The Worst Store-Bought Orange Juice Brand, According To Our Taste Test
If you love orange juice, either by itself or in a bubbly cocktail like a mimosa, you know that choosing an orange juice to bring home is harder than it sounds. Not only are there many major brands to choose from, but you also have to decide on other factors, like whether you want your juice to be fresh or from concentrate or the polarizing quandary of what level of pulp it should contain.
To help with this decision process, we reviewed 12 store-bought orange juices, with our reviewer conducting a blind taste test. Through this process, a loser emerged: Good & Gather 100% orange juice from concentrate. Good & Gather, a Target brand, offers affordable food and other items. Unfortunately, in this case, the affordability might not be worth it. Our reviewer described this beverage as tasting like "cheap orange juice you might find in an elementary school cafeteria served out of cardboard cartons."
The forgettable taste and thin consistency reminded her of drinking Tang after school as a child — hardly a flattering comparison. Also worth noting was that the Good & Gather orange juice had the lowest vitamin C percentage of all the juices in this taste test. While this is unlikely to pose a huge problem for most people, this juice provided 80% of the daily recommended dose of this vitamin, while other brands had 100% or more. (Our reviewer noted that the orange juices from concentrates she sampled provided less vitamin C than those not from concentrate.)
What other reviewers say
To be fair, not everyone agreed with our reviewer, as Good & Gather orange juice has an overall positive rating on the Target website. However, a few reviews stood out as being in line with our writer's unimpressed opinion. One unsatisfied customer noted that the juice is fine for smoothies, but they would not drink it by itself. Several also described the taste as "off," claiming they encountered bitter, sour beverages that tasted spoiled or even reminded them of soap. We typically advocate for buying store-brand food staples, but in this case, you may wish to spend a little extra for a different brand.
A likely factor in this potentially disappointing orange juice is the fact that it's made from concentrate, as most of our reviewer's other least favorite orange juices were also from concentrate. Juices from concentrate, which is a more processed product, sometimes have a flat or metallic taste, as our reviewer noticed. It's no secret that many people prefer the taste of more freshly pressed orange juice. Like many mass-produced products, orange juice from concentrate is certainly cheaper, but it can lose quite a bit of its fresh flavor during the preservation and reconstitution processes.