Blueberry is a firm favourite and common ingredient in the United States, but is a rare and exotic commodity, still gaining traction in Europe. Like those black and white videos of young kids in post-war England trying their first banana, I see the blueberry arriving in a Kool Aid lorry by mistake in Chelmsford in the mid eighties and due to a mixup at customs ending up in a few rogue packets of Ricicles in marshmallow form, eaten by a few small children like myself, starting a slow and sweet flavoured revolution, which twenty five or years later sees it now popping up with some prevalence.
But I digress, and in fact advise anyone reading this to discount the first paragraph and its obscure references. I don’t know why the Blueberry isn’t massively prevalent or popular in England. I do know that in recent times it can be found in muffin and yoghurt products and occasionally in allegedly digestive improving bacteria laden drinks. This may be because as the bottle of SodaStream Blueberry claims: it is a ‘super fruit’.
What a super fruit is and why it is super I’m not going to unpack right now. Let’s just say that I believe the science of nutrition is at a primitive and extremely early stage right now and that we should all be extremely suspicious of the benefits of extra antioxidants and acerola extract trumpeted to us by advertisers on TV wearing white coats and shriveled Scottish women examining stools. Most of these people studied medicine at the Laboratoire Garnier.
So, let it be clear that I bought SodaStream Blueberry and am drinking it now purely for the sensations of taste and refreshment, not for any implied health benefits, imaginary, real or otherwise. This review is about the flavour of a Blueberry and the combination of said fruit with water and fizz.
Fortunately then the flavour I’m getting right now while not too great, is not too bad. Sickly sweet certainly. Cloying hints of rosewater and an after taste of elderflower. Thirst making as much as it is thirst quenching.
It sounds bad, but not altogether bad if you, like me, enjoy munching on a bag of sweets. Yes, drinking this beverage is like eating a bag of sweets. A bag of sweets, but in liquid form. The fizz helps – turning a bag of percy pigs into a bag of haribo fangtastics, but definitely a bag of sweets nonetheless.
As such, this drink has pretty limited value for refreshment and a high potential for nausea if you make it through the second pint. Probably best not to give it to kids unless you want to see them running around bouncing off the walls and your flatscreen TV. It’s a rare, sacharin tipple, the perfect appertif to picking up your energy reserves during a flagging afternoon of reading emails and looking for a shred of amusement on Facebook.
Certainly not super tasting though and certainly not super power giving. No seeing through walls or minor levitation. Just confusion, mild dyspepsia and the prospect of night terrors to come. Avoid.
