Nixie

Pomegranate Green Tea

On today’s Bubbleverse episode, we’re doing a Very Special Nixie.

It’s the last in our series of their flavor combos (somehow we’ve missed even trying their solo flavors Grapefruit, Lime & Lemon thus far — we chalk it up to those beguiling sounding match-ups being irresistible vs the idea of pounding yet another Lime).

And it’s a little bittersweet to see these duos go, written into the annals of Bubbleverse history, as we march on through the never ending catalogue of sparkling waters.

But let’s dab our eyes with a handkerchief, and gaze now upon the can called “Pomegranate Green Tea.”

For our eyeballs, this might be the most refined of the can “art” Nixie has given us, which is always an ill-advised mix of loud colors, a dizzying number of fonts and an unclear brand narrative.

We always get the vibe they’re going for upscale Montecito socialite slumming it with the hoi polloi on Venice beach in one epic endless summer.

Still: the giant, seedy burgundy of the pomegranates matches well with the hot pink, somehow, and the green tea leaves line the top of the can like a crown of laurel, imparting a modicum of dignity. Our opinion on all the fonts remains the same.

Let’s move on.

Cracking open the can, we immediately pick up that there’s something overarchingly floral about the aromatics at play: we get rose and cherry, but that’s not the first time Nixie has confusingly invoked adjacent scents and flavors in lieu of what’s actually labeled on the can.

Here, the aromatic rose and lush cherry are stand ins for green tea and a capital F Fruit: pomegranate.

Basically the nose on this is classic Nixie: enticing, robust, confusing.  Once again, Nixie veers into Jackson Pollack territory: a colorful splatter paint of scents, colors and taste levels.

We live for this kind of chaos.

Tasting Notes

🍵🌸🐒

We want to preface this by saying we really enjoy this, but upon close inspection, this is mostly a solid green tea send-up with a rather faint and sour “pomegranate” aftertaste.

Maybe it’s because we were raised on Pom, and have to assume many of our fellow Americans were introduced to pomegranate as a flavor through that thick, rich juice.  So we have a strong association with what Pomegranate is…and it’s just not apparent here. Calling this “pomegranate” imparts a specificity of flavor that just doesn’t deliver.

The list of ingredients says “Organic Lemon Juice from concentrate” and that’s probably what we’re picking up on. 🕵🏻 It’s much more apparent than the ripe, juicy seedfruit of lore and legend.

We love the green tea though. The tea taste here is a lovely floral jasmine.  Nowhere is it noted that this is jasmine green tea, but it most definitely is.

We are getting some serious Japanese tea ceremony eleganza, and our brains alight with visions of cherry blossoms and snow monkeys in hot springs.

The “pomegranate” we’re getting in this combo appears to be present only in order to mitigate any jasmine-y bitterness, keeping it airy and fresh.

So ultimately it all comes together, but as usual with Nixie, it’s a head scratcher how we got here.

It’s a shame that the fruit flavor disappears into a thin, reedy afterthought far too soon. We wish that the pomegranate was as carefully rendered as the exquisitely dreamy green tea.

But that’s life isn’t it? A mixed bag. Or an unequal dual-flavor sparkling water, as we say around these parts.

Caffeine?

There’s been an explosion of sparkling waters with caffeine in the past year or so, and we love them all, particularly the ones with 160 mg (hello, Ugly vs. Hi Ball!), and the less-caffeinated AHA Green Tea or any of the genuinely solid Chirp flavors are in heavy fridge rotation in the Bubbleverse.

But Nixie’s Pomegranate Green tea contains by far the lowest of the caffeine-enhanced sparkling waters, with a mere 15 mg to its name. Wethinks that only a caffeine teetotaler would get a jolt from this, but it’s good to know that we can knock a few back without fear of being up all night.

Once again, Nixie has kept us coming back for sip after sip, and we are both delighted and let down at the same time. We love it, and yet it never quite delivers what was promised on the can.

We’ll be diving into their solo flavors next, so maybe those will be a more direct flavor course to chart?

We’ll miss the spirited confusion that comes from these combo offerings, though. And we hope they bless us with another one soon.