I have a fear of coconut products. Like all fears it’s based on a questionable rationale and trauma, and my trauma is taste testing “health” coconut-heavy products that taste like soap. Which is why, until recently, almost all the coconut water I’d drunk was from a straw reaching out of a fresh coconut.
Surely there’s no way a bottled coconut water, made from 100% coconut, could be that bad. Maybe it could be better than the real thing? I enjoy Melona more than the average honeydew melon. Other than being comically overhydrated, I had no idea what to expect from this taste test.
View image in fullscreen The taste test included 18 bottled coconut waters – and one actual coconut. Photograph: Rémi Chauvin/The Guardian
View image in fullscreen With the exception of the writer, all reviewers tasted the products blind. Photograph: Rémi Chauvin/The Guardian
The taste test included 18 unflavoured coconut waters, each listing only coconut water in the ingredients. The taste test panel was me and seven friends. For everyone but me, it was a blind taste test. We scored each coconut water on aroma and flavour. Without telling any of the other tasters, I also included a fresh coconut.
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