REVIEW: Jamba Juice Blackberry Bliss

If you’re a botanist, or studying to become one, I would like to ask a simple favor from you. How about some muthafuckin’ seedless blackberries so that I can actually enjoy the Jamba Juice Blackberry Bliss without having to endure the scratchy feel of blackberry seeds going down my throat?

If farmers can breed seedless watermelons and grapes, then why can’t they do the same with blackberries.

Seriously. Whose stamen do I have to suck to make this happen?

I know blackberry seeds are high in nutrients, like omega-3 fats, protein and fiber, but do you know what else they’re high in? Annoyance.

They can get stuck in between teeth, become lodged in other nooks and crannies in my mouth or cause pain if expelled though my nose because I was sucking on a Blackberry Bliss while reading something really funny, which I’m pretty sure won’t be anything in the Sunday funnies or on the Hallmark Movie Channel. Although I believe it’s possible to shoot seeds out of my nose by crying hard, so perhaps I should stay away from the tear-jerking Hallmark Movie Channel.

The Jamba Juice Blackberry Bliss is made up of an apple-strawberry juice blend, frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, plain sorbet, ice, frozen blackberries and raspberry sherbet, like the kind u find in a grocery store.

If it weren’t for the seeds, I think the Blackberry Bliss would give me some pleasure since it’s a cold smoothie and the temperature inside Impulsive Buy’s headquarters (i.e. my apartment) is about 89 degrees. It has a decent berry flavor, but the blackberry doesn’t stand out. However its color does, which gives the smoothie its dark purple hue that goths will love. It’s not as tart as I thought it was going to be since it contains blueberries and blackberries, but it’s also not as sweet as some of Jamba Juice’s other blended concoctions.

The Jamba Juice Blackberry Bliss lands nowhere on my list of favorite flavors and I don’t see myself buying another unless I really want to count the number of seeds in an original size serving or, thanks to my stamen sucking, someone comes up with seedless blackberries.

(Nutrition Facts – 24 ounces – 380 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 35 milligrams of sodium, 600 milligrams of potassium, 91 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 80 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 50% vitamin C, 10% calcium and 10% iron.)

Item: Jamba Juice Blackberry Bliss
Price: $4.59
Size: 24-ounces
Purchased at: Jamba Juice
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Decent berry flavor. Botany jokes. Not as tart as I thought it was going to be. Lame Prince references. Pretty dark purple color. Cold smoothies + hot weather = refreshing.
Cons: Lots of muthafuckin’ SEEDS!!! Blackberries don’t stand out. Not as sweet as other Jamba Juice smoothies. Shooting seeds out of my nose. Having to suck on stamens to get someone to create seedless blackberries.

Jamba Juice White Gummi

White or clear gummi bears are a rare species, despite being around as long as other species of gummi bears. It seems like every time I find myself among a sloth of gummi bears, there are hardly any white gummi bears around. Perhaps they are endangered or because of their semi-clear bodies they blend into their environment, making them hard to see, or maybe they like to stay hidden because they are embarrassed by their semen-like color.

They say the white gummi bear is the least ferocious among the different varieties. When faced with danger, it prefers to use diplomacy and gifts rather than its claws and teeth in a fight. It chooses this route because it doesn’t like to see the money it spent on manicures and teeth whitening to go to waste, and it doesn’t like blood because it can easily become stained on its clear coat. If diplomacy and gifts don’t work, the white gummi bear will show its teeth and consult with its lawyer to find out what actions it should take. The lack of violence is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of sophistication.

With their clear bodies, white gummi bears are masters of concealment, and if you do catch a glimpse of an adult during the day, it’s generally not doing very much at all, just watching soap operas and talk shows. Adults are generally solitary, much more secretive than red or green gummi bears and are considered the emo members of the group. Because of their stealth, white gummi bears — not surprisingly — are the least known of all gummi bears and are no fun to play hide-and-seek with.

White gummi bears are also the least popular among all other gummi bears, usually because they lack a “fun color” that makes the homies say “ho” and the girlies wanna scream, and because they are snobby assholes. Despite being stuck up, the semen-colored, pineapple-flavored white gummi bear is my favorite and I am notorious for pulling all of them out of a big bag of gummi bears, keeping them for myself.

Over the years, I’ve heard rumors of a white gummi bear flavored Jamba Juice smoothie that’s part of a “secret menu” that you won’t find on the menu board and also involves a secret handshake and password. So I put on my best safari khaki outfit and journeyed out in search of the elusive Jamba Juice White Gummi, which turned out to be not so elusive since I was able to order it at the first Jamba Juice I went to.

The Jamba Juice White Gummi tasted exactly like a white gummi bear and it was damn good…and damn sweet. It was so sweet that I’m surprised my teeth didn’t rot away while sucking it down. After doing some research, it turns out that the smoothie consists of peach juice, raspberry sherbet, lime sherbet, pineapple sherbet, and mango, which sounds healthy, but with all the sherbet included, it probably has enough sugar to power a small home, if that home was powered by a little boy on a treadmill who was fed the Jamba Juice White Gummi.

Item: Jamba Juice White Gummi
Price: $4.95
Size: 30 ounces
Purchased at: Jamba Juice
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like a white gummi bear. Really good. Knowing what a group of bears is called. Saving on your energy bill by having a home powered by a little boy on a treadmill.
Cons: Really sweet. It’s probably extremely bad for you. Not on menu board at Jamba Juice. White gummi bears are no fun to play hide-and-seek with. Might not be available at all Jamba Juice locations. White gummi bears being semen colored.

Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie

The Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie seems like it is supposed to give buyers the opportunity to experience Jamba Juice whenever they want, but I feel that fruity experience goes beyond what’s sucked through a straw.

It’s not Jamba Juice without having people judge you for the free boost you choose. It’s not Jamba Juice without the bright colored walls and employees that dress how you wish you could dress at your job — in a t-shirt and jeans. It’s not Jamba Juice without the whirring of powerful blenders that force you to yell your order at a decibel reserved for misbehaving children and clubs that play shitty hip-hop mixes, but can blend your smoothie together in less than a minute. The Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie may not come with all of that, but even if it did, what’s inside the bottle is a poor representation of Jamba Juice that could turn the bright colored walls of one of its stores into a drab color that’s usually reserved for poor bridesmaid dress choices.

Despite the front of the bottle clearly stating it has mango, orange, and peach, if you look at the ingredients list, there is also white grape, banana, and pineapple. Why so secretive about those other fruits? Who knows? But even if they weren’t so unforthcoming, sticking all of the fruits prominently on the front of the bottle would be a graphic designer’s nightmare equivalent to being forced to run the latest version of Photoshop with only 125 megabytes of RAM.

With all of those fruits in there, you would expect an explosion of fruity flavors that would make Barney Rubble stop stealing Fred’s Fruity Pebbles, but the only fruits I could really taste were the peach and orange. Its flavor was decent, but not being able to taste the mango, which I love for its taste and aphrodisiac abilities, was disappointing. Although the smoothie’s texture was slightly creamy, it didn’t come close to the thick, icy goodness of blended smoothies. Also, normal Jamba Juice smoothies are a really good source for vitamins and minerals, but the Jamba Juicie wasn’t.

However, there were two things that the Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie had in common with most regular Jamba Juice smoothies. First, it comes with a fiber boost, which provides a nice five grams of dietary fiber. Secondly, like most Jamba Juice drinks, it’s kind of pricey at $3.49 for 12.5 ounces.

Overall, I’m not impressed with Jamba Juice’s attempt at pre-mixed drinks. It may work for Starbucks, but the Jamba Juicie isn’t so juicy. (Get it? Ha! I. Am. So. Lame.) So if you have a hankering for a Jamba Juice smoothie, I suggest you skip the Jamba Juicie and get the real thing.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bottle – 230 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 52 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of dietary fiber, 45 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 20% Calcium, 20% Vitamin C, and 6% Iron.)

Item: Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie
Price: $3.49
Size: 12.5 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Decent tasting. Fat free. Fiber boost provides 5 grams of dietary fiber. Uses non-fat milk. Extra fruits added. Getting to wear a t-shirt and jeans at work.
Cons: Jamba Juicie isn’t so juicy. Pricey for what you get. Couldn’t taste the mango. Not high in vitamins and minerals as regular Jamba Juice smoothies. Texture was like slightly creamy, but not close to an actual smoothie. Running Photoshop with only 125 megabytes of RAM.

Jamba Juice 3G Energizer

OMG! Like energy drinks are soooo like 2007. Now it’s like totally about energy-everything-else because energy drink are like so everywhere. They’re in like grocery stores, convenience stores, online stores, membership warehouse stores, restaurant stores, super stores, and like bar stores. Like I would not be caught dead drinking a canned energy drink because like aluminum is for siding and covering leftovers.

Because I don’t like want to look like a total dorkzilla, I’ve been like drinking the Jamba Juice 3G Energizer smoothie to like totally get my energy. It’s got like this 3G Charger boost thingy, which is supposed to like give me 120 milligrams of caffeine.

The boost thingy has like stuff you’d find in energy drinks, like green tea, guarananana and like ginseng, but it doesn’t come in some lamers can. Like the only things that like should be in a can are like canned food going to the food bank and like Oscar the Grouch. There’s like also an Energy boost thingy with lots of Vitamins B6 and B12. With all those vitamins it’s like they totally threw in some Flintstones vitamins.

Along with the 3G Charger and Energy boost thingies, the Jamba Juice 3G Energizer contains raspberries, strawberries, lemonade, passionfruit-mango juice, lime sherbet, and orange sherbet. When I read it had passionfruit, I like asked the Jamba Juice person if it was one of those like a-fro-dee-zee-ack thingies. The Jamba Juice blender jockey like looked at me like I was stupid or something. OMG! Whatever! Total hater!

Anyhoo, I like wanted to totally like this, because the color was cute and it was kind of yummers, but OMG, there were like seeds like everywhere and I was like totally not having any fun. Seeds were like crunchy and like getting stuck between my teeth. OMG! Hello, it’s like supposed to be a smoothie and go down smooth, not a smoothie sometimes and go down not so smooth. It was like a total bummers.

I was like trying to enjoy its strong lemonade-y taste, but like the seeds like totally got in the way. At first, I was deciding whether or not I was going to like spit them out, but it’s like totally lamers to spit, so I like swallowed all those seeds. I like totally hope a strawberry tree doesn’t like grow in me. That would be like totally gross.

OMG, while I was drinking the Jamba Juice 3G Energizer, I felt like I was that Duracell Bunny that like keeps going and going. While I was walking around the mall with it, it like gave me the energy to climb the stairs instead of climbing the escalator and like when I was pulling clothes to try on, the store worker came up to me and asked me if she could like take the clothes I had in my hands and put them in a dressing room, but because of the energy from the smoothie, I totally told her that I’d hold on to them.

OMG! I’m totally like Wonder Woman now.

(Nutrition Facts – 24-ounces – 470 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 430 milligrams of potassium, 110 grams of carbohydrates, 93 grams of sugar, 6 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of protein. 90% Vitamin C, 30% calcium, 4 fruit servings, 1 big sugar rush, and like 1 big sugar low.)

Item: Jamba Juice 3G Energizer
Price: $4.69 (24-ounces)
Purchased at: Jamba Juice
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Good. Really sweet. Lemonade is the dominant flavor. Nice boost of energy. 120 milligrams of sweet, sweet caffeine.
Cons: Too many damn seeds. Not too smooth for a smoothie. Too many damn likes in this review. Lots of sugar. Being a dorkzilla. The insane abundance of energy drinks.

Jamba Juice Tahiti Green Tea

Just like closing your eyes to get beyond the extremely crooked teeth, unevenly drawn in eyebrows, and mysterious boils on the skin of the troll you’re getting it on with, closing your eyes while sucking on the new Jamba Juice Tahiti Green Tea smoothie will help you experience it beyond its color, which as you can see from the picture is possibly the same color as a cat’s diarrhea after drinking lots of egg nog.

Once you go beyond its color, you will find out that the Tahiti Green Tea smoothie is quite delicious and possibly one of the tastiest ways to get green tea antioxidants, which is one of the most popular health supplements out there.

It’s wayyyy more healthier than the ThighMaster and wayyyy more popular than Jazzercize.

The Tahiti Green Tea smoothie’s combination of green tea powder, mango, lemonade, orange juice, orange sherbet, nonfat frozen yogurt, ice, and extremely loud Jamba Juice blenders creates a concoction that I’ll be buying a lot of since I’m tired of my usual means of green tea consumption, which involves dipping a tea bag into a mug of hot water for two to four minutes and giggling to myself as thoughts of teabagging circle my immature head.

I really do like green tea, although it isn’t my favorite tea name to say — which is oolong tea. I drink it for its health benefits, caffeine content, and it allows me to do something Asian other than using chopsticks, eating sushi, watching anime, driving a Toyota, and taking something the United States invented and making it better.

Mango is the dominant flavor in the Tahiti Green Tea smoothie and the texture of it is slightly mango-ish. The green tea flavor is very light and there is a slight sourness from the lemonade.

An original size also contains 360 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 105 milligrams of sodium, 85 grams of carbs, 3 grams of fiber, 77 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein, 140 percent of your daily recommended allowance of Vitamin A, 100 percent of your recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, 100 percent of your recommended daily allowance of awesometasticness because you’re drinking a Jamba Juice, and 30 milligrams of caffeine.

Oooh! Oooh! 30 milligrams of caffeine! Sense my sarcasm!

That’s less caffeine than a can of Coke. It’s a nice amount if you’re trying to wean yourself off of the stimulant and it might be enough to kill an ant, but it’s not enough to get me through two pages of the Old English poem Beowulf or two minutes of anything with Ryan Seacrest in it.

But I like the Tahiti Green Tea smoothie so much that I’ll drink it for the antioxidants and great taste and then follow it up with a Red Bull chaser for the caffeine.

Item: Jamba Juice Tahiti Green Tea
Price: $4.72 (Original size)
Purchased at: Jamba Juice
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Green tea antioxidants. Very tasty. Mango-ey. Low fat. Saying oolong. Contains 100 percent of your recommended daily allowance of awesometasticness.
Cons: Doesn’t look green. Looks like a cat’s diarrhea after drinking too much egg nog. Entire review consisted of only 15 sentences. Only 30 milligrams of caffeine. Just like having sex with trolls, drinking one is much better with your eyes closed. My inability to relay sarcasm with words without blatantly pointing it out. Reading Beowulf.