As I’ve mentioned before, it’s always a great thing when corporations latch onto current health trends and run the original ideas into the ground—here’s Aldi’s stab at making shelf stable cold pressed juices, which takes away the point of cold pressed juice to begin with. As near as I can tell, cold pressed juices are typically preservative-free, and often squeezed right in front of the customer to ensure that it’s as fresh as possible. (Actually, this one technically has no preservatives, either, which makes me wonder how it’s good for over a year past the purchase date if unopened…)
The “juice” is comprised of just five ingredients: kale juice, apple puree, green apple puree, celery juice, and lemon juice…and it definitely tastes like an aimless combination of all of them, which is true to cold-pressed juice form. There is a semi-faint tartness that hits the back of the throat, which I’m sure is mostly the lemon juice (with an assist from the green apple puree, perhaps), but it’s nothing that will turn off most people (at least, not those who aren’t turned off by the rest).
The remaining flavor consists of a “nice” “healthy” earthy flavor, that tastes like you’re drinking an otherwise palatable drink that has then been blended with grass. While, like many cold pressed juices, it doesn’t taste like anything specific (besides the combination of its parts), Aldi does at least manage to prevent the entire concoction from being too bitter, or hard to drink. Some of these types of drinks can get so grotesque that forcing it down becomes an endurance test, but Nature’s Nectar’s version goes down smooth, despite not really being all that sweet, either. It might be problematic, though, for those unaccustomed to cold pressed juices, and I probably wouldn’t even dare giving this to a child, lest they be turned off by fruits and vegetables for the rest of their lives. Even our son, who has a pretty “adventurous” palate compared to most three-year-olds, would probably wrinkle his face and swear off anything green ever again—it’s a chance that I’m, quite frankly, not willing to take.
It’s a pretty good juice for what it is, and coming in at $1.99 per 11.2 oz. bottle, it’s even more affordable than most other (though no doubt “better”) examples of pressed juice. The biggest problem I see facing it is that I feel like it has an uphill battle to climb: can it win over the snobby true cold pressed juice connoisseurs who expect theirs to taste af it’s been freshly squeezed while they wait? And at the same time, does it have a “good” enough flavor to win over newbies unaccustomed to such straightforward flavors? I’m not sure, but it’s a pretty solid attempt that does manage to get extra points for its longevity.
Overall: 7/10. I’m still kind of debating on what I think about this juice overall. On the one hand, it takes a current health trend, and corporatizes it, thus eliminating the whole point (freshness) of the product to begin with. Yet, on the other hand, it also takes a problem of the “original” (namely, its quick perishability) and improves upon it, by giving it a shelf live of over a year (until it’s opened; then it becomes a “normal” cold pressed juice and expires after 3 days) – and without any preservatives whatsoever. It’s a mass-market compromise that just might have what it takes to please old fans, while acclimating newbies to the benefits; the relatively affordable $1.99 price tag (per 11.2 oz. bottle) might also help to entice people into giving it a shot. It’s a solid enough shot that I’ll gladly try the other flavor varieties they have available.
