Orange you glad it\u2019s time for an OJ ranking?<\/p>\n
Ah OJ, the queen of all the juices. It\u2019s more complex than apple and more restrained than funky blends. When you buy a bottle you\u2019re buying a vague idea of health. The vibrant beverage inside shrieks vitality and vitamin C, but there\u2019s also a high natural sugar content, so moderation is advisable. Most of our Spinoff testers drink it when they\u2019re ill, having brunch or visiting Moore Wilsons.<\/p>\n
For this ranking we\u2019re limiting ourselves to nationwide supermarkets, sampling seven varieties of orange juice. We poured, we savoured and we considered the merits of pulp. It\u2019s our OJ trial, as Joel MacManus pointed out as he sat down to his flight of juices. He was nervous. So was Hayden Donnell, concerned about his ability to differentiate between squeezed and reconstituted juice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robbie Nicol and Hayden Donnell hard at work.<\/p>\n
Both are technically orange juice, according to the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code<\/a>. To be sold as \u201cfruit juice\u201d a beverage \u201cmust be fruit juice\u201d. (OK?) But there are some loopholes. Legally, orange juice can contain mandarin or tangelo juice without labelling, but only if that accounts for 10% or less. Looser still are the juice-adjacent beverages called \u201cfruit drink\u201d or \u201corange nectar\u201d. They\u2019re not orange juice and they\u2019re certainly not in this ranking. Our criteria is limited to products containing at least 99% orange juice (fresh or reconstituted). No blends. No pretenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n The juices were tasted blind, with each panellist giving each sample a mark out of 10, which were then averaged out to get the final scores. So here they are, the supermarket-available OJs of Aotearoa, starting with our least favourite.<\/p>\n 7) Keri Premium Orange Juice<\/p>\n 3.7\/10<\/p>\n $3.99 for 1L from New World\u00a0<\/p>\n Poor Keri. This is made from concentrate and we could tell \u2013 it tastes like the 1990s. \u201cYucky,\u201d said Robbie Nicol, making a face. Liam R\u0101tana reckoned it smelled like paint. \u201cIf I was served this at breakfast I\u2019d be leaving it at the table.\u201d The negative feedback continued. Our testers complained that, much like Gollum, this ultra-tart juice was too harsh, too pale and too thin. The lack of depth was noted by Veronica Schmidt. \u201cI didn\u2019t know I would deem a fruit juice shallow until this moment, but here we are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice from concentrate (99.9%), vitamin C, flavour.<\/p>\n 4.7\/10<\/p>\n $4.19 for 1L from New World\u00a0<\/p>\n McCoy\u2019s tastes familiar, like the basic juices I guzzled as a child before acquiring pretensions about cold-pressing. And there was hope for this underdog \u2013 three of our testers gave it a six, but it was dragged down by a one from Robbie. He found it exceedingly bitter and unexpectedly bubbly. \u201cThis one sucks ass, sorry.\u201d Blame the reconstituted orange juice, which gives this its distinctive taste and texture: thin, tart and lacking the flavour of its competitors. But it would be fine for a mimosa.<\/p>\n Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: reconstituted orange juice (100%), natural flavours, vitamin C.<\/p>\n 5.7\/10<\/p>\n $6.49 for 1L at Woolworths<\/p>\n Charlie\u2019s has come a long way from its West Auckland origins. Production of its orange juice shifted to Australia<\/a> in 2008 and three years later the company was sold to beverage giant Asahi<\/a> for $129.3 million. The brand is still ubiquitous in our supermarkets and it\u2019s easy to forget it\u2019s no longer New Zealand made. To Liam\u2019s palate, something wasn\u2019t right. \u201cTastes like orange mixed with something else.\u201d Veronica, on the other hand, gave this a seven. So did Joel, who was impressed by the deep orange hue. Hayden contrarily thought it was too dark and too sweet, declaring this \u201corange juice for babies\u201d. Is he a hater? \u201cI can\u2019t respect it even if I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n Made in Australia. Ingredients:orange Juice (99%), food acid (citric acid), vitamin C.<\/p>\n 5.8\/10<\/p>\n $6.49 for 1L from Woolworths\u00a0<\/p>\n This fared only marginally better than its low-pulp sibling. It\u2019s \u201cnot bad, but not great\u201d, said Liam. Our testers found Charlie\u2019s cloying, describing it as \u201csyrupy\u201d, \u201castringent\u201d and a \u201clittle bit medicinal\u201d. Some thought it tasted like cordial. Calum Henderson suggested it might be good for kids. \u201cBut I (an adult) feel like I\u2019m slumming it a little bit with this one.\u201d Hayden was similarly unimpressed. \u201cSweet, like me, and I don\u2019t like me,\u201d he said, ruefully scoring this juice a five.<\/p>\n Made in Australia. Ingredients: orange juice (99.9%), citric acid, vitamin C.<\/p>\n 7.9\/10<\/p>\n $7.39 for 1L from Woolworths<\/p>\n Our top three juices, all made by the Hawke\u2019s Bay-based Homegrown company, were streets ahead of the rest, with a mere 0.1 of a percentage point separating them on the podium. The pulpiest juice of all, this one elicited grand declarations of approval like \u201cdivine\u201d and \u201creally yum\u201d. Veronica Schmidt reckoned it \u201ctastes like it\u2019s good for you\u201d. And it\u2019s extremely pulpy. \u201cIf I wanted to drink orange pulp, this would be great,\u201d said Liam judiciously. Hayden Donnell, cautious of repeating The Skippy Incident<\/a>, thought Homegrown tasted \u201cexpensive\u201d and he\u2019s right. Also up there is the sugar content: 9.2g per 100ml is the highest of all our juices and only a bit less than Sprite\u2019s 9.9g. Although they\u2019re surprising, the numbers make sense. An average bottle contains the juice of nine to 10 squeezed oranges.\u00a0<\/p>\n Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice.<\/p>\n 8\/10<\/p>\n $6.99 for 1L from Pak\u2019nSave\u00a0<\/p>\n This is \u201cabout as good as commercial juice is going to get\u201d, declared Henry Oliver. I agreed and gave this 10\/10. Hayden, having an artisanal husks moment, likened it to an orange crushed directly into his glass. Joel agreed, but wondered whether we should be eating one of those instead. \u201cIt\u2019s not trying hard enough to be juice, he reckoned, but still gave it a seven.<\/p>\n Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice.<\/p>\n 8.1\/10<\/p>\n $8.99 for 1475ml at Pak\u2019nSave<\/p>\n The supreme winner, Homegrown\u2019s pulp-free option has all the vibrant flavour of its siblings without all the bits. Henry gave it its lowest score among the panellists, still a pretty decent 7\/10. \u201cIt\u2019s missing something,\u201d he noted, correctly. \u201cPulp.\u201d Still, it appealed to all palates, earning full marks from an impressed Liam. \u201cPerfect orange juice,\u201d he ruled. \u201cThis is what I want with a Sunday breakfast.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice.<\/p>\nNot a hit.
\n6) McCoy Orange Premium Fruit Juice<\/p>\nTastes like a memory.
\n5) Charlie\u2019s Honest Squeezed Orange Juice, Low Pulp<\/p>\nIt\u2019s Australian now.
\n4) Charlie\u2019s Honest Squeezed Orange Juice<\/p>\nA happy medium.
\n3) Homegrown 100% Pure Orange Juice<\/p>\nIt\u2019s like drinking an orange.
\n2) Homegrown 100% Pure Orange Juice, Low Pulp<\/p>\nNot no pulp.
\n1) Homegrown 100% Pure Orange Juice, No Pulp<\/p>\nNo pulp, no problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange you glad it\u2019s time for an OJ ranking? Ah OJ, the queen of all the juices. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,17247,564,2065,141,111,139,69,28228,97],"class_list":["post-591169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-drinks","tag-food","tag-fruit","tag-kai","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ranking","tag-supermarket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}