Agua Fresca - 4 Reviews

At our show in Atlanta I went on an adventure with fellow soda enthusiast/bassist Dakota Floyd to find the elusive Brood Soda. We walked about a mile through somewhat rain to get to the store only to find that they no longer carry it. Luckily it wasn't a complete bust and I stumbled upon this beverage. I was bummed that they didn't have Brood, and I wasn't even looking forward to this, but was it ever a treat. It ended up being the best thing I have drank in quite some time.

This is a watermelon agua fresca that actually tastes like watermelon and not a gross fake candy. It's really smooth, but the flavor is so perfect and specific that it tricks my mouth into thinking that I can make out the texture of perfectly wipe watermelon (aka the only time that this specific fruit it truly great). The ginger and lime are there, but not as strong and merely serve to make the watermelon shine more brightly. The lime gets stronger in the aftertaste, but it never overpowers the melon. This is the perfect beverage for hot humid weather. Califia Farms has transitioned from coffee drinks into wonderful juice.

Normally when you see settling at the bottom of a bottle it means that the company knows what they are doing and you will be in for a treat. When I grabbed this and saw that it was pretty much all clear liquid with an inch of dark brown at the bottom things were looking up. I'm not normally a fan of tamarind, and I don't really understand how anyone could be, but Angeleno's other flavors have been great, so I thought this might be my stepping stone into this flavor. Wrong em Boyo.

The sweet and sour flavor of tamarind makes me feel like it is normally used in Chinese food, but they decided to liquefy it and add a bunch of sugar. Liquid Chinese food is no one's friend. I really couldn't get past three sips (very small sips) of this. This is the final straw: tamarind is definitely not for me. If you are a fan of this fruit, this is a very sweet version of it. I got no enjoyment out of it, but hopefully someone will. It's always sad when a product made by Hansens misses the mark.

Oh Hansen's. You have done it again. You've conquered pop and now you have done nothing short of it with this juice. You've even cleverly disguised it as some sort of very Spanish drink with the fonts and colors and sun stuff. You've got it all under control. Oh, how is the taste? You nailed it. I'm telling you. If I didn't not like mango for the texture, I would easily have been converted. This is sweetened with cane sugar so it leaves me with a clean mango taste that doesn't taste candied or fake at all. It's quite refreshing to boot. I have read that mango is originally from India and the East but I think if the people who first tasted them tasted this, they would wonder a couple things. One would be what witchcraft you used to get their fruit in your bottle. The other would be that it tastes very good and then a whole rip in the fabric of time would happen and we would all never have mango. Please, for Jay more so than I. Do not go back in time and give bottles of this to the original harvesters of mango so that we may enjoy mango today.

It was nearly a decade ago that an ex of mine said the words that would haunt me to this day, “I wish I could just buy a bottle of cantaloupe juice.” Every since then I can't help but crave a bottle of the best juice melon have to offer. Sure, watermelon is fine, but it's so watery and any attempt to make it otherwise makes it tastes like gross candy. Honeydew is wonderful, and it also eludes me, but it doesn't pack the same punch as a cantaloupe. Why doesn't this exist!?!? Have you ever cut open a cantaloupe? The amount of juice that pours out is ridiculous. It would be so easy for a company to juice them for our pleasure. I've hoped. I've longed. I've dreamed. My prayers have not been answered.

My friend Dave handed me this bottle, and I thought life had changed forever. The flavor said melon, and the picture was clearly of cantaloupe, with no other melons in sight. A quick check on the ingredients had me slightly disappointed, but still with high hopes. This isn't pure cantaloupe; it also has white grape and watermelon juices in the mix. It did clearly state “cantaloupe extracts” in the list though, so at least there was a trace of the real fruit.

One sip, and I knew this was not the beverage I've dreamed of so often on those dark lonely nights, but it also was nothing to pour out. The flavor is definitely the melon I want, but you can also taste watermelon fighting with it. It's a compromise that I am willing to deal with, as I'll take what I can get in this regard. I made it through about half the bottle before I decided that it was a bit too sweet. I still drank the entire thing, and greatly enjoyed it, but I could have done without the added sugar. I'm not a kid anymore and excess amounts of sugar can get me down. Now I will sit here and daydream of a 100% cantaloupe juice, with no added sugar that is readily available in stores.