#ThirstyThurdays: V-Fresh Chia Seed Drinks Review: It’s Like Drinking Cup Jellies But Less Fun

By
Victor Fong
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Do you remember these cup jellies?

Image: Kaodim

If so, what we’re drinking today might be of interest to you, since it tastes like the beverage version of it, with Chia seeds.

But wouldn’t that just be flavoured sugar water? Where’s the puni puni boing boing texture, which is the fun of the jellies?

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Well… I guess you’re kind of right.

Here’s a semi-disaster that’s actually not a made up story this time: we can’t remember how much this thing costed us.

Only that it is probably between the range of S$2 to S$3. A check across websites show that it is being retailed at about that price, so that’s probably an alright estimate.

Important point: Chia Seeds

But why is this drink being sold at such a high price? Is it really worth 2 Teh Pengs? This is because of the often talked about health food, chia seeds.

Supposed to be a godly seed containing many nutrients you need to continue slugging at your office desk, but without the calories. And because it expands in water, it’s supposed to make you full so you consume less other unhealthy food.

Really taste like jelly, for good or bad

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Slurping this, I immediately thought I was drinking liquefied jellies, but with an aftertaste of barley.

Honey flavouring instead of real honey can be tasted obviously here. It doesn’t have the floral taste common in commercial honey, though it contains an adequate sweet profile.

But I mean did I really expect a S$2-ish drink to use real honey? Actually, yes. Kopitiam and Chinese medicine shops got sell honey lemon…

The mild taste of the Chia seed probably made the aftertaste similar to barley, but like barley, it is quite mild.

I would say it’s so-so.

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How about the Roselle?

Although I said the drinks tasted like jelly, this one threw me off a little since Roselle is supposed to be sour.

Though, I have to admit that I am someone who is generally biased against sour food. The sour coupled with the barley-like taste reminded me of warm over flavour, which is the taste you get from stale food.

(Don’t ask why writers have experienced eating stale food…)

On further sipping, it wasn’t a bad taste, but not something I’ll look forward to. Like the honey flavour, so-so.

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Nutritional Information

So, the taste isn’t anything special. The main selling point would have to be the Chia seeds right?

Yes, except the drink isn’t good for you either and destroys every single touted health benefit that Chia Seeds are supposed to give.

Of note are the 26g of sugar for the Roselle flavour and 30g for the honey. Let’s compare this to Coke.

Image: New Health Advisor

Which is at 39g of sugar.

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Eep. I guess it is less than Bubble Tea, which is something. Did you say you wanted to drink this because Chia seeds don’t have that many calories?

So let’s look at the source of the sugar.

In there we can see Honey Flavouring, Fructose Syrup, Sugar, some additional ingredients I don’t know and food colouring.

Clearly, this ingredient list isn’t something I want to show a demographic wanting to eat and drink healthy.

So I thought pretty hard about this: Who would even want to buy this product?

  • A food reviewer who reviews random products
  • People who like jelly, but in a beverage
  • Those who like the idea of pretending to be healthy by doing contradicting things, like eating ice cream after doing 5 push ups
  • Or just people who didn’t give a shit about what they are drinking and just picked anything

With that in mind… the product gets a 2.5/5 for these specific types of people.

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But for everybody else, this is a 1/5 product that doesn’t really make sense. There aren’t many people which this product appeals to.

If you like drinking jelly or agar agar, you can give this a try. But note that part of the enjoyment of jellies comes from the squishy texture.

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Victor Fong
Email: [email protected]