Ah, the hazelnut – the only nut to have really made its way to any drink by flavor alone – other than peanut butter milkshakes. Nuts are usually not one of those things people associate with drinking, except for the hazelnut, due to the thick buttery texture of Hazelnuts warm and roasted. This latest coffee energy drink by Adina, hazelnut Hook Up, is a lovely light coffee flavored drink that is more subtle than the rest of the flavors, but still carries with it the creamy smooth hazelnut flavor and lovely light coffee.

Nutrition:8
Now what would be cool is if they actually used real Hazelnut to make it. From a company like Adina, I would not put is past them, as all their drinks so far have been far above par in both taste and ingredients, which are all about as healthy as coffee can ever be.
Because of this, I was pretty excited to see Hazelnut flavored energy drink, and I was so hoping they would use actual hazelnuts, grown organically from the Hazelnut belt in Oregon, where about 800 Hazelnut farmers produce 99 percent of this countries hazelnut crop. Even though Adina’s coffee energy drinks are already healthy, hazelnuts would be a great addition to their ingredients list. The Chinese declared that hazelnuts were among the five sacred foods given to man from heaven over 4000 years ago. The Greeks used a mix of ground hazelnuts for baldness. Hazelnuts are also packed with vitamin E and B, are great antioxidants and are filled with argenine, an amino acid that helps widen blood vessels and may lead to lower blood pressure.
Unfortunately, ground nuts mix poorly in non-milky things, like soda or beer. ( I’ve tried. Mashed in-flight peanuts and Coke don’t mix.) What this does have is a nice 100mg of caffeine providing 3 hours of buzz along with antioxidants and knowing the organic, fair trade coffee used is helping our world.

Taste:9
This was great – one of my favorite flavors from Adina. The coffee was very subtle – and I could have used a bit more. Still, we are talking regular coffee, not a syrup or flavoring, and I understand that the lighter the roast the stronger the coffee – so I did not mind that much. This also surprised me by tasting very natural – something not easily found in drinks that are so easily filled with International Delight paks of oil. This was the easiest drink to down, and left me even searching my local health food store in hopes of getting more to drink. I rarely buy energy drinks anymore, but this one I made a special trip to get.

Packaging:8
Like Adina’s other drinks, this design was done well and by professionals. It looks great by itself, and work well on the shelves of the local natural foods store. Like the other flavors, they don’t list the caffeine content, which is a mistake. The look works well for a high end coffee energy drink – as long as they don’t try to sell this next to the cans of Monster and Rockstars.