Trader Joe's Sparkling Grapefruit Spring Water

Finally I have reached the end of this new line of sparkling waters. This is the last of them.

I poured small glasses of this stuff for Nina and myself at dinner Wednesday night. She asked what the flavor was before trying it. "Pineapple," I said. I wasn't trying to be deceptive. I just had a brain fart, and thought that pineapple was the last one we hadn't yet tried. (But we had.) We both sipped it, and had basically the same reaction: This doesn't taste anything like pineapple. On that basis, we faulted it for being way off.

The next morning, I sat down at my computer to write this review. I pulled the bottle out of the refrigerator to sample a bit more as I wrote. It was only then that I noticed the label: Grapefruit, not pineapple. Which, y'know, more or less explains why it didn't taste like pineapple.

So how is it as grapefruit? Well, it's accurate--it really does taste like grapefruit. And that brings the great advantage of removing the weirdness of the clash between expectations and actual flavor. But it's weak sauce. More like "hint of grapefruit" than "grapefruit," and therefore not very satisfying.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Sparkling Cranberry Clementine Spring Water

I expected this to be a winner, possibly the best of the whole new line. It's not. It's just weird. I'm sipping some even as I write this. I'm trying to find the cranberry and clementine flavors, and failing every time. There's definitely some sort of flavor there, but damned if I can figure out what it is.

Nina tried some last night. After a sip, she screwed up her face and asked, "What is this supposed to be?"

"Cranberry-clementine."

"No."

"No, it isn't cranberry-clementine, or no you don't like it?"

"No. It's not successful."

She is, as usual, entirely correct.


Will I buy it again? 

To quote Nina, "No."

Trader Joe's Sparkling Pineapple Spring Water

This is the best of the bunch so far. Just enough pineapple flavor to be pleasing, without being overpowering.


Will I buy it again? 

Still no. Fun to try once, but I still prefer plain tap water for most purposes. If I were to pick one, though, this would be first choice.

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 Sparkling Lime Spring Water

Bleah. This is even weaker in flavor than the lemon version.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Sparkling Lemon Spring Water

This is the least successful of the three flavors from this line that I've tried (see here and here). The lemon is so weak as to be barely noticeable. You end up with a highly carbonated water with just a whiff of lemon that makes you wonder whether it's really there or you're just imagining it.


Will I buy it again? 

No. What's the point?

Trader Joe's Sparkling Mandarin Orange Spring Water

This is the second of four flavors in Trader Joe's new line of sparkling waters. I reviewed the raspberry-lime version here.

I did not like this one as much. This is probably attributable to nothing other than my general preference of raspberry over orange. Nina said she liked this one better. De gustibus, etc.

It has the same heavy carbonation as the raspberry. I found it had less of the false sensation of sweetness.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Sparkling Raspberry Lime Spring Water

This has a surprisingly strong raspberry flavor. Surprising, that is, based on my experience of other sparkling waters, which tend to be quite lightly flavored. The heavier dosing of flavor here produces an unusual sensation of sweetness, even though it contains zero sugars and zero calories. It's also more heavily carbonated than any other such product I've had before--right up there with sugary sodas.

The claimed lime, however, is absent from the flavor profile.


Will I buy it again? 

I did like it, but it's just not a product category for which I have much use. When I want water, I want just water. When I want soda, I want soda. This is sort of halfway between, and I think I would never pick it over the two things it's sorta trying to be.

Spindrift Sparkling Water--Watermelon

I forgot to take a photo of this before it was gone, so I've borrowed the above photo from this review.

Spindrift appears to have changed the characterization of its line of products from "seltzer" to "sparkling water" for unspecified reasons. I don't think it means any substantive change to what's in the can.

By either name, I liked the grapefruit one enough to try others. But then the raspberry-lime version was not nearly as good.

And now this watermelon one is even worse. It tastes much more like cucumber than watermelon. Apparently I'm not alone. The review from which that picture is taken says, "The watermelon tastes more like the rind than it does the red mushy fruit part." Exactly so.

If you want to try it in spite of my experience, some advice. When I poured a can into two glasses to share with Nina, the first half was colorless, then second half quite red. The watermelon juice seems to settle to the bottom. So invert the can gently a few times before you pour or drink it. But it's carbonated, so don't shake it too hard.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Addendum: Here's an explainer on the differences between seltzer, sparkling water, and club soda: http://mentalfloss.com/article/89396/whats-difference-between-club-soda-seltzer-and-sparkling-water

Trader Joe's Natural Mountain Spring Water

You know what I really like about this product? It's the hydrogen-to-oxygen ratio. Trader Joe's does not mess around. They make it exactly 2:1. None of this sloppy 2.01:1, or 1.99:1 crap that some other bottled water brands try to get away with. Nosiree. Two parts hydrogen, period. One part oxygen, period.


Will I buy it again? 

When they fuss over the exact stoichiometric ratio like they do, of course I will reward them with my continued patronage. This has become another true staple at my house, with a couple of bottles always in the fridge, and a flat or two in storage ready to go.

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.

Trader Joe's Maple Water

We're on day two out of four with reviews of new products that have just hit the Trader Joe's shelves.


One of the little joys of watching the #TraderJoes hashtag on Twitter is when an intriguing new product hits the shelves. TJ's fans immediately post pictures of it with comments about what is it, can't wait to try it, OMG it's the best thing EVAR, etc. This product was the latest to get that treatment. So, of course, I had to buy it.

The claim is that this is maple sap, tapped directly from the trees--the stuff that we usually only eat after it has been boiled down to make maple syrup. It has been pasteurized, but not cooked. Here's a recent article about the alleged new craze that is maple water.

If you put it in a clear glass, you can see just a touch of yellowish or light brown color. Drinking it, I found, has a three-phase sensation. First, it tastes and feels just like plain water. Then, as I'm swallowing, I get a general sense of sweetness, though not sugar per se.

Finally--really as more of an aftertaste than a taste--comes the distinctive flavor. Now, frankly, if I hadn't known the name and origin of this product, I think I would have been hard-pressed to call it out as "maple." I think that all I could have said is that it's vaguely familiar but unusual and hard to place. And I could have said what it isn't: not fruity, not nutty, etc. But maple? No. You could have given me 20 guesses, and I doubt I would have gotten there.

Which isn't to say that it's bad, just that it's both unexpected, in the sense of being out of context, and faint. It's maybe like something Monet would have concocted--not really maple, but "impression of maple."

Given the delicateness of this flavoring, I was surprised to find how persistent it was as an aftertaste. I had some this morning. About an hour later, I could still taste it. I had a can of Coke Zero, and within five minutes of finishing that, the maple-water taste was back, like a flavor ghost. Not unpleasant, but surprising.

Here's another view, from the "What's Good at Trader Joe's" blog.

Will I buy it again? 

No. I can wholeheartedly recommend trying it, because chances are good that you've never had anything like it, and it's an interesting experience. But I don't see an ongoing place for it in my life.

Nina's View

What will they think of next?

First they put tap-water in a bottle. Biggest scam ever.

Then they put coconut water in a bottle and shipped it around the world. Ridiculous.

Now they're taking tree-blood (water) and charging a lot for it.

I am a fan of real maple syrup, which is what happens when you take the tree-blood and evaporate it by boiling it for a very long time. This tastes like slightly viscous sugar water, which it is. It's perfectly pleasant and inoffensive. For $2.99. 

Pshaw.

Trader Joe's Alkaline Water + Electrolytes

I saw somebody on Twitter being all ecstatic to find that Trader Joe's now carries alkaline water. I asked him why he would want alkaline water. He did not reply.

But I know the answer: It's because he has fallen for a stupid scam, which claims that something terrible in your diet and/or environment is causing your body to be abnormally acidic, because of all the negative ions that are bombarding you, and that therefore you need to drink alkaline water to restore the correct pH. I don't know whether the good folks at Trader Joe's have fallen for this hogwash, but at least they have decided to capitalize on it. A pox on them for that.

For context: I completed medical school and residency, and then spent a good number of years practicing family medicine. Among many, many observations about the medical system that I collected was that quite consistently the smartest doctors were the nephrologists--the kidney specialists. It's a kind of esoteric specialty, and a difficult one to master, because the kidney is a frighteningly complex organ, capable of mysterious, nearly magical feats of biochemistry. In the context of that observation, consider this aphorism, which is common among those of that specialty: "The dumbest kidney is smarter than the smartest nephrologist."

Many crucial functions of your body simply will not work if your pH rises or falls below 7.4. Deviate, say, 0.2 units from that, and it's off to the ICU for you, and we're not too bullish on your prognosis. Deviate by 0.4 units, and, though you may not actually be dead, we'll start filling out the certificate in advance to save some time. With a few very rare exceptions (e.g., dialysis patients), if you're walking around and functioning, your pH is 7.4. Not 7.3 or 7.5. Seven. Point. Four.

How do I know that? Because your kidneys see to it. You'd die if they didn't. As your blood passes through your kidneys for waste removal, the kidneys at the same time selectively either hang onto or excrete various positive and negative ions to maintain your pH exactly where it needs to be. Sure, you might ingest some acidic foods, but the kidneys sense this and correct for it long before the deviation from ideal pH has any chance to cause any symptoms that you could notice.

Two basic points: (1) You have no ability to detect consciously what your pH is. (2) If the body relied on us to consciously monitor and adjust our pH, we'd all be dead.

All of which means this: When you drink water with a pH of 9.5, as this TJ's bottle claims to be, you are not correcting for an acidic pH. In fact, you are throwing a bunch of excessive positive ions into your system. There's no particular harm in this, since your kidneys can dump the excess into your urine just as fast as you can ingest it, so even a continuous pH monitor would never detect more than the minutest rise. (It's not just the kidneys. Your lungs get in on it even more quickly. You'll start breathing more shallowly--involuntarily, and without even noticing it--in order to retain more carbon dioxide in the blood, which acidifies it.) But alkaline water is not therapeutic in any sense of the word.

Still, I spent 99 cents on one bottle, just so that I could say I had tried it. I drank it last night, during a poker game at a friend's house. It tasted remarkably like...water. I could detect nothing aberrant about its taste. I also did not feel any magical sense that I had restored my woebegone physiology. I did not feel better, did not think better, did not gain any superpowers. In fact, I felt nothing at all. Oh, wait--that's not true. I felt LESS THIRSTY. Period.

Don't waste your money on crap like this. Drink tap water. If the tap water where you live tastes too awful to stand, get delivery of those 5-gallon bottles for a cooler, or buy the cheapest bottled water you can find.

Will I buy it again? 

No. I know better, and now so do you.