Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie Is All Right!


The Good: Good taste, Nutritious
The Bad: Expensive, Not as nutritious as its competitors
The Basics: Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango 100% Juice Smoothie is good, but is flavorful and better than most juices, but against other bottled juice shakes, it's a tougher sell!


When it comes to healthy juice shakes, lately I've been trying new ones based solely on when they are clearanced at my local grocery store. So, I was pretty psyched when, mixed in with a batch of about-to-expire drinks, I managed to find a clearanced Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie! The bottled juice is most analogous to the Bolthouse Farms Protein Plus Mango Fruit Smoothie (reviewed here!) and given that it is close on the taste and cost fronts, it is a close second to the more well-known brand on its nutritional content.

The Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie is good and better than most store-bought juices, but against some of the other, analogous, products, it is pretty much a wash.

Basics

Orchard Fusion is a health drink brand, which offers healthy, fruit-based beverages to an on-the-go market. This is a fruit beverage that is organic without any added nutrients. Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango comes in a 11 fl. oz. plastic bottle that is smooth and very portable. The #1 recyclable bottle is filled with the opaque light orange liquid, which looks much like a peach or mango color. This was my first experience with Orchard Fusion bottled drinks and it was definitely enough to make me want to try more of their products.

The 11 fl. oz. bottle is intended to give consumers a single serving and, locallt, they are found for $2.99 a bottle, which is pretty expensive to me.

Ease Of Preparation

Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie is a liquid in the 11 fl. oz. bottle and is a ready-to-drink beverage. So, preparation is as easy as opening a plastic bottle. Harvest Mango has a plastic cap that easily twists off and can be put back on in order to reseal it. It is important to note that this is supposed to be refrigerated, so quality of the beverage may degrade if it is left out at room temperature before or after the bottle is open. This has a pretty standard security seal ring around the lower half of the cap and informs the consumer as to whether the product has been opened by cracking off when the top is twisted.

Taste

Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango smells like mango. Mango is a pretty distinctive citrus aroma that has become pretty popularly known these days, so it is an easily recognizable scent.

On the tongue, the Harvest Mango fruit smoothie tastes just like mango juice. Not at all milky or chalky, like many bottled fruit smoothies, the Harvest Mango 100% Juice Smoothie is fruity and sweet without a hint of sourness to it, which surprised me. The distinctive citrus flavor of mango finishes with a very slightly dry taste, which left me unsurprised when
I checked the ingredients and saw that there was banana puree in it. This is a very fruity drink with a dominant flavor of citrus fruits.

The Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie has no real aftertaste to it; it leaves the mouth sweet, without and recognizable aftertaste.

Nutrition

As a healthy fruit beverage, Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie is designed to provide some less-common nutrients in one's diet. The Harvest Mango is primarily composed of organic mango juice from concentrate, organic apple juice from concentrates, and organic banana puree. It contains nothing bad, though I was surprised that the final ingredient was "natural flavors," given how flavorful all the other ingredients were. As a beverage that is entirely fruity, this is gluten free and Vegan compliant! As well, there are no preservatives, artificial sweeteners, flavors or colors.

This drink is also healthy. One serving of Harvest Mango has 200 calories and no fat. While there are 44 grams of sugars, the beverage has no cholesterol and a single gram of protein! There is only 1% of the RDA of sodium in each serving, along with 520 mg. of Potassium. A single serving also has 100% of the RDA of Vitamin A and 50% of the RDA of Vitamin C.

Storage/Clean-up

Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie comes in a plastic bottle and it keeps for only a few weeks. The bottle I bought yesterday had an expiration date of January 16, 2016. This beverage must be refrigerated!

This drink is a fruit product and light orange. If this gets on clothes, it will certainly stain them, at least light clothes. Consult a care guide for your clothes, though I suspect light clothes would need bleach to get this out. Still, the drink wipes off surfaces easily with a cloth, assuming they are impermeable.

Overall

Orchard Fusion Harvest Mango Organic 100% Juice Smoothie tastes wonderful and, for the price, it is only a fair nutrutional supplement. Still, it is worth trying and enough to make me want to drink the product!

For other healthy bottled beverages, please check out my reviews of:
POM Coconut 100% Juice Blend
Bolthouse Farms Holiday Nog
Naked Juices Mighty Mango

5.5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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