Aloe Vera - 86 Reviews

On the very tip top of the mountains of Toronto that are the skyscrapers there is a little bit of heaven that contains not one, but two gardens. One of those gardens is made of stones, which are moved around for the use of relaxation and meditation. The second garden grows but one thing: green tea. Did I mention that monks run the upper ten floors of this monstrous building? They are not your typical monks. They are urban monks. They wear hoodies with white zippers, raw denim and Beats by Dre cans that they listen to their chants on. It's a modern world and even the old customs are acclimating. In the early morning the monks make their way to the roof where they tinker around in the rock garden until they have reached their daily-allotted enlightenment. Then it is time to hand pick the tea leaves and take them to the 27th floor where they are dried and brewed into the products that help sustain their modern way of life.

In my first review of an Urban Zen tea I mentioned that I thought it was going to be green tea and aloe, due to the color and shape of the bottle. Guess what? That is exactly what this one is, and it's magical. It's like someone mixed a mango flavored bubble tea (hold the tapioca balls) and mixed it with an “original” flavored aloe drink (you know the kind that has the slight white grape flavor to it). Of course there are chunks of aloe in it, but they are not as plentiful as a lot of their competitors products. I'm okay with that though because the flavor more than makes up for it. It's extremely flavorful and sweet in all the right ways.

Next time you find yourself in Canada dish out the $2-3 a bottle of this cost and help the monks afford those new Samurai jeans they have had their collective eyes on. Remember enlightenment isn't everything.

What I have in my hand is perhaps one of the most uniquely flavored drinks I have ever tasted. Let's start with the base of aloe shall we? Aloe the plant that is used to sooth burns is absolutely disgusting in its raw form. Seriously, just take it from me save yourself the taste of poison in your mouth. Just use it on burns caused by the sun or other. Processed aloe, or whatever they do to it to make it into a beverage is one of my favorite tasting drinks ever. So we have this vat of delicious aloe juice, what should we put in it? Oh how about the most refreshing of flavors of all time: the cucumber. Cucumber flavored drinks sounds ridiculous, that is until you try it and then you want it constantly. Every cucumber beverage I have tried tastes exactly like the vegetable, and as I said it's the peak of refreshment; move over lemonade. So we have some cucumber aloe juice now. Truth be told we could stop right here, but why not see how far we can take it? Why don't you throw some mint into the mix? Not enough to give it that toothpaste taste, but just enough to make it crisp. You know, so you don't really realize it's there until the aftertaste. To top it all off, why not pump some CO2 into it and give it some bubbles? Bam! Done! Perfect! It's crisp, it's refreshing and it ends on a nice cool note. It's a combination I have never tasted before. Why this company is not huge I have no idea. This is a base that other beverages should be modeled after.

Welcome to Tea Shop 168 where we have 168 different flavors of tea. I know it's a bit overwhelming making your choice, but I'll let you in on a secret: 142 of the flavors are different blends of green tea that pretty much taste identical unless you went to school for teaology. I don't really believe that's a real major, but the owners assure me they are teaologists. They probably went to Evergreen in Olympia…€¦hippies.

I know 27 different varieties of tea can still be a bit much to choose from, so may I suggest you try our aloe vera green tea fusion? It's an interesting ride. Some say that it is just green tea with aloe chunks thrown in. Those people are just dumb. I know. I make the tea and I can assure you that there is also aloe vera juice in it. It is mostly green tea, but you can still definitely taste the aloe juice. It's strange having a slightly bitter aloe drink, and the chunks have a fairly different flavor from what you're probably used to, assuming that you have had aloe drinks before. Oh you haven't? Well aloe essentially tastes like a light white grape juice with a little something extra to it. It's delicious, and I can't sing it's praises enough.

So yeah, this is unusual and fun. It certainly isn't mind blowing, but when you're choosing either this or some tea infused with raw meat, it's the choice to make. Teaology…€¦What a joke. The owners just soak random foods in green tea and act like they are scientists. They don't even wear lab coats or goggles. Lamers.

ps. I just discovered that Tea Shop 168 is an actual tea shop with a physical stores all throughout Ontario. AS far as I know they do not have 142 different types of green tea. Also, I can only assume that they do have roast beef tea, as their website does not explicitly state that they do not. Don't forget your horseradish.

Summer is depressingly over. If you live where I live, you can essentially kiss the sun goodbye (great album name that is available with credit given to me) for the next six months. These are things we deal with on the East Coast. Oh it's bright and you still need sunglasses but you can't see the sun and need twelve jackets to fight the ice age that is northeast winters. It's fine. It's really no big deal.

Why do I bring up the sun and a paragraph of nothing before I review a drink? Well for two reasons mostly. Number one is that I'm trying to create a picture and a scene and number two is that we are terrible at writing drink reviews. You can't really say otherwise and if you do, well, thanks. You're too kind. Wrong, but kind. We're narrative masterminds but we are not product reviews.

So aloe is used to cure us from the sun's lashings upon our fair skin. Human skin was made for holding in our muscles, guts, and organs. "Guts" might be slang for organs so I might have just said the same thing twice but I didn't want to leave anyone out. Now that the sun isn't out we can't get burnt, the role of aloe turns from topical to internal usage. That's right. Aloe drinks are winter drinks to prep our skin from the inside out to prepare it for the emergence of the sun come April. What better way to do it that with the help of Aloic? It's not overly sweet, still has a ton of chunks, and that grapy taste that anyone who likes grape juice or has drank an aloe drink in the past loves. The sweetness part is the item that gets my love. That is a problem I have with a lot of aloe drinks is that they are too sweet. Good, but too sweet. This solves that problem in a delicious, chunky way.

I can feel my skin tightening and toughening up as I drink this. Every sip is one more day I don't have to wear sunscreen, a safari hat, and pants in the summer to protect me from that jerk sun. I appreciate all that you do what with annually burning my lawn and killing my flowers with your relentless rays, but sometimes you can be a real turd. Just tone it down a little bit. Go hide behind the clouds and read a nudie mag or something so we can stop fertilizing and melting.

Part of me really thought that I was over aloe drinks. When I first discovered them a few years back (yes I am an explorer as well as a scientist) I couldn't get enough. I would buy the huge bottles and down them in one sitting, like some fat conquistador slob. I realized that the amount of sugar I was consuming was enough to give an elephant diabetes, so I “cooled my jets,” as the kids say. It's been awhile since I've had a bottle, and just like with most things, with time your feelings towards them fade. The refreshment that was once my love had become just another face in the crowd of thousands of drinks we've downed in the name of Thirsty Dudes.

Drinking this bottle was like renewing my wedding vows. One sip and I fell in love all over again. It's sweet, but it's more honey than cane sugar. Actually the whole bottle only has 16g of sugar, which is way lower than I expected. This is a perfect blend of the classic white grape-ish flavor of aloe mixed with pineapple. Both are present in their own ways and it's one hell of a ride of flavor.

Let's not forget about our friends the aloe chunks. It looked like there were a ton of them in the bottle, but when I was drinking it, it seemed like there were less than other companies use. Either way, they are still fun to drink and catch in your teeth.

Today I will make a vow to aloe that I will never again forever about how much I love you, and the enjoyment it brings to my life. I may stray to other drinks on a regular basis, but I will always come back to you when all is said and done.

I pose to you a question: When Kurt Russell was escaping from New York, and later L.A. would he have had an easier time if this drink were on hand? Would it have given him the refreshment he needed in such dire situations? Would he have just been able to trade a bottle of this for the president? I can only imagine that pineapples and guavas would be like gold on a prison island. If you lived in an area that was cut off from the world for years and suddenly someone dangled those fruits in front of you, I think you would be surprised as to what you would do to procure it. The joke would be on you though if you traded something as precious at the president for a bottle of this. You see there are four main ingredients in this bottle: aloe vera, pineapple and guava (which are all incredibly delicious), but then you also have sea buckthorn berry. I've never actually had one before, or heard of it until now, but a quick internet search tells me they are extremely healthy an also extremely tart. My question is if they are so tart why does this drink taste like someone took a delicious tropical aloe drink and mixed in a little bit of vegetable soup? There is just this little flavor of soup that makes this whole thing really, really weird. It counters the tropical flavor, and once you realize what the taste reminds you of it's hard to concentrate on any of the other flavors. It's still enjoyable, but it's just a weird drink. Snake Plissken sure pulled a fast one on those cons. Now he just needs to get the president back to his glider.

Oh yeah, in case you didn't already realize it this drink also has chunks of aloe in it. I normally love them, but they kind of add to the vegetable soup scenario in here.

So far we have not had good luck with the Coco Exposed line. I have to blame the coconut for our disinterest. Alo makes incredible aloe drinks, and this line is basically those same drinks with coconut water added to them. The only difference I can see is that dumb coconut water. I've come around to coconut water for the most part. I don't mind the chalkiness and it can be extremely refreshing. There is something different with the coconut water in here though. In another review Mike described it as tasting like the powder left over in the bottom of the box when you run out of Cheerios. I don't think he's wrong about that. It has that same wheaty/grainy aftertaste. It's strange as the other coconut waters I've drunk did not have that flavor. In reality it could be because this drink has no sugar added to it.

I was hoping this flavor would be better than the others because it's passion fruit and pineapple flavored; two of my favorites. Unfortunately the non-coconut flavor in here just tastes like a vaguely fruity aloe drink. Neither the passion fruit nor the pineapple stands out in any way. It's a shame, but at least I was able to get through this whole bottle without being completely disgusted. That's further than we got with the other flavors.

To whom it may concern,
I don't know if you have thought ahead for things like birthdays, Christmas, Easter, or Sweetest Day, but you needn't look any more. I, Nature, have created the greatest gift for everyone. I mean everyone. I don't and never have discriminated. Everyone is equal and this drink I have created with my bare hands is for you.

Allow me to describe this gift that I have so generously and nonchalantly given to the people of the world. It is an aloe drink. Simple as that: original aloe flavor. No funny fruit business. I stick to the classics myself. Vinyl? I love it. Laserdisc? Nope. VHS, son! I only listen to debut records from bands and will not buy anything after that regardless of how much better it is. Yeah, I know the production quality is usually better on subsequent albums, but I stick to my guns. No, I'm joking. Nature doesn't use guns but I do rain on tons of parades if you know what I mean.

I just thought that I would remind you that this gem of a drink existed because I noticed in the last quarter sales were down a little bit. Remember, this is a gift so drink it with glee and have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,
Nature Steinberg

Paldo seems like it should be a dog's name. I kind of want to name a dog Paldo now. I also want to teach him to go fetch me drinks. Does that fall under the adorable category or the one labeled “get it yourself you lazy slob?” I'm going to go with adorable. I would imagine glass bottles would be hard on the little guy's teeth. They also might be too smooth for him to be able to get a proper grasp on to carry. Cans would also be a problem because one little tooth pressed just a little too hard and the contents are going to spray everywhere. It looks like I'll have to train my little bubby Paldo to retrieve me plastic bottles. Hopefully he will be prone to choosing his namesake because they make some great tasting aloe drinks. Sure the chunks in it are a little too tiny for my liking (they resemble pulp more than chunks), but the flavor is always great. This bottle is a great example. Pomegranate is a delicious fruit but a little too much for a lot of people. Paldo (the company not the imaginary dog) added enough sweetener to take away most of the bitterness yet leave the essence of the fruit in tact. It's a perfect gateway drink to get people into both pomegranate and aloe drinks. If you're skeptical of either, give this a try. I'll be out looking for a beagle puppy who is susceptible to drink training.

Thanks to the grandmothers of the world, everyone knows that if you get a burn, sunburn or otherwise, you break off a piece of an aloe plant and rub it on that burn and feel the relief set in. Being the scientist I am, I wondered if I could take that a step further. On my recent trip to Philadelphia I got a delicious tofu hoagie from a little deli. It was slathered with hot sauce and covered with jalapenos. While it tasted great, the burning sensation it left behind was fairly intense. I needed relief and I needed it fast. Science kicked in and I decided an experiment was needed. I cracked open a bottle of Leaf Up aloe juice and took a big sip. I can't claim that the relief was instant, but the burning subsided a decent amount. A couple more sips and it was all but gone. Once more science prevails over evil in this world. I've only tried this with Leaf Up so far, so I don't know if it will work with all aloe drinks, but with this brand it worked like a charm. It was also tasty to boot. It was very light and more watery than any other aloe juice I've had. The mango flavoring is nice, but it's also a bit watered down. Now when I saw it's watered down I somehow mean that in a good way. It doesn't taste like they cheaped out and were trying to stretch their product out, but like they knew it would be more refreshing this way. There are some chunks in here, but they are pretty small, almost like an afterthought. Normal aloe drinks seem like they were tailor made for kids to drink. This is a grown up version of them, a sophisticated version if you will.

Pomegranate had it's hey day. Then it was acai's time to shine. The world has had oranges, apples and gross bananas crammed down their throat for centuries. What I want to know is when is it going to be guava's turn to stand in the spotlight? It is one of the greatest tasting fruits in the history of the world, and as I just learned it has a bunch of health benefits. It lowers the risk of both cancer and diabetes, it promotes fertility and good eyesight, and it helps regulate blood pressure. I think we need to declare the guava a superfruit this very minute.

Since it is now amongst the chosen fruits I shall celebrate with a bottle of guava flavored aloe drink. It's really a match made in heaven. One of the most fun styles of beverage and one of the best tasting fruit all rolled into one. The weird “grape” flavor of the aloe blends in perfectly with the taste of the guava. It's fruity and sweet in all of the right ways. The chunks of aloe are of average size, so you still get the fun aspect of them. At the store they had other flavors of OKF in larger bottles, but the guava only came in the smaller one. I feel as if I have been cheated and I demand restitution!

Nope. I went into this thinking it was going to be gross and hoping to be wrong and I was right. Story time? You've got it.

There was once a bar that Jay DJ'd at and it was pretty great. They sold everything and also served food and drink. You could go in there, buy a nice meal and the chair you sat in to eat it. Tables, chairs, toys, odds and ends, and more; everything was for sale. It was cool. Jay and I were there for a night he was playing and he took a break and they offered wheatgrass so we split a shot of it. It wasn't bad. We thought it was going to be gross, but it just tastes like the smell of freshly cut grass. A little sweet but very...fresh. Very green. It's got some immense amount of vitamins and minerals equivalent to multiple servings of vegetables.

This is just a strange, smooth, chunky texture, like if you watered down your morning oatmeal and drank it, except your oatmeal smelled like if you poured the dust from a box of Cheerios into a cup rather than actual cereal.

This is bad. I have said it before and I'll say it again. How does stuff like this make it to market?

Put a fruit salad in front of a kid and it's a pretty safe bet that the honeydew will be the last thing left in the bowl. If you put yogurt in front of a child it is very likely that you will take that container away untouched. I don't know why kids don't like these two things. I certainly wasn't a fan when I was younger, but now that I'm a grown-ass man I love and consume more than my fair share of both. I don't know if a meeting was held by my taste buds and they decided that I was wrong for a few decades, but upon entering my thirties I had a newfound respect for the worlds of melon and yogurt. So much in fact that I let out a little yip when I saw this bottle in my friendly neighborhood Asian market. That's right, a 32-year-old man let out a squeal of joy whilst shopping alone. I don't think anyone heard me, but if they did I'd like to think that would give me an understanding nod. Did I mention this also has aloe chunks in it? This is a drink tailor made for the adult version of me.

What is held in this bottle is near gold to my mouth. It's a slightly thick liquid. It has more of the consistency of milk than yogurt, but it does have a slight yogurt aftertaste. The main flavor is wonderfully milky honeydew. Let's not forget the chunks. I think that if the aloe chunks would have been bigger this drink would be a slam-dunk, but they are fairly small, and seem more like pulp than hunks. I will tell you that it took some restraint not to drink this all in one sitting, but I'm glad I help strong, because I got to enjoy it again on another day. I wasn't lying when I said kids don't like honeydew or yogurt, but I bet if you put a bottle of this in front of a preteen it would be gone in a matter of minutes. Gold I tell ya.

Gerald was one dumb kid. He was one of those kids that didn't like to drink water so he drank anything but. When he was about eight, someone gave him an aloe drink and he fell in love. What kid wouldn't want to drink something with chunks? It's just gross enough that young boys think it's the most incredible thing ever. He would drink it every day. He would drink a lot of it every day. When he was at school he would have one of those giant 32 ounce bottles in his backpack and when the school day was over, he would have nearly finished the whole thing. When he was home, he would drink small containers because his mom and dad really didn't like him drinking that much.

He would hide them throughout his room. He particularly liked the La Vi drinks because they were good and they were small enough to fit in small places. The last time he went to his local Asian market the cashier, who knows him by name, turned him onto an apple La Vi aloe drink. It had a decent apple taste, was a little syrupy, and had those lovable chunks in it.

One day, when running in gym class, he fell and cut his leg. He grabbed his leg and when he lifted his hands to see how bad it was, and his hands were covered in aloe and chunks. It was a little pink from blood but for the most part, it was all aloe! He thought it was cool and called his friends over to look at it. They dared him to drink it but that was just too much for him. The nurse called his parents and yelled at them for letting him drink so much aloe and that it was bad for him. When Gerald got home, he was grounded and they found and threw out his stash of aloe drinks. He understood that he had a problem and cut his aloe intake way down.

It's been a long time since I've had an aloe drink. It's not that I have been avoiding them. I just haven't been able to find any that we haven't already reviewed. With a cupboard full of drinks to review, it's kind of hard to justify buying a drink for pleasure. Needless to say, I was excited when I found this bottle at a local Asian market.

First thing, there are barely any chunks of aloe in this. That is my favorite part of aloe drinks so this is already off to a bad start. You know how honey makes some root beers really good? Well it ruins this drink. Even though it's one of the last ingredients on the list, it somehow manages to ruin the delicious taste of pomegranate in this.

If I were to protest outside of the Jayone factory, my sign would say, "Less honey, more chunks!"

I do believe that giving this to an expecting person would very likely result in your shoes and shirt being covered in vomit. It looks like it should be a foreign take on the juice box, which it essentially is. The thing is that not only does this have chunks of aloe in it, but it also has bits of nata de coco. I imagine someone taking a big squeeze of it into their mouth, expecting juice city, and then they are greeted with a mouthful of slime and chunks. It's a chunk overload and I absolutely love it. I'm actually skeptical to call this a drink because there are so many chunks that it's more like a semi-solid.

Let me break it down this way. This is basically a blood bag filled with apple juice with aloe sludge in it that is peppered with bits of nata de coco. It tastes exactly like someone mixed some plain flavored aloe juice with some apple juice. This is so much better than it should be.

For years I've trudged across this planet in search of a holy grail of sorts. No not Ecto Cooler (well I have been looking for it, but I can buy expired stuff on eBay), what I speak of is the elusive cantaloupe juice. Why can't I find it? I'm beginning to thin that it just doesn't exist which is ridiculous because cantaloupes are super juicy and messy to eat. Someone needs to harness that power so I can enjoy a nice tall glass of it.

On my last trip to Toronto I found this in an Asian market and I briefly thought my arduous trip had come to an end. That full melon sure looks like cantaloupe, but on closer inspection the slice is green and very obviously honeydew. Drats. I have nothing against honeydew, but you have to admit it's doesn't come close to touching cantaloupe. That being said this is one heck of a drink. Even though the ingredients list it as "melon flavor" I sure thought it was actual honeydew juice. It taste exactly like biting into an extremely ripe melon that has been soaking in sugar water. The aloe chunks in it are great. It's easy to forget that they are aloe and not melon pulp. Oh man cantaloupe juice with pulp in it would be a dream come true. Until someone gets up the guts to make the worlds best juice looks like I'll have to settle for these little cans of awesome.

This could not be a more disgusting drink. I mean it. This is hardly drinkable. I took one sip and essentially signed off on the whole thing. I love aloe. This has so much chunk in it that you think that you're drinking something else. It's downright thick. Second, it's got coconut water in it which I am not the largest fan of, but I thought that since it's got fruits in there, both prefixed with "mango" ironically, it might be alright. Nope. It stood out like a sore thumb. I can taste the fruit but it's so masked by chunks and coconut that you'd be better off just not adding flavor, or more flavor. This drink is a Frankenstein of all things bad and no, I'm not using that phrase because it's a week away from Halloween.

It's been awhile since I've had an aloe drink. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I started drinking this bottle of Paldo. No matter what flavor they are they all have such a specific underlying flavor. It's almost a white grape flavor, but it's slightly crisper. So this tastes like a crisp white grape and mango hybrid. If it was a juice it would be great on it's own, but when you add the aloe chunks into the mix things get even better. Paldo uses smaller chunks than other companies, but they make up for it in flavor.

Grandpa was the king of cookies. Whenever we'd go to visit he had a smorgasbord of confectioneries that he would sneak us when no one was looking. Grandma on the other hand loved her hard candies. Her assortment would change, but there would always be the strawberry candy in the mix. You know the ones whose wrappers are printed to look like the fruit. As soon as I tasted this drink it made me think about those candies. They were never my favorite, of course they couldn't compete with grandpa's cookies, but I never turned one down. I feel the same way about this drink. It's not my favorite aloe drink, but if it was offered to me I would always happily take it. It has average sized aloe chunks in it, which almost come off as bits of berries. It may not be the best, but it's a nice walk down memory lane. Drink one and think of your grandmother.