One of the tastiest things I’ve ever put in my mouth is orange juice. I was in Morocco, wandering around the outskirts of Marrakech with my now-partner, without a plan. I remember it was so hot and dry my lips were starting to peel like lizard skin. We came across an orange juice stall with oranges stacked so high it looked like the stall owner had built a fruit fortress. The juice he gave us tasted otherworldly, it’s how I imagine an elixir of youth would taste.
On the plane trip home, my orange juice was served in a plastic cup. It was the colour of mustard, it smelled like a used towel and it tasted like it was made by a scientist who’s never tasted oranges, only read about them. I drank every drop then asked the flight attendant for another. For me, orange juice is like takeaway butter chicken, Jackie Chan stunts and cat facial expressions – I’ve never met a version I don’t like.
Last week I put this life theory to the test with eight other reviewers. We blind taste-tested 11 varieties of supermarket orange juice, including “freshly squeezed”, cold pressed and reconstituted varieties but excluding orange drinks and cordials. We tried pulp-free and pulp-positive brands, all of them chilled, and shaken pre-taste. The judging panel included my partner’s dad who (by volume drunk) is the most chronic orange juice consumer I know. We scored the juices on aroma and taste and made notes on their sweetness, acidity and bitterness.
Among those 11 samples was my white whale, an orange juice I didn’t like. For everyone else, it was a different story – there were as many terrible juices as there were good ones, and the more reconstituted the worse they were. I think it says a lot that the orange juice we unanimously voted last was the only one containing 98% oranges (every other juice was 99% or 100% oranges).
Note: fruit juices, particularly those relying on fresh rather than reconstituted fruit, can vary in quality at different times of the year.
Best overall
Harris Farm Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice 1.5L, $9.99 ($6.66 per litre), available at Harris Farm
Score: 8.5/10
As this was squeezed the morning before, I considered not including it – how could the pasteurised, cold-pressed and preserved products compete? But seeing as I prefer Melona ice-cream over actual honeydew melon, I thought there was a chance another less “natural” juice could win. But I was wrong, the best orange juice is the 100% oranges, as-fresh-as-possible option. By chance, it came at the tail end of the taste test, and it was a grand reminder that, despite how elaborate and ingenious human design is, the juice of fresh, unadulterated oranges can still eclipse any human innovation.
Best value
Pick’d Orange With Pulp 2L, $4.69 ($2.35 per litre), available at Aldi
Score: 7.5/10
After their first sip one reviewer sitting on my staircase abruptly yelled: “Is this a skin-contact orange juice?” Everyone laughed … until they too encountered the aftertaste. The juice starts bright, sweet and tart but the bitter finish tasted like it had been blended with something – maybe a tiny bit of skin, pith or seeds? Not necessarily a bad thing. Many of the reviewers wrote it was “balanced” and “complex”, others commented it was an “adult OJ” and one said “they’d serve it at a bar”. But not the staircase reviewer, who wrote: “Too much for my toddler tongue.”
The rest
Eastcoast Orange Juice 2L, $6.60 ($3.30 per litre), available at major supermarkets
Score: 8/10
One thing I’ve learned from doing taste tests is whenever an uncontroversially good but unextraordinary product comes up, the room goes silent. Like when people ask how your day is going, if you only have good things to say but nothing unusual has happened, you tend not to say that much. A simple “good” suffices. This juice produced by far the least chatter. Two reviewers (incorrectly) guessed this was freshly squeezed and others said it was close to it. Another two described orchard scenes on their scorecards. It’s the closest you can get to freshly squeezed OJ without paying for it.
The Juice Brothers Orange Juice, 1L, $5.50, available at Coles
Score: 7.5/10
Sour, sweet, thin, pulpy and the least divisive juice of the day, with every reviewer giving a final score between 7 and 8.5. My scorecard simply read “very smashable”. One reviewer described it as “sophisticated”, another as “handsome”. Handsome, sophisticated, uncontroversial and well-liked – this is the Keanu Reeves of orange juices. Even if it’s served alongside a meal as incoherent as The Day the Earth Stood Still, you’ll still find a way to enjoy it.
Nudie Nothing But Oranges Juice With Pulp 2L, $8.50 ($4.25 per litre), available at major supermarkets
Score: 6.5/10
Like Juice Brothers, Nudie has a good balance of sweet and sour, and low bitterness – it’s an approachable all-age juice. Probably because of that, almost half the reviewers wrote analogies about summer, the sun or California. My favourite: “[An] easy drinker. A little superficial but all summer flings are.”
Original Juice Co Black Label Orange Juice With Pulp 1.5L, $6.50 ($4.33 per litre), available at major supermarkets
Score: 6.5/10
This starts off bright and sweet but then becomes the most bitter of all the orange juices we tried. One reviewer described it as a mean person’s orange juice, but then wrote, “I kinda dig it” and gave it an eight out of 10. The chronic orange-juice drinker of the group voted it as the best juice of the day (along with the Harris Farm winner). But others panned it. The same reviewer who yelled from the stairs wrote, “I’d prefer a beer and I don’t even like beer.”
Impressed Pressed Juice Orange With Pulp 1L, $4.50 ($4.50 per litre), available at major supermarkets
Score: 5.5/10
The orange-juice chronic (he even had a glass before coming to a 14-product taste test) said this tasted “suspicious”, like something had been added to the juice. It was a common theme, with reviewers writing it had “weird acids, sweetness and vibe”, was “waxy and untrustworthy” and “if real OJ reminds you of a sunny day, this reminds me of a teenager’s [dark] room after a weekend of gaming”. Confusingly, there’s nothing on the ingredients list but orange juice. My guess is the strange flavour has to do with the cold-press technique or the quality of oranges used in this batch. A mystery.
Country Orchard Orange Juice 3L, $5.69 ($1.89 per litre), available at Aldi
Score: 4.5/10
There was a stark difference between orange juices and drinks trying to be orange juices by reconstituting dehydrated orange concentrate. Country Orchard may have been the best of the latter category, but that’s like winning an award for being the least dangerous pothole. I didn’t mind it, but most of the other reviewers found it tepid, watery and pithy. One reviewer described it as the orange juice of two-star motels; another said it “smells like a five-year-old’s birthday party”. A few reviewers incorrectly guessed it might be cut with mandarin. Instead, it’s spiced with a bit of “natural orange flavour”, likely an industrially produced powder or oil that mimics one of the flavour or aroma compounds found in oranges, mandarins or potentially both. But it’s a bad imitation – this just tastes as though it has been mixed with cordial.
Just Juice Orange Juice 1L, $3.10 ($3.10 per litre) available at major supermarkets
Score: 3/10
When the jug of Just Juice was poured into his glass, one reviewer said it smelled like it had been mixed in a chlorinated pool. When they tasted it, they wrote: “Offensive to oranges everywhere.” Many commented on the chemical or cleaning liquid flavours; one simply wrote “vile”. Meanwhile, there was a robust conversation on the weird “gummy” mouthfeel. Only two people (I was one of them) scored it five or above. To me, it smells like a kid’s party and tastes like I’m saving money.
Golden Circle Orange Juice 2L, $4.80 ($2.40 per litre), available at major supermarkets
Score: 3/10
While Just Juice smells like the fresheners that hang over a toilet bowl, Golden Circle smells like canned fruit but with an odd undertone, as if a single brand-new sneaker has been chucked into the vat where it’s made. It’s sweet, stale and tastes as though its purpose is to be the matching drink course for an Adam Sandler film you watch on a flight to Cairns.
Daily Juice Co Orange Juice Pre and Probiotics 1L, $4.80 ($4.80 per litre), available at major supermarkets
Score: 2/10
Before the taste test, I expected the worst juice to be the cheapest, most shelf-stable product on the market, not a brightly branded juice with health claims about prebiotics and gut health. When the reviewers started drinking this, the room sounded like the rabble of football fans; everyone was yelling their opinions over each other: “Tastes like it’s been left in a car”, “Noo, I’m back at recess”, and “like orange juice filtered through a pillowcase”. The saddest thing was the acrid flavour that just hangs around, as one reviewer said, like a glove on your tongue. But if there is one thing Daily Juice gets right, it’s their sense of irony. “Your daily dose of happiness,” the bottle says.
