Kotas Reviews Maple Water

Coconut water has been trendy for a while now. If you don't know what coconut water is, basically someone decided that refining the slop that comes out of coconuts was an unnecessary step in the refinement process and just bottled the stuff straight up. Now, it's been the healthy beverage advocated for by athletes and health nuts alike. Me? I can't stand the stuff. I dislike most coconut products in general, and as a flavoring, it isn't my first (or second or eleventh) pick. Still, maybe there's a product that appeals to me? I suppose we have to find out. Ladies and gentlemen, today we crack open some Maple Water.

Yup. Mostly water.

According to the reputed scholars at Drink Maple's Labeling Institute, maple water is just "maple syrup before we boil it into actual maple syrup". Straight from the tree to your throat is where it's at, apparently. Uh, hooray I guess? Honestly, I didn't even know this was a thing until my spouse brought some home one day, but I don't know why I'm surprised at anything anymore. This job is tough sometimes, but we do what we do. 

The label isn't very fancy, just some text, a circle, and a maple leaf. I guess it's hard to make interesting packaging for what is effectively tree squeezin's, so they have my sympathy here. I think the labeling is just somewhat sterile is all. Maybe put a whole maple tree on here? Some bucket icons? Anyway, it's what's inside that counts, right? So let's pour one up.

Yeah, it basically looks like slightly tinged water. It does kinda vaguely smell of maple syrup, but other then that? It's water. Now, I'm not opposed to paying for water in a bottle. I regularly do so as a convenience for camping trips and other outdoor activities, but I can't seeing myself pay too much for bottled water, because it is after all just water. Maple water price wise is about the same as coconut water, which is around $2-$3 a bottle, so I don't know, I kind of expected a bit more from this? Whatever, down the hatch!

Have you ever drunk something that tastes like nothing until after you stopped drinking it? This is what drinking maple water was like. I drank some water, then suddenly smelled maple syrup. It was really weird. I know taste and smell are very tightly linked in the old sense bucket, but my tongue was telling me "water bro" while my nose is all "syrup, yo". It was very...disconcerting to say the least. My 4 year old didn't like it though, so I got to "enjoy" her sampling. Hooray.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 0 Faces. I don't hate it, but I would never seek this out as a treat or a refreshment or anything. If you hand one to me, I would drink it out of politeness. It's just water with the lightest note of maple taste and a heaping of maple scent, but only after you drink it. I'll give it this, it was quite refreshing, but so is tap water. Try it if you want, or just, I don't know, add a few drops of maple syrup to your glass of water.