Selfheal Fruit Juice – Xia Ku Cao
On my trip to Hong Kong, I picked up another weird drink that I had never seen before in a 7-11. Beside the fact that I didn't recognize the name 夏枯草, I could tell it was weird because of the drink's tagline: "Common selfheal fruit-spike drink." That doesn't give me any clue as to what's in it.
It tastes basically like raisin juice, but really a mild flavor. It's not sour or bitter at all, and not even too sweet. It just has a little raisin-y aftertaste, and is pretty refreshing cold. I think you could also drink it hot, like the jew's ear juice, and it might taste good that way too.
Checking my trusty Chinese translator, nciku.com, it seems I've never heard of this fruit before either. It's xia1 ku1 cao3 in Mandarin, ha6 fu1 chou2 in Cantonese, Prunella vulgaris in Latin, and "Self-heal" in English. Also known as Lance Selfheal in the US, it's a flowery plant that's harvested for it's medicinal properties. It supposedly can help to heal a whole bunch of diseases, and is being researched for cancer, AIDS, and diabetes treatments.
Getting to the label, here are the ingredients: purified water, cane sugar, common selfheal fruit-spike, dates, grosvenor momordica fruit, and liquorice root. If you're wondering what the second-to-last ingredient is, it's luo han guo, which is probably why this tastes a little similar to the luo han guo juice I tried in Thailand.
The xia ku cao juice has no preservatives or artificial colorings, and based on the ingredients it sounds like it's really good for you. It tastes good too.
Black Currant Juice
This Black Currant Juice drink comes from Connecticut, where I picked it up in a local grocery store. It's a dark juice, and very strong smell, a lot like concord grape, and similar almost to wine. The taste is very much like a dark purple grape juice. There are slight tannins, but overall it's a very smooth drink.
It only has 3 ingredients: water, black currant juice (from concentrate), and fructose. But it's only 22% juice. How can that be? I'm not sure, maybe that means it's only 22% concentrate, with the water as the majority of the other 78%. If you know how they calculate the percentage of juice, please leave a comment. Regardless, this leads me to imagine that straight-up black currant juice is probably either bitter or sour - which is why cranberry juice is usually sold as a juice blend. The water and sugar really easily cut that though if it's the case, because it's actually very good.
Black currant is a small black fruit very high in antioxidants and vitamins, including Vitamin C. It has four times the Vitamin C of oranges, and twice as many antioxidants as blueberries. I think that qualifies it as a superfruit. It comes from Europe, and is working on making a comeback in the United States where it was banned in the past because of a threat to the logging industry. It is still banned in some states.
The black currant juice I tried was made by Currant Affair. You can visit their website at www.ConnecticutCurrant.com
Bossa Nova Superfruit Acai with Mango
Bossa nova's acai juice has a great berry smell. It's very smooth like a good acai juice should be, and doesn't have any of the brown residue like sambazon acai juice did. The mango is not extremely noticeable, but it does give it an extra sweetness and a bit of a cooling sensation like fresh mango does. It's not bitter at all, and not really too sweet either. The mango does cut some of the acai so you don't get the rich acai flavor that i've had in other pure acai juices. This one is 88% juice, and is sweetened with organic agave nectar, which seems to be the trend these days for sweeteners since it has a relatively neutral taste and none of the bad image that might come with sugar or high fructose corn syrup.
Overall, a very good and refreshing acai juice blend. One of the best I've tasted.
Mona Vie Active Juice Blend
Bottle of Mona-Vie
I first came across Mona-Vie when looking for a healthy acai drink. It calls itself "the premier acai blend," with 19 different beneficial fruits. However, it's very expensive just for one bottle, rivaling a decent priced liquor. A 750 ml bottle of the monavie active blend can go for $45 in the US.
I finally got my hands on this expensive blend of fruit juices from someone I know who ordered it, since I don't believe it's sold in stores. Read More >
Sambazon Organic Acai Juice: Original Blend
Sambazon Acai Juice
Sambazon Acai is one of the first companies to bring acai berry fruit juice to the United States. The Açai berry, is one of those fruits that still has near mythical status, despite the fact that it's been widely available in the states for several years. Acai is pronounced ah-sigh-ee and is also known as the purple berry because of it's deep purple color. It's extremely high in antioxidants, healthy omega fatty acids, fiber, and protein, and supposedly has many other health properties.
This exotic drink has been made by Brazilians for who knows how many hundreds of years. Even though the acai berry is Brazilian, acai juice is not one of the most common preparations, which is what makes this such an exotic drink. The fruit grows on the açai palm tree that is only found in Brazil, where it is made into a variety of juice blends, smoothies, ice creams and other delicious treats. In some regions of the Amazon, the berry makes up nearly half of the locals diet.
I decided to try and review Sambazon's organic original blend açai juice. It's basically Read More >