Closest to the Coconut Challenge: Naked Coconut Water

September 27, 2012 by Bess 24 Comments

Recently I was contacted by Naked® Juice Coconut Water to do a blind taste-testing of their coconut water side-by-side with a real coconut.  They sent me two coconuts and two Naked Coconut Waters to do the comparison. This was obviously super exciting for me, because I am a big fan of coconut water.

First, let me tell you a little about Naked® Juice Coconut Water.  It contains one whole coconut in each 11.2oz bottle, has 650 mg potassium, 65mg calcium, and 23mg magnesium.  It’s great for hydrating after a tough workout or a long run, which is my personal favorite use for it!  Check out the nutrition stats below:

For comparison’s sake, here is the nutritional info that I found for real coconuts from FitDay.com:

As you can see, it’s pretty similar.

And as I was about to find out, so is the taste.

The challenge, titled “Closest to the Coconut”, puts me to the test to see in a side-by-side blind taste-test, if I can tell the difference between the young green coconuts and the Naked Coconut Water.

So you’re all aware, I’ve never tried Naked Coconut Water in the past and I’ve never had coconut water straight from a coconut, so going into it I didn’t know what either tasted like.  With Mike’s help, I conducted the test.  Mike opened the real coconuts and the coconut water and poured them into two mugs.  He did this while I was out of the room so I did not see which was going into what mug.  When he was ready, he called me back into the kitchen to do the taste-testing.

I tasted one at a time and thought hard about the taste and how I liked it.

What I discovered, however, is that I liked them both, and had no idea which was which.  The tastes were very similar but one was slightly sweeter, which isn’t a good or a bad thing, it’s just a little different.  It was the only difference I could detect.  Both had great coconut flavor and a smooth, refreshing taste.

So which was which?

The slightly sweeter of the two ended up being the water from the real coconuts.  But like I said, it was only a small difference in taste and it really could have gone either way.  The Naked brand of coconut water tasted extremely similar to the water that comes straight from the real coconuts, and that impressed me.  An obvious bonus to choosing Naked coconut water over a real coconut?  The packaging!  Let me tell you, it’s a LOT easier to open a Naked coconut water than it is to open a real coconut!

So what I found out is that I love both and that Naked is super “Close to the Coconut” in terms of flavor!  Naked does a really great job replicating real coconut water, it’s flavor, and it’s healthy benefits.

So now it’s your turn.

Are you interested in conducting your own taste-test of Naked Coconut Water versus water from real coconuts?

One BBF reader will be selected at random to participate in their own side by side blind taste-test of Naked coconut water.  The winner will be sent the same package I received, and then write a post on it similar to this one about their experience!  *NOTE: It is required that the person selected for this taste-test write a guest blog post on my blog about their experience.  You do NOT have to have your own blog to be eligible because the post will go on bessbefit.com.  If you do not want to write a post about your experience, DO NOT enter this giveaway.

That being said, here’s how to enter!  All you have to do is leave me a single comment saying that you would be interested in the taste-test and that you would be willing to write a guest post about it. That’s it!

The winner will be selected on Sunday.  Good luck!

Naked Coconut Water sent me the items to be reviewed  and will provide the giveaway materials.  They compensated me for this campaign.  All opinions are my own.