You would not believe how hard it is to find a good mocha. Unless you can get scharffen berger powder at home, you might as well use the fake chocolate in Hersheys syrup. Many Many coffee companies, especially the ones who come out with canned coffee drinks, have their own take on the Mocha Coffee. Its easy for them, as they can hide the bad coffee flavor and all the preservatives in super sweet sticky chocolate goo. Starbucks usually wins, especially now that they took their own brand of Mocha powder off the retail shelves. Some are thick with Carageenan ( a seaweed derivative found in most packaged chocolate milks) and some try to be sweetened with freakish sweeteners – like Xylitol or Saccharin.
I have been drinking mochas for a LONG LONG time – well before I knew there was a name for it. During my youth I worked at many many fast food places, and in most of those they had some form of chocolate ice cream. Being bored, and needing my caffeine fix, I customarily started out every shift with a huge glass, filled a quarter of the way with chocolate ice cream and the rest with coffee. I have been enamored with coffee floats ever since. In all my coffee fueled years, there was been few mochas that could top a strong rich organic dark roast with a premium chocolate glop of frozen cream on top.
Taste:8
So it was with some trepidation I tried out the Mocha Madness Coffee Energy drink from Adina. And while it was good, it was nowhere thick or rich enough for me to drink it regularly. For all the yummy flavors of Adina Coffee Energy drink, this one is pretty normal standard fare. Understand by standard, I mean Adina standard. Comparing these 8 ounces of Organic, Fair Trade coffee to a Rockstar or Monster Coffee would be like comparing a Trans-Am to an Aston Martin. Sure they are both fast cars, But the people who go all nuts over their souped up Pontiacs probably would not know what to do with a Volante once they painted a cheesy outline of a bird on the hood.
For a coffee drink – this tasted really good. Nice and smooth, sweet without over the top sweetness – and the coffee ended neither bitter or weak. I have had better ready-to-drink mocha coffee drinks, but I have also had much much worse.
Nutrition/ Buzz:9
This is on par with the rest of the Adina Coffee line, using really tasty organic fair trade coffee, up to 4 fruit servings of antioxidants by using the whole coffee bean to make the drink. The 100mg of caffeine in this drink is definitely buzzy, and the long kick is helped by natural sugar and The buzz is long lasting ( about 3 hours or so for me) , and the health benefits of Caramel Kick definitely outweigh the calorie content. The cocoa is also organic and fair trade – so you are getting a fantastic high grade chocolate with the high -grade coffee. Overall, you can not get a more healthy coffee drink anywhere – and the buzz is worthy of praise.
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.