Aroha Sparkling Rhubarb product reviews

I was really excited to see a rhubarb flavoured drink as it's something I've not seen before and I absolutely love rhubarb, so was keen to try it. When it comes to flavoured waters though, I tend to be a bit wary that the flavour would be too insipid and so I was pleasantly surprised that this is not too watery and it has a good strength of flavour.

Hubby and I both tested this and his first comment was "very mild" and that he didn't particularly like it. I can't say I loved it either and I think it's because I was expecting something tart and refreshing, but it seems the sweet elderflower overpowers the taste. I can just detect the rhubarb if I really think about it, but I don't think I would have picked rhubarb flavour at all if I hadn't known in advance. I guess this is great news for those that don't love rhubarb as much as me!

Although I drank this cold, I had one sip and decided ice would help so added some at this point. By now I did have a lovely refreshing drink, but I can't say it's one I'd be keen to try again. It's not that there's anything drastically wrong with it, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. I love that there are new and exciting drink flavours out there for us to try now, and this might suit some, but sadly it's not really for hubby and I. Price is on point for what I'd expect for a speciality bottle of drink like this.

Ok I adore rhubarb, have done so since I was little. I do admit though that I am not a huge fan of flavoured water. In fact I find the concept of flavoured waters to be kind of wrong. But as this is a sparkling water, then I am ok with giving it a try. This one is a combination of rhubarb juice and elderflower. I am ignorant when it comes to knowing what elderflower is, but a quick google search tells me that elderflower comes from the potentially toxic elder plant 'interesting'.

From what I have read elderflower is a sweet drink, whereas rhubarb has always been, to me, very tart. I assume that it is the elderflower addition to this drink that gives it the sweet taste, as I did expect the drink to be quite tart so was surprised that it was not. Upon opening the bottle I was met with a very delightful and tasty smell. However the smell is stronger than the actual taste. I wa really surprised to find that the flavour was extremely mild. So mild in fact it was almost non existant. I actually was quite dissapointed in the lack of flavour but in saying that I found it quite a refreshing and enjoying drink, especially nicely chilled on a hot day.

Although I would have preferred a much stronger flavour I did enjoy this and would purchase it again in the future. :)

I have tried a few of the Aroha drinks range and have been meaning to try the sparkling Rhubarb. When it arrived I was so keen to try it I stuck it straight in the freezer so it could chill in a hurry. Once it was ready I cracked it up and the first thing that hit me was the lovely smell. While it didn't remind me of rhubarb just from the smell it was a lovely sweet inviting smell. On first taste I didn't get the hit that I was expecting it tasted more like a sweet sparkling water. I did however notice a little bit of sediment on the bottom so I gave it a little swirl around before taking the next taste. This time I did find a little more flavour to it and could pick up hints of both rhubarb and elder flower.

I found it went down very quickly and was very refreshing, it has just the right about of fizz. I could easily see it becoming my drink of choice on a hot summers day. As soon as I finished the bottle I started thinking how nice it would be as a jelly. So off I went to the local cafe to get a second bottle and I whipped it up as a jelly, As it was setting I spied the apple juice I had in the fridge so decided to make one of my favourite combos and whipped together an apple jelly to layer on the top. The results one very light and refreshing summer dessert! It's safe to say I will be buying the sparkling rhubarb again both for drinking and for making into a dessert.

Thinking back on it, I can't remember ever eating rhubarb on it's own; apple and rhubarb, strawberry and rhubarb, raspberries and rhubarb. When I opened this product and took my first swig, I was hit by the realisation that I don't really know what rhubarb tastes like. The beverage tasted like none I had ever tried before. Scanning the ingredients, I locked onto the flavour that was the most noticeable; the elderflower nectar. Elderflower provides the prominent flavour in this drink, and I really can't put my finger on whether the rhubarb has any real role beyond affecting the colour.

On a side note, when I poured the drink out into the glass, there was some pink sediment in the bottom of the bottle. I didn't see anywhere on the bottle that mentioned it, but gently upturning the bottle to mix the sediment back into the drink before pouring or drinking, is probably best.

But I'm not really disappointed by the lack of "noticeable" rhubarb. The rhubarb label got me curious enough to try the drink, and I certainly don't regret it. It was a lovely, light beverage. Not too highly carbonated, so it went down smoothly. Very slightly sweet aroma that lingers on the breath after ingesting. I hope to see it in some slightly larger vessels, as I still had some cravings after the bottle was finished. Quite possibly one of my favourite non-alcoholic beverages that I have tried in a long time. I would certainly buy it again, and hope to see it food establishments in the future, providing an alternative to the usual unhealthy fizzy drinks.

I have enjoyed being introduced to a new brand of non-alcoholic drinks. I like to spoil myself with different non-alcoholic drinks at BBQ's when I am driving. When I saw the flavour of this drink I was interested in how this could taste. I love rhubarb however know how much sugar you need to put in to take just some of the tart taste away. I was happily surprised to see that Aroha has used a combination of both cane sugar and stevia to sweeten this drink.

On opening this bottle it was obvious that this was a sparkling drink but not too fizzy like some drinks can be. There was no distinctive tart smell too it. On the first mouthful I had to really try and taste the flavour as found the sweetness (although not that sweet) over took the rhubarb taste. After a couple of mouthfuls however you could get a slight taste of the rhubarb and the accompanying elderflower nectar.

The labelling on this bottle was very eye catching and gave you the real feel that everything was natural and that a lot of love/aroha had gone into the making of this drink.

Although this drink did not have the strong rhubarb flavour I was expecting it was still pleasant to drink. I will be looking out for this in future as feel it will be well received on a hot summer day and a reasonable price.

I was so excited when I saw a rhubarb flavoured drink becoming available for request and couldn't wait to try it when I saw it pop up in my bag of request goodies. I have many fond memories of enjoying rhubarb throughout my childhood due to the massive rhubarb patch that we used to have growing in our garden, which always seemed to be overtaking everything else growing around it, no matter how much of it we tried to eat away. Rhubarb was something that we often enjoyed over our breakfast cereal in the mornings, stirred through yoghurt and best of all stewed with apples to make a super tasty dessert. These days rhubarb sadly is not something I have often as it's not the cheapest thing to buy at the shops, so I really couldn't wait until my drink had chilled enough to enjoy.

Opening up the bottle there was a good amount of fizz to the drink, though not a lot of smell. With my first few sips of the drink I knew that I was to become sadly disappointed with the drink which did not live up to what I had hyped myself up to thinking it would be like. The sparkling rhubarb drink was in fact sparkling, but it tasted more like sparkling water than it did rhubarb, there was a very faint taste to it but definetely it wasn't like the tart taste that you do expect from that of rhubarb, it was an ok drink but not what I was expecting, giving 2 other people a taste of the drink, there reviews on it were the same as mine "it just tastes like fizzy water, with a little bit of sugar mixed in".

Reading the label I noted that the water used in the drink is elder flower mineral water, and I decided that perhaps this was what the taste was that I had experienced (though with not having tasted elder flower before I couldn't be sure). The drink would be refreshing on a hot day, but I would prefer it had a lot more flavour to it, and perhaps a more distinctive taste than it does. The label is very well presented with eye-catching fonts and a picture of rhubarb and states it is made in New Zealand which is always a bonus when buying products in my books.

Sadly I have to say though this drink did have a light refreshing drink to it, I wouldn't go out of my way and buy it if I was to come across it in the shops.