A few months ago John introduced me to what he described as "the best protein shake I've ever had". Indeed, after he poured me a glass of Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein Mocha Cappuccino I agreed with him completely, that drink was delicious!

Value

At Stop & Shop a one liter bottle is $4.29, and at Shaw's and Whole Foods it's $3.99. In either case, it's not cheap. Still, considering there are four servings in one bottle and the amount of nutrients per serving it's an OK deal. For one serving, you get 150% of your Vitamin B6, B12 and C needs, plus 19% of your potassium, 10 grams of protein, 45% of your calcium, 20% of your magnesium, zinc, and vitamin D and 10% of your daily iron need. Note this nutritional information is directly from the official Bolthouse Farms page for the Mocha Cappuccino Protein drink.

Plus it's got a little bit of caffeine, no artificial sugars and tastes great. All in all you could make your own protein shake for considerably cheaper but if you must get a pre-made drink, this one is packed with the good stuff for a semi-reasonable price.

Score: 4 / 5

Quality

Simply put, this drink is delicious.

As I've mentioned above, one serving costs $1 but also comes jam packed with enough nutrients for a day. Still, I often find it tough to resist a second glass of this stuff, it's just that good. If you like mocha cappuccinos, you must give this drink a try.

Score: 4.75 / 5

Mochalicious

Innovation

Well, as I said in the intro, the Perfectly Protein Mocha Cappuccino drink is one of the best protein drinks I've ever tasted, which is saying something because usually protein shakes are not the tastiest of drinks. Normally I wouldn't award too many innovation points to a drink like this one, but Bolthouse Farms nailed the taste of this drink so well that they've earned it.

Score: 4 / 5

Social Benefit

Well, all of the Bolthouse Farms drinks come in plastic bottles. They are recyclable but plastic is notorious for being more difficult (e.g. resource intensive) to recycle than aluminum or glass. On the plus side, these drinks have all natural ingredients and the bottle is a hefty 1 liter, so at least they jam a big amount of goodness into that plastic bottle. Also Bolthouse Farms is family owned and produces a lot of organic carrots and other produce. They're located in California, which is much closer and thus requires less energy to get to me than the Australian blood oranges I reviewed earlier this week. Overall, they could do better but so can nearly every company and consumer on the planet.

Score: 3.75 / 5

Freestyle!

Warning: the Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein Mocha Cappuccino drink is borderline addictive! At least it's a relatively health addiction, though everything should be consumed in moderation!

This stuff is really, really tasty. I just wish it wasn't so fracking expensive.

Score: 18 / 22

Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein Mocha Cappuccino is available at Stop & Shop, Shaw's, Whole Foods and most other supermarkets.

Complete Score: 34.5 / 42 = 82.1%

Two of the best years of my life were spent in the college town of Chapel Hill in North Carolina. There I learned many, many things about my southern brethren that were unknown to me before. Chief among them was their love of sweet tea. Every single restaurant down there had sweet tea. I quickly found out that a well made (usually homemade) sweet tea was like liquid crack. One day while perusing the aisles of my local Shaw's supermarket I stumbled upon Sweet Leaf The Original Sweet Tea and knew I had to try it.

Value

At $1.59 for 16 fluid ounces, this bottle of sweet tea is not cheap. Granted, it's not super-expensive either but it's certainly not cheap, especially considering I could probably make 4-5 times as much of my own sweet tea for the same price. Still, it is quite tasty and very refreshing when served cold. Part of that price includes the glass bottle, and I'll certainly pay a little bit more for glass over plastic. It might not be cheaper than other bottled teas, but it's for sure a heck of a lot cheaper than a trip to North Carolina!

Plus, a bottle of The Original Sweet Tea supplies you with 12% of your daily iron requirement, so it's not all empty calories and sugar.

Score: 3 / 5

Look refreshing? It was...

Quality

The bottle says "Homemade Goodness in a Bottle" and I will give credit where credit is due and admit this is the closest in taste to the south's sweet tea I've found up north. It's still not quite as good as some of the homemade sweet teas I've had but for a mass produced product, it's as close as we're gonna get. It is authentic sweet tea, as it's made in Austin, Texas, but it just lacks that freshly brewed and poured out of a big cool pitcher homemade taste.

Score: 4 / 5

Innovation

Sometimes the taste of a food item goes beyond just the ingredients. Such is the case with Sweet Leaf, as their labels and web-site are adorned with a nice cartoonish image of Granny, who if you ask any Southerner is for sure the master of sweet tea in any household. I'm dead serious too, there are many families who have been passing down their sweet tea recipes for several generations now.

More importantly, Sweet Leaf uses organic ingredients and keeps their recipe simple (water, tea, cane sugar, and citric acid). Sometimes simple and natural is innovative in itself. Such is the case here.

Score: 4 / 5

Social Benefit

Well, sweet tea is certainly not the healthiest of beverages but if more people drank sweet tea instead of what the soft drinks and alcohol they're drinking now we'd be a lot healthier of a nation! Moderation, as always, is key and if you have a sweet tea every now and then it's not going to destroy society as we know it. On the other hand, the pollution released by shipping so many bottles all over the world for something that we can all make at home isn't the best thing for society either.

Sweet Ol Granny makes some sweet tea...picture via Sweet Leaf Tea web-site

On the other hand, Sweet Leaf uses organic ingredients. They also help charities and non-profits, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, Multiple Sclerosis Society and Breast Cancer Research. Sweet Leaf is a relatively small company and looks like a nice place to work at too.

Score: 3 / 5

Freestyle!

As I wrote in the introduction, good homemade sweet tea is like liquid crack. When I moved back up north to Boston I couldn't help but fiend for some good sweet tea every now and then. Thankfully, Sweet Leaf's Original Sweet Tea handles those cravings well. Now, someone born and raised in the South may disagree with me, but I think this sweet tea is damn, damn good. Pour me another!

Score: 18 / 22

The Original Sweet Tea by Sweet Leaf is available at Stop & Shop, Shaw's and many other supermarkets.

Complete Score: 32 / 42 = 76.2%