Aspire

This was the last of the Aspire RTDs that I tried and, after Mango Lemonade, I was back to being worried again. However, this was pretty nice! I didn’t get Acai a whole lot, but the raspberry was very fresh and natural tasting – like real raspberry juice. Of the three, it was actually the most natural tasting. Less sweet that the Sweet Cherry, and I felt like it was also the only one where there was a sense of having some type of green tea undertone as well. I still don’t think I’d get any of these again, but if I did it would probably be this one. It was tasty, vaguely tea-like, and (though I liked the taste of the cherry better) this felt the furthest away from a soda.

Also, if I didn’t mention it, all three of these were sparkling.

This was definitely the worst of the three flavours I tried from Aspire. Mango and Lemonade feels like it should be super easy to execute too – just bright, tropical and citrusy with a nice zesty tartness. Instead, it was very bitter and the finish tasted like dirt. Not, like, “muddy” in the sense of not having clarity but straight up garden dirt. Like if you were to eat an unwashed carrot you’d pulled from the garden.

I also felt like I didn’t taste mango or lemonade – just a sort of vague “orangeish” fruit note. So, I guess, in that way it was dirt-like and muddy. Gross.

Back on my RTD bullshit…

I saw this new (to me) company at my local grocery store so I, of course, had to buy one of each flavour. They’re a “natural energy drink” brand made using green tea and green coffee.

This was actually my favourite one. I was nervous because cherry is so easy to fuck up, but it was just sweet enough while also having a pleasant tartness as well. Like a sweet and sour cherry note that I’d say was sort of like a cross of a cherry popsicle with a sour cherry blaster gummy candy – not quite so fakey tasting though. I mean, still a little fakey and candy like – but not as aggressive as it could have been.

That said, I probably wouldn’t buy again because I did feel like it was more like a “clean soda” that a tea drink and, if I’m going for soda taste, I’ll just buy that…