You always have to be wary when trying out store brand drinks. Most of the time they are less expensive, but usually thy are about half as good as normal drinks. I am thinking of past winners I have tried, like Max-E-rush from Save-a-lot, Loop drinks from K-Mart, and Kroger's Deton8. Target's line of Archer Farms energy drinks always have a bizarro look and feel to them, but the drinks are serviceable in a pinch. However, unlike other stores that sell their own brand names for less money, this new round of coffee energy drinks they have cost just as much as the other coffee energy drinks sitting next to them on the shelf.
Target does advertise a 100% satisfaction Guarantee - which I am thinking might be fun to try out. I mean - this drink is just not that good. IT is not terrible - I have certainly had worse, but neither am I 100% satisfied. More like about 64%. Many Monster coffees have been better, but this beats the flavor of a Seattles Best canned coffee. Either way - it might be a way for me to legitimately try the whole line, or achieve full Target brand satisfaction.
Packging:7
I do 100% enjoy the can. It does everything right - First, it is brown - the color of coffee. Secondly, it is in the standard slim energy drink container, just so you dont confuse it with, say, real coffee. They also label the caffeine at the top, as well as have an easy to read font for everything.
But there is something about the down-hominess, the pretty fonts and quiet design and color scheme make this drink much more Hills Brothers than Monster - more quaint than energetic. I really do not mind the packaging, but I think anyone would agree that this is much more suited to an orange juce package than an energy drink.
I do enjoy how the can advertises that it uses Natural Flavor. Do you really need to say that in a coffee drink? Is is supposed to make me feel better that they decided to splurge and use coffee crystals? Even crap like Tasters Choice is natural, right? So you would think. But there is still Natural Flavor added in the ingredients list - like the coffee they have in here is not quite good enough to really bring out the coffee flavor they are looking for.
Taste:5
I like my coffee to taste like coffee - and this misses that mark. Archer Farms coffee energy is to real coffee what warm YooHoo is to real milk chocolate. They are in the same genre, but are a completely different breed. This is so sweet and smooth and creamy and thick, it could taste like any flavor and be yummy - a good coffee drink for people who don't particularly like the flavor of coffee. There is a slight bitterness to be found in the cool-and creamy which is a little off putting. Something about Archer Farms Coffee that gives off a bitter edge - like the addition of minerals and vitamins set is a touch off.
Now it is certainly smooth and sweet and creamy and thick - so it is not all that bad. It drinks down very quickly, and only leaves a slight film to the mouth. In a pinch, knocking a couple of these icy-cold coffee drinks back on a warm day would be pretty easy.
Buzz:6
And you will need to knock back a couple if you want to get any sort of pick-me-up from this too. Nutritionally, this is slightly interesting, being high in calories (100 in the 11 ounce can), but also has a little vitamin B C and D in here. There are three kinds of sweetener in here - maltodextrin, sugar and sucralose, To make things all creamy they add Carrageenan - which is what you get when you boil seaweed seaweed - it is used a lot in chocolate milk and thick drinks like Slimfast shakes.
Now in terms of Buzz, Don't expect much. This has a whopping 65mg of added caffeine - which is very strange. Normally, you don't need to add much caffeine to coffee to make it caffeinated. It comes that way - unless you are not actually using coffee in your coffee drink and instead of using coffee flavor. Then you need to add in lab caffeine and guarana to give you the expected coffee jolt. I wonder why they just did not make their drink out of real coffee and then not worry about it?
Attribution: Drink can and Bigredboots
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