Al Dente Taste Test: Vitamin Enhanced Water
The "vitamin enhanced water" market began in the late 90's and has only increased in popularity, thanks in part to (now) Coke's Glaceau Vitamin Water. So is this stuff any good? Aside from the occasional Vitamin Water, the Al Dente team had never had anything this market now offers. Consequently, we put seven of these juice-free juggernauts to the test.
The Guidelines
This was a blind test with eight tasters and seven vitamin-enhanced flavored "waters". The water had to be non-carbonated, not diet, and all were similar in flavor (berry). We ranked the water in accordance with the Wine Enthusiast 100-point scale:
<80: Unacceptable
80 – 83: Acceptable
83 – 87: Good
87 – 90: Very Good
90 – 94: Excellent
94 – 98: Superb
98 – 100: Classic
The Contestants
Brand: Dasani Plus
Company: Coca-Cola
Claims to fame: vitamin enhanced, zero calories, “cleanse and restore”
Notable ingredients: Vitamins E, B3, B5, B6, B12; sucralose
Calories: none
Taste: "almost gag inducing", "got worse the more you drank", "gross"
Ranking: 81.25
Brand: Life Water
Company: Sobe Beverages
Claims to fame: vitamin enhanced, “herbal content”
Notable ingredients: Taurine, ginseng; Vitamins C, E, B5, B6, B12
Calories: 100
Taste: "tastes like Juicy Juice", "powdery and unpleasant finish"
Ranking: 83.62
Brand: Vitamin Water Formula 50
Company: Glaceau
Claims to fame: vitamin enhanced, endorsed by rapper 50 Cent.
Notable ingredients: Vitamins E, B3, B5, B6, B12, C
Calories: 125 (that’s 'fiddy' per serving)
Taste: "riding a nice middle ground", "mild and somewhat appealing flavor"
Ranking: 85.50
Brand: Propel Invigorating Water
Company: Gatorade
Claims to fame: vitamin enhanced, contains 20 mg caffeine
Notable ingredients: Caffeine; Vitamins B5, B6, B12
Calories: 20
Taste: "very fruity", "a little medicinal", no "weird aftertaste"
Ranking: 87.12
Brand: Propel Fit Water
Company: Gatorade
Claims to fame: “vitamins” (seriously, that’s all it says; not “contains vitamins” or “vitamin enhanced”)
Notable ingredients: Vitamins C, E, B5, B6, B12; sucralose
Calories: 30
Taste: "watery in a good way", "better balance of water and flavor", "I could drink a bottle of this"
Ranking: 87.87
Brand: Snapple Antioxidant Water
Company: Snapple
Claims to fame: vitamins, electrolytes, antioxidants; “The power to defy” (aging, but I’m not sure how they measure something like that)
Notable ingredients: Vitamins A and E; calcium; grape seed extract; real juice; real sugar
Calories: 120
Taste: "horrible--can’t overstate that", "bland"
Ranking: 84.75
Brand: Powerade Option
Company: Coca-Cola
Claims to fame: B vitamins; 80% fewer calories than the leading sports drink (Gatorade, I assume)
Notable ingredients: Vitamins B6 and B12; sucralose
Calories: 40
Taste: "extremely sweet", "way too sweet", "reminded me I need to go to the dentist"
Ranking: 81.50
And the Winner is...
The overall winner was Propel Fit Water, with Propel Invigorating Water coming in a very close second. The graph shows the drinks in order of consumption--which was chosen at random. Due to the parabolic results, I assume our taste buds could only handle so much of this stuff.
--Spanno
SilentStorm on March 20, 2008 at 07:18 AM
I think my personal preferences cleave well to your results. I haven't tried all of them myself, but out of the ones I have in fact tried, Propel is pretty good.
Spanno, any thought to trying some of the vitamin enhanced drink mixes as well? I have personally tried brands from 4C, Crystal Light, and Propel, and have had both good experiences and bad experiences with them. Maybe something to consider for down the road.
on March 20, 2008 at 08:00 AM
Unless you mixed the different products together, connecting the dots with a contiuous line on your chart makes no sense. I think a bar-chart would have been a better choice. :-)
Spanno on March 20, 2008 at 08:24 AM
SilentStorm- You couldn't pay me enough to drink any more of this stuff.
Anonymous- I'm not a big fan of bar charts.
SilentStorm on March 20, 2008 at 09:26 AM
LOL! I understand Spanno, I do. =)
oldbogus on March 20, 2008 at 04:35 PM
The symbol in ">80: Unacceptable" is backward; this reads "is greater than 80". Spanno's a liberal arts major, right? Or the "contaminated" water confused him. :)
Editor on March 20, 2008 at 08:27 PM
Fixed the ">80" typo...sorry--none of us are math people...
David on March 23, 2008 at 08:44 AM
Good job on your vitaminwater/enhanced water taste test. While taste is always subjective, the comments and info were pretty insightful. One of the things to focus on, though, is that 25% of consumers daily calories comes from beverages - many of them 'healthy' products like vitaminwater. One of the things that I have been a big proponent of is consumer-friendly nutritional labels. The reality is that people glance at the labels, and don't read them, inevitably being misled into consuming one thing, while thinking of it as another.
Check out the trimwater web site (trimwater.com), and, if you wish, email me back, and I will have some samples of TrimWater sent to you for you to try. I promise you, you will be pleasantly surprised that a nutritionally enhanced diet beverage can taste this good, and we detail both per serving and per bottle nutrition info on our nutrition facts box. Finally, a healthy product that tells the truth about what's inside. And, what's not inside.
John Paul on March 26, 2008 at 03:14 PM
all this taste testing is interesting, but what about efficacy? do these things work or not? there has been more and more press pointing to "no". Infact, just last week i saw an article in my local news paper about a company that has designed a special bottle cap that stores then dispenses active drink formulas into the bottle of water, claming that 'if held seperate from light, oxygen, and moisture, it provides a fresher, more effective product to drink. makes sense to me! check out their website: drinkyournutrition.com
anthony on June 29, 2008 at 06:25 PM
you should try it again with the vitamin water flavored XXX....its much better in taste compared to formula 50 (its their best seller compared to a struggling flavor (formula 50))
its also a berry flavor, and is composed of antioxidants (acai, pomegranate, and blueberry's)
its delicious!