairness of condemning a product that never had a fair shot at winning me over, this was bad enough to go in my Bottom Ten list.


Will I buy it again? 

[stares blankly at the person asking the stupid question]

Nina's View

Plain awful in every possible way. The texture is congealed snot. Seriously horrible. Pass me the spit bucket.

Trader Joe's Mango Coconut Flavored Caramel Corn

This is Day 18 of a ridiculously overextended New Products Week, and Day Nine of Mangopalooza. 


They got the name of this product wrong. It should be Coconut Mango Caramel Corn. Open the bag, and coconut wafts out at you. Crunch down on a piece, and it's coconut and caramel. The mango only kicks in as an aftertaste. Which is fine with me, but if you expect to be walloped by mango, this stuff is going to disappoint.

I don't like it as much as the regular Caramel Popcorn (a Top Ten item), but it's pretty good, and unlike any treat I've had before.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I recommend trying it once, because I suspect you won't have many opportunities at such an unusual thing in your life. But for me, anyway, once was enough.

Nina's View

Given my lack of enthusiasm about most things mango, you'd think this would have not worked for me. But it did. The mango contribution was minimal and mild and the rest of it was pretty darn tasty.

Trader Joe's Mango Coconut Pudding

This is Day 13 of an extended New Products Week, and Day Four of Mangopalooza. 


I started hearing about Mango Madness via Twitter posts before I set foot in the store and saw how crazy things had gotten. Of all the mango products that people were tweeting pictures of, this was the one I most wanted to try. When I thought about what a mango-coconut pudding would taste like if I were in charge of it, well, I'd eat that until I exploded.

I did not explode. I did not even eat all 12 ounces of pudding in one sitting, as I easily can with puddings that I really like. In fact, it took me three servings to get through it, and I wasn't particularly happy about the last of them; it felt more like a duty than a pleasure, but I powered through it because I still had not figured out what to write about the stuff.

Maybe this is Nina's influence evilly taking control of me, but the bottom line is that this stuff is just too sweet. When I was growing up, my mother would sometimes make a fruit salad that had whipped cream and marshmallows as its base. I loved it, but I knew all along that it was not much better than eating ice cream; the fruit was just there to provide an excuse for eating a bunch of cream.

That's what this reminded me of--and I don't get anywhere near the same feeling when I mix up a batch of Jello-brand banana cream or coconut cream pudding. When you make your pudding sweeter than those, you've gone too far.

Other complaints: It's not thickened enough, and the mango:coconut ratio is skewed much too high toward the coconut side.

Price: $3.49.


Will I buy it again? 

No. In the end, the only thing I really liked about this pudding was my wistful thoughts of how great it could have been.

Trader Joe's Cranberry Coconut Snacking Crackers

These crackers just showed up on the new-items shelf at the Asheville Trader Joe's. I have seen nothing about them online anywhere.

They have a nice crunch--very texturally satisfying.

The coconut and cranberry are quite muted. I have to be paying attention to notice them over the general taste of wheat and seeds. General sweetness, however, is definitely there, probably mostly coming from the sugar added to the dried cranberries.

My first impression was that they were OK--unusual and interesting to try once, but not good enough to displace my usual cracker choices.

Then Nina wanted to try them with some cheese. I had just brought home a TJ's low-fat sharp Irish cheddar, so I handed that to her. And I have to admit that her instincts were, as usual, spot-on. It was a fabulous combination, with all sorts of flavors coming together that usually don't share a stage with each other. It definitely got my attention.

They come in a stupid bag, which is sealed with easily-released adhesive, but then can't be resealed.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes, at least once in a while. They're an unusual but pleasant departure from standard crackers, and their combination with sharp cheddar was excellent. Besides, Nina liked them even more than I did.

Trader Joe's Shredded Sweetened Coconut

Let's conclude our second Coconut Week with some actual coconut! 


Face it: you already know whether you want this or not. If you like coconut, you'll want to have some around. If you don't, you won't. It's about that simple.

I have eaten some of this straight from the package: good, but quickly tiring.

I have tried sprinkling it on fruit medleys (thawed from the freezer): excellent enhancement.

I have used it as a topping on Key lime pie: a perfect pairing.

I have put a little on some applesauce: the combination seemed a little off.

I added some to a bowl of TJ's strawberry coconut-based ice cream: yummy.

I even got a little crazy and threw some into a green salad with a few dried cranberries, on the theory that the sweet and tart would sort of cancel each other out: I cannot recommend this.

I would love to try some of it on pancakes, with a fruity syrup, but haven't yet.

Potential uses are limited only by your imagination.


Will I buy it again? 

I think it's going to become a staple that I keep around all the time.

Trader Joe's Coconut Cream

This is Day Six of Coconut Week. 


I spotted this can in the store and bought it on a whim, knowing that I needed a bit more material to fill up this second Coconut Week. But I really had no idea what I would do with it.

Then I bought a Trader Joe's Key Lime Pie (review pending), and thought that maybe coconut cream would work as a topping for that. In my imagination, it would be kind of like a coconutty Cool Whip.

Well, it is and it isn't. It does have roughly the same consistency, at least at room temperature. (Refrigerated, it gets too stiff to work with easily.) And it is definitely coconutty. But it is not sweet. It's just coconut milk with some thickeners. It did not work well as a pie topping, even though in theory lime and coconut should make excellent partners (as Harry Nilsson taught us).

I looked online for ideas of what to do with it. Pinterest had a collection of recipes using this product, but I couldn't access them because I didn't have a Pinterest account and didn't feel like setting one up.

Then, by happy coincidence, just as I was wondering what else I could do with the 95% of the can that I had left over after the failed pie experiment, this photo and comment popped up under the #TraderJoes hashtag on Twitter, cross-posted from Instagram:

I asked her on Twitter what she did with all of that coconut cream. No response. But as you can see, somebody on Instagram asked the same thing, and her only answer is that she adds it to her coffee.

I ended up dumping what was left in my can down the drain. It's not that I dislike it; I just can't find a role for it in the foods I prepare and eat.


Will I buy it again? 

Not unless I learn of something fabulous that I'd like to make using it.

Trader Joe's Foaming Hand Soap--Botanical Bounty

Special note: This is Day Five of Coconut Week, a full week of reviews of Trader Joe's coconut-based products. The back of the package here explains that the surfactants used are derived from coconut oil. 


I like the smell of this--lightly floral. And the dispensing mechanism works smoothly and reliably, which isn't always the case with liquid soaps.

However:

• I actually prefer hand soap to be unscented. 
• They lie about the dosing; they suggest two pumps, when one is plenty. 
• It doesn't rinse off as easily as it should. 
• It's way more expensive than my usual product, which is SoftSoap with aloe vera. 
• There are no refills available, so to keep using the same product, you have to throw away the bottle and buy a new one every time. 

Therefore...


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Organic Virgin Coconut Oil

This is Day Four of Coconut Week. 


I bought this for two reasons. (1) I needed another entry for Coconut Week. (2) It's a perennial "OMG! Look what I found!" item under the #TraderJoes hashtag on Twitter. Apparently it's in chronic short supply, so the people who love it hoard it, and sometimes TJ's outlets that get some limit sales to one or two per customer.

It has the unusual quality that its melting/freezing point is near room temperature, so if the ambient temperature in your kitchen fluctuates, you may find it solid one day, liquid the next.

Cooking with it is mostly like using any other vegetable oil, as far as I can tell. Some foods end up with a distinctive but not unpleasant coconut note, others do not.

TJ's boasts that "it stands up to relatively high heat." This does not appear to be true, at least as judged from a table of the smoke points of various oils: Coconut oil is tied with butter and sesame oil for the second-lowest smoke point at 350, just above extra-virgin olive oil at 325. I've been mostly using Trader Joe's grapeseed oil, which I was told had a high smoke point, but is listed in this table at just 390, while things like corn oil, peanut oil, and soybean oil are at 450.

It makes a decent massage oil if you don't have a dedicated product on hand, and leaves the recipient smelling delightfully tropical.

The most annoying thing about this product is the jar. I find it awkward to pour from such a wide-mouthed container, and the stuff always runs down the side afterward, necessitating cleanup.


Will I buy it again? 

Not unless somebody gives me a better reason to do so than I have found so far.

Trader Joe's coconut water

This is Day Three of Coconut Week--and a post of which I'm very much ashamed. Continue reading to see why. 


These four bottles do not exhaust the variety of coconut water available at Trader Joe's. At least at my local store in Asheville, North Carolina, they carry two more versions of the Zico brand. And TJ's sells an expensive, super-high-end "single origin" coconut water under its own brand name--which I know only because of this review from the "Eat at Joe's" blog--that has never shown up on the shelves of the Asheville store. But since I had never tried coconut water before, I figured that four varieties was plenty. [EDIT: I have subsequently discovered why I never found it--I was looking in the grocery aisle next to the other kinds of coconut water. But the "single origin" variety is kept in the refrigerated case.]

This blog post should detail for you the ways in which these four bottles differ from each other--and, mind you, they do differ in sweetness, in drinkability, and in the sense of closeness to what you'd get from an actual coconut. This post should be able to do that for you because this time, unlike any other review of a single product or a comparison test of similar products, I had arranged for not just your usual two testers (Nina and me), but a third--a friend of Nina's in town for a short visit. We all tried them, carefully, repeatedly, comparing our impressions. Following that, I spent the next couple of weeks finishing off all four containers, at the rate of a few ounces a day, thus becoming very familiar with the characteristics of each. So this should be an unusually clear, enlightening, definitive review.

But it won't be. Because, truth be told, I hated all of them. As "Eat at Joe's" phrased it in his review of one of these (the TJ's not from concentrate), coconut water "tastes weird and kind of gross." Exactly. I never could get past that. He found himself later impressed by how well it gave him a feeling of rehydration after working up a sweat, but I kind of doubt that's anything more than a placebo effect.

I've procrastinated writing this post because I just wasn't interested in writing a lot of words about the shades of dislike these products evoked in me. All three testers could taste real differences in these four beverages, but I don't want to have any of them ever again. So now my memory of how they differed has irretrievably faded--and I didn't take notes.

I can tell you that, based on the labeling, they have baffling, non-intuitive, per-ounce differences in sugar, carbohydrate, and caloric values. And I can tell you that the not-from-concentrate one has added sugar in the form of fructose, while the Zico has added flavoring. But that's about it. My degree of dislike for them is roughly equal, and I'm just not going to go back and try them again.

Which means that this post holds the record for the most money, time, and effort expended for the least useful informational content of any I have written. It's likely to hold that record forever.

My apologies for a completely sucky review.


Will I buy it again? 

No.