The Good: Calorie free, Fairly inexpensive, Good flavor
The Bad: Requires a pricy machine to make into soda pop, Harder to find, Could use more mango in the flavor
The Basics: Sodastream has a distinctive soda flavor with their Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix, though fans of mangoes might find themselves wishing for just a little bit more mango!
The advent of make-at-home zero calorie soda pops has gone a long way to changing both my budget and my family’s health (for the better). Instead of shelling out quite a bit of money each month on major manufacturer’s sodas that have continued to keep my paunch on, we’ve been very happily discovering the benefits of sodas like the Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix. In addition to being better for us on the nutrition front, Sodastream’s Diet line has been providing us with more flavorful, interesting soda pops and the Diet Orange Mango is a good example of that.
In fact, all one might be able to ask for that the Diet Orange Mango soda does not provide is a little more in the way of mango flavoring! The fact that it has a nutritional benefit (like 25% of one’s RDA of Vitamin C in a serving) is a surprise!
Basics
Available primarily in a 16.9 fl. oz. plastic bottle, Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix is a concentrated flavor syrup for creating Diet Orange Mango soda. At $5 - $7 per bottle, the Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix makes 50 8 oz. servings, though the 16.9 oz. bottle gets me twenty-five servings as we have a 16 oz. bottle for our Sodastream Fizz.
Ease Of Preparation
The Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix is a flavoring to be used with a Sodastream soda pop maker, like the Sodastream Fizz (reviewed here!). After one fills the Sodastream bottle with water – I recommend filtered water and when I use my Brita Water Filter Pitcher (reviewed here!) in order to prepare the soda it provides a more pure flavor – and carbonates it, they must add a capful of Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix to the bottle. It is that easy. Preparing the Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix into a soda pop is easy and it makes a flavorful carbonated beverage.
Taste
The Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix has an aroma that is more subtle than citrusy, so it embodies the mango bouquet well. The scent of orange is almost entirely lacking from the scent, so it prepares the consumer for a very mango flavored soda.
On the tongue, the prepared mix is much more orange flavored than mango. The Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Soda Mix erupts in the mouth with a strong citrus flavor that is distinctly orange. That flavor does not carry the sharp edge that usually comes with an orange soda (a slight bitterness or over-carbonated fizz that agitates the tongue for lack of a better frame of reference). Instead, the follow-through on the flavor front is sweet and subtle, which is very much a characteristic of mango flavoring. The combination is enjoyable and the net result is an Orange soda that does not have a punch, but actually embodies a much more true flavor for oranges than most orange sodas.
Even so, the mango flavoring is not as strong or as sweet as fans of that neglected fruit might truly want. On the taste front, the mango seems to do little more than cut the potentially sour finish of the orange flavoring as opposed to assert itself.
Rather nicely, the Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix has no aftertaste.
Nutrition
The Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix makes a soda pop, so it is not like a juice mix. Even so, Sodastream creates soda pops that do not have anywhere near the problems of most sodas and this one even has a nutritional benefit. In the case of Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix, this is one of the healthier mixes. It results in a beverage that has zero calories and only 25 mg of Sodium (about 1% of the RDA of Sodium). As well, the Diet Orange Mango has 25% of the RDA of Vitamin C, so it is healthier than some juices! Outside that, there are no nutritional benefits or detractions to this drink mix or the drink it makes.
Made primarily of water, citric acid, and natural flavors, the Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix has nothing particularly bad in it. There is no caffeine, no aspartame, and no calories. It is kosher and carries no allergy warnings.
Storage/Cleanup
The Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix is a liquid, so there is the danger of spilling it and wasting some of it. But, for the most part, it is a drink mix that keeps for quite some time, at least until it is prepared. The bottle we got a few weeks ago had an expiration date of September 12, 2014, so this is a mix that does not last as long as some!
The Diet Orange Mango mix is bright orange, so it will certainly stain light colored fabrics. Consult a fabric guide to get any stains out.
Overall
Flavorful and surprisingly containing an actual health benefit, Sodastream Diet Orange Mango Flavored Soda Mix is worth trying for anyone who wants a very different fruit-flavored soda . . . without the calories!
For other Sodastream Mix reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Diet Tonic Water
Caffeine-Free Diet Cola
Diet Pink Grapefruit
7.5/10
For other drink reviews, please visit my Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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