Monday, October 26, 2015

Day 299 - Tangerine Juice

Before I start this review, let me express my happiness and appreciation.  Another reader sent me a TJ’s bag and honey!!!!!!!!  Can you even believe it?  Peoples’ generosity really makes me smile!! 
  
LOOK!!!  Another box in the mail from a blog friend!!
This one came from Robert, a reader who also has a Trader Joe’s blog (something I didn’t know existed until I was well into this project – note to self:  Google before starting huge projects!!!).  He got me a bag from the Ashville, NC Trader Joe’s store and it is SO CUTE!  We have used it several times.  The other night our cashier, Carole, at the Clarendon VA store noticed it and loved it!  Carole had a great idea:  people should be able to buy and collect the TJ’s bags from all the states!  She said that she for one would start a collection.  Hey, it would be more useful than those Disney collectible pins, my collection of squished pennies, or some of the other things people collect, wouldn’t it??  She thought the NC bag was awesome, and so do I!  We have not tasted the honey yet, but it came in a delightful jar that made it look as if your Great Aunt Tilly made the honey for you instead of a store.  As soon as we finish one of the honeys we have open this one is next on deck!  Robert’s blog also reviews Trader Joe’s products and is very fun.  You can find it at: Exploring Trader Joe's blog

Look!!!  An adorable NC bag and a jar of HONEY!  
Robert recently reviewed TJ’s Tangerine Juice.  Here is his review that I saw, which piqued my interest in this product:  Exploring Trader Joe's Tangerine Juice review .  Tangerine juice was something I had not tried before, and Robert liked it, so I figured, “Let’s give it a go!”. 

Here's the bottle - 32 fl oz of straight tangerine juice
Ohhhh Robert, Robert, Robert…  What path did you lead me down???

OK, so at $3.29 for a 32 oz bottle, this was not a cheap drink.  It was more of a “splurge” for a bit of excitement, or a health food splurge if you will since the ingredient (singular) is just TANGERINE JUICE.  I thought this would be a nice treat.  I was wrong.

It is very BITTER.  The first drink was horrible.  Bad, bad, bad….  The second drink (this is going to sound weird I know, but I am being honest here) tasted like colonoscopy prep stuff…  If you have ever had a colonoscopy you KNOW the taste I am talking about.  I must have had orange or tangerine flavored prep one time because when the second drink of this tangerine juice hit my taste buds I had a colonoscopy flashback!  (Note:  this is not really a flashback you want to have.)  I was a bit afraid I might have to excuse myself to the bathroom if I continued to drink this juice, but I convinced myself that this was not, as my sisters and I like to call it, “Go All Nightly” (colonoscopy prep stuff).  I steeled myself to take another sip.*

Looks pretty in our juice glasses, eh?
The 3rd and 4th drinks got a little better.  Not GOOD mind you, but BETTER.   To me it tastes like Tang.  I don’t remember ever having Tang at our house growing up but I must have had it at a friend’s house, because this makes me think TANG!  To me, the only thing cool about Tang was the idea that actual real live astronauts up in space might have drank it.  The taste, to me, is not cool…   I wasn’t sure what the actual FLAVOR of Tang was, so I Googled it.  Consensus seemed to be that it was supposed to be ORANGE, and I was going to go along with that.  Only, in the middle of the night I had an “Aha!” moment – HEL-LO!  Tang?  T-A-N-G…  Tang.  Umm, those are the first four letters of TANGerine!  Obviously the flavor of Tang is tangerine, it is just tricky in that we pronounce it differently than you would expect!  So Tang is basically a covert astronaut drink.

First taste
Reaction....


Of this TJ’s Tangerine juice, David says, “I agree.  The taste is very bitter at the beginning.  It gets better – I guess you get used to it.  The tangerine taste itself is nice – it is very “tangerine-y”. It’s just I think they made the mistake of squeezing the tangerines a bit too hard so you get a lot of the rind taste, which is a bit bitter.”

The color of this juice is unnaturally bright orange.  It is a very pretty color!  We have a wall this color.  But I would rather see this color on a wall I guess than in my juice glass.

See, our wall is the same color!  New Year's Eve tradition - eat 12 grapes in one minute at the stroke of midnight!  (As you can see we were drinking an excellent Beaujolais Nouveau reviewed waaaaay back on day 2 of this blog!  Review here )
We both gave this juice a 2.5 rating.  The upside is that it quenches your thirst.  Then again, water can do that, too, and it is not as expensive or nearly as bitter.

If you WANT Tangerine Juice, get it at TJ's - it was much
more expensive at Safeway















Sorry Robert, we need to agree to disagree on this one.  J  It is a good example of how some things taste great to some people and “meh” to others.  But THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for the gifts!  I love them!

*Note from David:  Susan has a bit of PTSD about colonoscopy prep, so expressions of her feelings on that issue may appear larger than in your rear view mirror.

Price - $3.29

Rating – 2.5

11 comments:

  1. We have disagreed on MANY TJ's items. But that's why the French say "Chacon a son gout," and the Romans used to say, "De gustibus non est disputandum."

    I wish there were some way of knowing, though, whether the difference is really a matter of preference, or a matter of batch-to-batch variation. I've had two bottles of the stuff, and I don't remember anything bitter about either one. One off-standard lot out of the factory, maybe?

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    1. True... Maybe we got a BITTER BATCH. Hmm... But I am afraid to try it again and buy another one! :)

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  2. Anyway, I'm glad you liked the bag. It's from Asheville, though, not Raleigh. I've never even been to Raleigh. But I think all North Carolina TJ's use the same bag.

    For collectors, enterprising people offer the various state bags for sale (at a markup, of course) on Ebay. TJ's used to have on its web site a list of all their bags--mostly state, plus a few from big cities--but now I can't find it.

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    1. MY BAD! I shall update the city name! Ahhh so there is a bag black market on EBay, eh? I will tell Carole the cashier that next time I see her. :)

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  3. How fun to get that in the mail!! Totally awesome bag, and that 's a great honey jar!
    I do think you had an odd batch of the tangerine juice- i have had it several times and its thicker than oj but was always on the sweet side, nothing bitter about it.
    Ttrockwood

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    1. Oh man... Now you guys are making me feel like I need to invest in ANOTHER bottle of this stuff....

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    2. Oh man... Now you guys are making me feel like I need to invest in ANOTHER bottle of this stuff....

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  4. I buy it all the time too and have never had the reaction you guys had. I think you had a bad batch!

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    1. Dang it... We need to give it another try, don't we? Ours was crappy, yet it makes all of you HAPPY... Yes, we must have had a BAD BATCH. Sigh.

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    2. I buy the tangerine 🍊 juice from Trader
      Joes weekly! It’s sweet and tasty. SHAKE WELL!

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  5. I'm 2 years late lol but I think you had a bad bottle (not even batch). Maybe someone left it out or something. The tangerine juice gets nothing but high praises from everyone I know that has tried it. I hate oj but man oh man can I drink the entire bottle of tangerine juice. I say give it another shot, if you haven't already. And then give us another update lol. Btw, I really enjoyed reading your review lol

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