The 'Shroom:Issue 184/Critic Corner: Difference between revisions

Welcome back for another round of sparkles, bubbles, and fizz!  In true Half-Baked fashion, I went and kept buying more and more and more, so settle in for a full summer of hydration!

Filtered naturally through the porous lava rock at the base of Mauna Loa, [https://waiakea.com/ Waiākea] is proudly marketed as Hawaiian Volcanic Water, made premium by nature, water in its ultimate form, available to native Hawaiians for thousands of years and now bottled for you, sitting in a continental suburb, since 2012.

Waiākea seems more like a vessel for philanthropy and good-will credit, trying to hit every virtue they can while delivering a product that tastes like no more than what it is: tap water for a small town.

What I find most intriguing about Waterloo is that they [https://www.drinkwaterloo.com/our-story really don’t have any hook or lore], they’re kinda just a company that makes sparkling water, tossing in some corporate buzzwords and nonsense to at least fit the theme.  What they promise are ‘full-out flavors’, that they ‘are crafted, not formulated’, and provide authenticity.  Their entire angle is about making something that [https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2019/07/10/The-meteoric-rise-of-Waterloo-Sparkling-Water-We-have-a-better-tasting-product-hands-down tastes (and smells) good], which, honestly, is a valid direction to come from with a product that’s notorious for either leaving a bad taste if any at all.  Non-GMO, 0 calories, Whole30-approved, but don’t expect any insight on what the ingredients are.[[File:HalfBaked_184_3.jpg|350px|right|thumb|Looks plain, by design.]]

Cherry is a difficult flavor to nail or predict, as it can come with many different expectations, and it’s apparent that Waterloo tried to appeal to all of them.  Candy sweetness, sour, mellow and dark, without a single one standing out.  Some people may be fond of this, but it just doesn’t grab me at all; cherry is one of my favorite flavors and I need it to be tart and strong.  It smells really good, though, which sets up the expectations that it will come with a full-out flavor blast, but it’s just an over-engineered run-of-the-mill sparkling water.  Sparkling Ice does it better, cheaper, for more volume, with no disingenuous attempt to disguise how they don’t care at all for virtues beyond ‘carbonated’ and ‘tastes like what the color is’.

A classic flavor that they [https://www.drinkwaterloo.com/flavors/lemon-lime felt they needed to change up] by focusing more on the citrus flavors than the caustic sweetness that every single other lemon-lime fizzy drink is.  This was achieved by combining their regular Lemon, and their regular Lime, which sounds intuitive, but neglects to acknowledge that the fusion of two strong personalities is the creation of a more powerful one, as they instead opted to create a Frankenstein’s monster where you get some hints of lemon, some hints of lime, but not enough of either one.  Just barely enough flavor for it to feel uncanny and off, not very pleasant to deal with.  I’m not sure why I’m even trying to hate this, since apparently everyone else on the internet salivates at the sight of this; maybe it’s because Sprite has such a stranglehold on that flavor combo that I’m left feeling disappointed that I didn’t receive a mimic, or maybe because they discontinued the two separate Lemon and Lime flavors to introduce this.  Why did they have their Flavor Artists concoct some synthetic potion to imitate separate lemon and lime flavors, but refused to make the synthetic lemon-lime flavor?  What’s not clicking with me about this brand that is with everyone else?  Maybe I’m getting tired of a genre of products that has only so much variation possible before it goes outside its bounds?  But hey, at least it smells good!

I think that their Flavor Artists would be better off going into the air freshener or candle market, as the scents are what they excel at.

A recent spin-off from Mother Kombucha, [https://motherkombucha.com/agua-bucha/ Aqua Bucha] is a kombucha-infused sparkling water in case that was something someone thought they needed.  What’s most interesting about this is that it’s a shelf-stable kombucha product that remains safe and non-alcoholic, [https://risekombucha.com/does-kombucha-need-to-be-refrigerated/ a miraculous feat] that has only been achievable recently and just starting to expand; [https://hummkombucha.com/humm-zero/ Humm Zero], [https://www.remedydrinks.com/us Remedy], and poppi being big names within that.  What Agua Bucha does in effort to set itself apart is that all of its ingredients are organic, and the drink has naturally occurring B vitamins (2200% of the daily recommended level of vitamin B12) and organic acids, no alcohol, no preservatives, nothing artificial.

[[File:HalfBaked_184_5.jpg|350px|right|thumb|I think it's a little silly that they hide their brand name on the back with a tiny logo.]]

It just tastes like regular sparkling water, but as you swallow you get a brief slap of kombucha funk that really only serves to trigger my gag reflex.  There’s simply no excuse for it, as a strong citrus flavor is typically what shields you from the nastiness of kombucha, but the key lime is missing in action.  Spoiled water, and nothing more.

Much MUCH better, just simply tastes like fizzy water with a lemon wedge squeezed in.  The kombucha flavor is almost completely masked, except for a little tinge of ‘hmm?’ in it that rounds out the subtle sourness.  Drinkable enough that I’d qualify it as ‘refreshing’.

This one doesn’t taste like much, it’s very weak and mild, only a subtle clue that it’s some kind of citrus that’s for sure not lemon.  Completely inoffensive, though, from every angle it could have come from.  What is notable and cannot be ignored is that the same tragedy befalls Agua Bucha as it has with many sparkling waters, in that the flavors available in the item become more present as it goes from cold to room temperature, and quite truthfully those flavors are not good.

If you come to Agua Bucha expecting a kombucha product, as you may given their focus on the kombucha-inclusion and marketing, then you will be incredibly disappointed, as the kombucha flavor is very minimal, with there being better products out there that would satisfy your need.  I feel that this squarely fits into the sparkling water category and should be viewed as such, and with that is a sparkling water that provides more flavor than others without resorting to sugars and additives like Sparkling Ice does.  There’s more of a savory element than there is sweetness, which feels different, but welcome.  It’s a good way to step out of the safety of La Croix and dip a toe into kombucha without getting a mouthful of feet.

[[File:HalfBaked_184_6.jpg|350px|left|thumb|Top-shelf pricing.]]

Right off, I’m suspicious of brands that emphasize that they’re the first of something–Sanzo proudly marketing itself as ‘The 1st Asian-inspired sparkling water’ which is uhhhhhhhh ok, I’d like to see what metrics determined that, as [https://ir.nationalbeverage.com/static-files/f639411d-7844-47b2-aae1-85ec0aa4a9da La Croix had Mango since 2014] if that’s the technicality we’re running with.  Fellow foodie darling du jour [https://drinkgenki.com/collections/sparkling-water Genki Forest] is out there with Lychee, Yogurt Refresh, Calamansi Lime, Bamboo & Aloe, and I can tell you that these would, for sure, be included in this review set if the only current way to get them wasn’t just buying expensive cases with way more of a single flavor than I care for.  Sanzo is also [https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/best-sparkling-water-asian-inspired-flavors nowhere near the only Asian-inspired sparkling water] on the market, but perhaps just simply had the more slick corporate gimmicks and push.

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Certainly tastes like mango; not mango flavor, but like you went out to the grocery store to buy a mango for the first time and didn’t know how to tell if it was good so you grabbed one that wasn’t ripe yet and bit directly into it.  The real fruit ingredients are similar to Spindrift’s m.o., but I think they make something more unique that can stand alone without requiring a heartfelt family backstory of immigrant struggle and Facebook advertising to carry the brand.

[[File:HalfBaked_184_7.jpg|450px|right|thumb|Descriptions on the back are always a good read.]]

The ingredients, along with yuzu, include ginger and lemon, flavors that can go pretty well together but I’d just like to see on their own sometimes if it’s not too much to ask.  All three being combined is likely to buffer what yuzu actually tastes like and how it very likely would not appeal to the American market that it’s selling in aside from the weird kinda Japonisme eroticism that makes me think that this would be a French brand rather than what is really [https://drinksanzo.com/pages/about a genuine Asian-American product], especially with their other motto being ‘Traditional Asian flavors. Modern Taste.’  Like, I don’t know, the angling is just weird to me, there are plenty of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japan, Indian, Filipino, and overall pan-Asian grocery stores and supermarkets around me where I can go and get Asian products that are overtly Asian with Asian flavors that don’t pivot in this way, but I also guess that’s why those items don’t make it into the New Yorker, Epicurious, and Business Insider.  I think by now plenty of people are aware of what yuzu is and aren’t mystified by its 16-point minimum Scrabble score, and if they’re instead met with a flavor that’s pretty common and mundane, they’ll be pretty disappointed.

[https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-calamansi-limes-5210037 Calamansi] are citrus fruits, hybrids of kumquats and (usually) mandarin oranges, widely used in southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines.  Their flavor is described as being a blend of lemon and lime, or orange and lime, the former of which is the tone that comes much more strongly through in Sanzo’s version.  As the drink is only made up of carbonated water and calamansi puree, I can confidently say that it’s just a lemon-lime fruit flavor, and as a result this is simply a mild Sprite and nothing more.  If your desire is for what tastes like a large McDonald’s Sprite that you couldn’t drink fast enough before the ice all melted, but with 0 calories, then this can be on your list of options.

[https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-lychee-fruit-4772267 Lychee] is a tropical fruit native to China, but able to be grown in tropical environments around the world, and thus [https://ediblesouthflorida.ediblecommunities.com/eat/welcome-short-sweet-lychee-season able to be grown and harvested here in Florida].  The taste is described frequently as similar to strawberry and citrus, but more floral.  Sanzo’s Lychee sparkling water definitely evokes an accurate flavor, something made easy by the ingredients of this brand being simply carbonated water, the named fruit, and some citric acid.  It’s reminiscent of many other fancy worldly gourmet artisan drinks utilizing rose flavor.  It’s ok, but having had other lychee drinks such as [https://www.calpico-usa.com/ Calpico’s], I have an awareness that the flavor could be much more powerful, and I’m honestly a little thankful for that as lychee flavor tends to lean more on the Yankee Candle side than edible fruit.