Each of these three products has a number of reviews. I don't have much to add to any of the individual reviews. Coconut water is great, if you are in the market for a case of it you already know this. But which of these three is the best?
I went around town and found 5 boxes of each of the three brands (15 total) each, with no two boxes of a the same brand coming from the same supplier. The goal was to get a wide range of product batches. This I am happy to report was pointless. All three brands produce an internally consistent product.
I then ordered a 12 pack of all three brands from Amazon. The only significant difference in packaging is that O.N.E. glues a little telescoping straw to each individual box, the other two brands do not. If you are a straw person this is a feature if not this is just more trash, you decide. The amount per container varies slightly by brand but given the price fluctuation on Amazon I don't consider the 0.1 Oz differences an important factor.
All three are made in Brazil, O.N.E. mentions that it is pasteurized the other two do not (nevertheless, I suspect all three are).
On pure taste, at refrigerator temperature, I found Zico to be the best (say 5/5), but only nominally better than O.N.E. (4.5/5), Vita was a distant third (3/5). Both Zico and O.N.E. taste almost exactly like drinking right from a fresh green coconut. Vita, on the other hand, has a grape aftertaste which I did not like. At room temperature the order remained the same; however, the differences in taste became more obvious: Zico (5/5), O.N.E. (4/5), Vita (2/5). Obviously all of this is subjective.
I observed the price of three on Amazon over the course of a month. Zico (~$24) was consistently more expensive than the other two (~$18-21) which traded places as the least expensive.
Considering the price and quality, O.N.E. is my choice and the brand to which I now subscribe. I consider Zico an excellent, but over priced, product and Vita an inferior product. If, however, I preferred my coconut water at room temperature I would give strong consideration to paying the extra money for Zico. If I used my coconut water as a mixer I would buy which ever one is cheapest at the time.
All three products are better than nothing (the previous option) and I am happy to see them on the market.
Coconut Water Nutrition
Well I want to write my experience about this product , I am from a Tropical island (Cuba) and my family have a big "coconut plantation " that mean a lot for me and I hope for you too ... so recently I decided to buy a variety of those brands , so I order Zico pack , O.N.E natural experience pack , one Vitacoco pack , and a big tetrapack from vitacoco too , and believe me I follow my instinct , because before I buy it I check "You Tube ". Video of the brands , and i choose Vita coco ....and for my surprise 5 days later arrived the order to my door ....and them I was ready to the flavor test with my daughter and my wife , believe it or not my daughter grow drinking coconut water and eating the pulp too , I think more often than a regular cow milk .... Now attention carefully ... I try with tree diferent brands ... So now is the turn for a child with only 4 years ... 2 and half in Cuba and 1 and half in the USA so I gave her Zico .....after O.N.E....and the last Vitacoco ...and without comments and nothing my daughter choose the same brand that I choose too ...(VITACOCO) because is the most close 99.8% to the fresh coconut taste...... So consider that a child with only 4 years old .... Believe it or not....... Choose the best one ...This is so far my. experience...and I am sorry cause my english is not perfect so I try to be as much clear and understandable possible...thanks and I hope my opinion, comments will be benefitial for everyone out there...bye .....a Cuban family..
Absolutely delicious. As someone who grew up drinking coconut water every day in east Africa, it was hard to live without it in the US. A friend recently introduced me to VitaCoco and it is perfect! Tastes exactly like a fresh coconut, but with the added benefit of being chilled! I LOVE IT. Only wish it were cheaper so I could guzzle it in the quantities I'm used to!
I have been buying Vita Coco for YEARS now, and have always been pleased with their product. Until recently. Something has changed, which started around the time they began using their new blue-packaging. The coconut water just tastes off. Like sweet soap was added. It's pretty disappointing, as I've contacted Vita Coco multiple times about this issue and have not received any notable follow-up since my initial call.
I received this 12 pack in what looked like fine condition (they are 11.1 oz, not 11.2 oz, but no big deal). Vita Coco has changed their formula to include vitamin C, possibly to prevent the problem I had: a product that smelled and tasted like rotting fish. About half of the products contained clear liquid, and about half when you opened them contained a urine-colored product, with the white cardboard around the mouthpiece having fringed into a brownish color. Vita Coco assured me this was a normal color variation. I drank quite a few of them, and the tasted varied greatly. Some were almost as sweet as glucose syrup and I had to cut them with water. Some tasted what I would call normal. And then I came across one of the brown mouthpieced ones with urine-colored product which smelled and tasted like rotten fish. I called Vita Coco again and again was told that I should be happy that there is a color and taste variation because it indicates a natural product. I was then interrupted and asked if I had a point I was trying to make. I told the customer service agent at Vita Coco I was telling her the product tasted like rotting fish. And she responded by telling me that she liked fish. She asked me if I call a lot of companies to complain about products. I will give myself a lot of credit and say that I remained calm in spite of her continued nasty comments. She kept telling me I needed to contact Amazon to file my complaint, and I was aghast that a company that sells beverages couldn't care less that they were selling a rotten beverage. She said 99% of the time they're not. So she is trying to make me feel better by saying only 1 out of 100 of their products is rotten? She told me she had nothing more to say and had given me all my options (having given me the Amazon.com phone number). At this point, I was annoyed, and maybe this wasn't the best thing to say, but I asked if she would be contacting the FDA about this. She told me that the FDA doesn't handle natural products. She said what would they do--tell us to use different coconuts? I finally said, I just want to know that you will pass this message along, and will you contact me to update me. Normally I wouldn't care. Normally if she hadn't talked to me like she had, I would have been happy for a refund or anything, none of which was offered. I don't need to know what the company will do. But she kept sarcastically saying she was going to pass my message along, and I told her based on her attitude I didn't believe she was going to do anything. She asked for my e-mail and said if I don't hear from them in 6-8 weeks, that she *really* hopes I call back.
I have worked in customer service, and I have had to put up with abuse from customers, so I never treat representatives like that. And I was nothing but polite to this person who was abusive to me.
If a rotten product wasn't enough to turn me off, the rotten attitude at the company's New York office was. I don't trust this company, and they ruined their name in my eyes forever.'
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