Green juice is the divider of people. I swear by it as an unbeatable hangover cure. Others choke on it due to it’s soil-like taste. When wandering about town with my basket of concoctions a couple actually stopped me to let me know they looked disgusting. To be perfectly honest, lugging them round unrefrigerated hadn’t done them any favours.
I travelled to eight different places to source green fuel for the office to critique. I chose my locations based on proximity to the workplace, rather than merit or reputation. There was probably a better way of securing my test samples, but I was feeling slightly lazy, and I had an appointment to get to.
Mid-run I phoned my boss to double-check whether we could include green smoothies as well as green juice. He politely told me that he didn’t know what I was talking about because he’d sent me out to get ‘green drinks’ not ‘green juice’. My bad. To rectify my mistake, I branched out into matcha frappes, bubble teas, milkshakes and… cocktails. The last one was a slightly impulsive decision that I probably should have gotten prior permission for. But I thought it would be funny – and hey, it was a Friday.
So who serves the best green drink in town? We tasted fifty shades of dirt to really get to the bottom of it. Most were pleasantly surprising, weighing in at little-to-no soil. Ollie demolished the milkshake before we had time to assess its colour. However, the experiment did reveal a wide dislike of matcha across the office. Whilst I am not opposed to it, I was distinctly overruled by those who questioned its right to existence.
Below is a comprehensive analysis of each drink against categories such as ‘tastes like dirt’, ‘viral potential’ and ‘holier than thou rating’. It is a classic out of 10 rating, with 1 being least and 10 being most. We also offer additional comments and positioned each competitor on a drink to meal scale. Use this guide wisely the next time you’re feeling fragile. The wrong choice could send your morning even further west.
Cafejac: Green Detox Juice
Ingredients: Baby spinach, celery, apple, lemon, ginger and mint
Greeness: 8
How much it tastes like dirt: 0
Healthiness: 9
Price: £3.95 (1st)
Value for Money: 8
Texture: 7
Transportability: 6
Meal or Drink: Definitely a drink
Viral Potential: 3
Holier than thou rating: 10
General Comments: “It’s on the murky side of green”, “I’m not disappointed by its colour”, “It’s high on the spectrum of health”, “It’s a little runny”.
Red House: Green Smoothie
Ingredients: Banana, Mango, Spinach, Cucumber and Apple Juice
Greeness: 10
How much it tastes like dirt: 0
Healthiness: 6
Price: £4.95 (3rd)
Value for Money: 8
Texture: 6
Transportability: 4
Meal or Drink: A healthy desert, ‘palette cleanser’.
Viral Potential: 8
Holier than thou rating: 10
General Comments: “Tastes better than it looks”, “Massively green”, “Psychological pricing”, “Uncomfortable texture”.
Yogalicious: Green Matcha Bubble Tea
Ingredients: Iced Matcha with Tapioca Pearls
Greeness: 3
How much it tastes like dirt: 8
Healthiness: 3
Price: £4.95 (3rd)
Value for Money: 3
Texture: 8
Transportability: 7
Meal or Drink: Bang in the middle
Viral Potential: 7
Holier than thou rating: 9
General Comments: *wretching noises*, “The aftertaste is better than the drink itself”, “It’s not the dirtiest drink I’ve tasted”, “If it was 50p I’d buy it”, “It’s a bit confusing because you eat and drink it at the same time”.
Rabbit Hole: Green Juice
Ingredients: Spinach, Pineapple, Banana, Avocado, Coconut Milk
Greeness: 4
How much it tastes like dirt: 6
Healthiness: 9
Price: £4.50 (2nd)
Value for Money: 6
Texture: 2
Transportability: 10
Meal or Drink: Meal
Viral Potential: 3
Holier than thou rating: 7
General Comments: “Better than matcha”, “You need to chew it to drink it”, “It looks like baby food”, “It’s a bit embarrassing really”.
Waffle House: Jersey Double Thick Shakes, Mint Choc Chip
Ingredients: Milk, Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream
Greeness: 2
How much it tastes like dirt: 0
Healthiness: 0
Price: £5 (4th)
Value for Money: 7
Texture: 8
Transportability: 5
Meal or Drink: Desert
Viral Potential: 10
Holier than thou rating: 2
General Comments: “Can I keep this one afterwards”, “Ice-cream mixed with ice-cream”, “I’m never gonna stop talking about this”.
2Tasty: Mean Green
Ingredients: Spinach, Ginger, Apple, Lemon
Greeness: 9
How much it tastes like dirt: 0
Healthiness: 8
Price: £5.50 (5th)
Value for Money: 5
Texture: 8
Transportability: 5
Meal or Drink: Drink, same as Cafejac
Viral Potential: 8
Holier than thou rating: 8
General Comments: “Wins on juiciness – very juicy”, “More subdued”, “Strong sippability”.
RFresh: Green Matcha Frappe (with oat milk – vegan! :P)
Ingredients: Matcha, Banana, Oat Milk, Blended with Ice
Greeness: 2
How much it tastes like dirt: 10
Healthiness: 5
Price: £4.50 (2nd)
Value for Money: 5
Texture: 3
Transportability: 5
Meal or Drink: Kind of like… 6?
Viral Potential: 1
Holier than thou rating: 6
General Comments: “It smells very dirt”, “I’m literally crunching soil”, “Value for money is awful because I’d need to buy a water to wash it down with”, “Just a no”.
Awabi: Greenbelt (GF)
Ingredients: Midori, Lime, Vodka, Peach Schnaps
Greeness: 10
How much it tastes like dirt: 0
Healthiness: 3
Price: £15 (6th)
Value for Money: N/A
Texture: 10
Transportability: 0
Meal or Drink: Debatable… liquid dinner?
Viral Potential: 9
Holier than thou rating: 2
General Comments: “Ghastly greeness”, “Doesn’t taste too unhealthy”, “Two of your five a day”, “Sci-fi green”.
