Starbucks Refreshers Strawberry Lemonade

Do you know how coffee is produced? I certainly had no idea until about a year ago when I visited a coffee plantation. Okay, I had an inkling when we got those Bai drinks to review that are made with coffee fruit. The point is that it grows on bushes and there are these little green berries. Once the berries ripen they turn red, and are harvested. Inside the berries are the coffee seeds or beans, which are dried and roasted to brew the coffee that you drink for your get up and go.

When the coffee berries are still green they still contain a decent amount of caffeine, so Starbucks, amongst other companies, have started using them to make alternative energy drinks. These drinks aren't quite coffee and they certainly aren't traditional energy drinks, but they still give you a nice little boost without any added chemicals.

This little guy right here is quite aromatic. As soon as I cracked it open my car was greeted with the scent of strawberries. It's one of their weird two tier flavored drinks. While it's in your mouth it tastes like a nice watered down, carbonated strawberry lemonade. It's not tart at all, but it still has that lemonade flavor. Then when you swallow the slight bitterness of the coffee berry kicks in, and the berry flavor fades away. When I was at that coffee plantation I tried a green coffee berry and it was incredibly bitter on it's own. The sweetener in here takes care of that a bit, but it lingers some in the aftertaste.

I do wish this was stronger on the lemonade side of things, but for an energy drink that doesn't taste like your run of the mill toxic garbage, I can handle what they give me.