Date Tested: February 19th, 2021

Competitors: Kroger From Concentrate, Simply Orange Med. Pulp, Simply Orange Pulp Free, Cara Cara Fresh Squeezed, Frozen from Concentrate, Kroger Not Concentrate, Florida’s Natural No Pulp, Florida’s Natural Some Pulp, Tropicana Original No Pulp, Tropicana Homestyle, Minute Maid Original, Simple Truth Organic No Pulp

Test Description: Blind test, set up by third party – Unmarked cups each pre-filled. Tester may drink out of each in whatever order and render a brand guess and/or rating.

*The second test was performed after figuring out what juice was in each cup, so take from that what you will.

This test was a long time coming. Orange juice has always been a contentious topic in my household. And despite my best efforts, when buying what I was pretty sure was my favorite kind, I would occasionally get some sub par juice that is overwhelmingly sweet or tart. So going into this, I had absolutely zero brand loyalty. There was however a crowd favorite to win. I had bought a bunch of Cara Cara oranges and squeezed them not fifteen minutes before the test commenced. Everyone was sure it would be head and shoulders above. After all, whenever orange juice is brought up in casual conversation, there’s always someone who says “yeah, but nothing can hold a candle to some freshly squeezed OJ.” In hindsight, I am curious how many of those squeezing disciples have actually ever juiced their own oranges.

To the results, every contestant had their own favorite. I am very particular about my OJ. I like almost all OJ but only love a small portion. I like it sweet but not overly so. I like it tart but only enough to wake you up a little. I like pulp but not so much as to coat your mouth. For me, Tropicana Homestyle was the easy victor. While there were other juices trailing by only one point, Tropicana HS for me was the only to maintain a consistent flavor after multiple sips. For the non pulp purveyors, obviously a non pulp variety won out. There seemed to be no real pattern in relation to brand or pulpiness across the contestants. Everyone seemed to truly have there own tastes and preferences. An interesting note is that even juices I noted as tasting plastic-y or fake, I still generally liked which perhaps speaks only to my love of the fruit. I had also thought maybe it was sugar content that correlated with score. The juices varied wildly in apparent sweetness and tartness, however, as seen in the scoreboard all juices were within one or two grams/8 fl oz of each other, so no apparent link there.

The notable outlier was the last place contestant, Kroger from Concentrate Non Frozen. The Frozen variety of what I can only assume is the same stuff performed very well, so I’m not sure quite what happened here. Assuming the frozen and non frozen concentrate bases are the same, that would suggest the water they use to re-hydrate their non frozen concentrate juice isn’t very good. Maybe they use too hard a water or maybe even the concentrate flavor depends on where you are geographically and what water they use to re-hydrate.

The other notable poor performance on the board was the fresh squeezed Cara-Cara Oranges. I will take the blame for the poor performance of this particular juice. Being my first time juicing oranges, I think I squeezed them too hard in an attempt to get all possible liquid out. This led to very bitter taste – pithy. I think a more benevolent squeeze would produce a much smoother and more pleasant juice. But said juice would have to be other worldly for it to be worth it to me to squeeze my own juice outside of special occasions. It is wildly more expensive and obviously takes much more work and cleanup. I will certainly try to squeeze some oranges again and perhaps try other varieties, but for now I will reach for the Homestyle.