Happy days, I got my aojiru in the mail! Here are the ingredients the company lists on the back of the little packets: powdered young barley grass, maltitol, water soluble dietary fiber, powdered green tea, oligosaccharide, coral calcium, lactic acid bacteria. Beneath that, it reads: "contains soy". The brochure also has some cute cartoons explaining how your gastrointestinal tract works, in case you were interested. ^_^
I mixed up a glass with cold water according to their directions, shaking things up before each tasting. The smell reminded me a lot of cold green tea. The taste was not altogether dissimilar to a powdered green tea, and although it was considerably less bitter than the kinds of powdered green tea I've had, it still had a distinctive bitter/tannic ring along with what I now imagine "young barley grass" to taste like. I really didn't think it was "bad" at all, so to speak (the two other testers I employed agreed); it was a lot like a faintly viscous cup of cold powdered green tea (let me repeat that for you one more time). There was a whisper of jell on the sides of the tulip glass I drank it out of; I tried my best to get a good picture... sorry folks, none of them turned out very good. For what it's worth, it looked nothing like the picture at the beginning of this thread. I think moribundman must have either used milk and/or the ingredients that company uses are somehow different from the one I tried. The basic structure is just some very fine dust in water (or milk or whatever... the brochure actually says you can spread it on pizza). I think the water soluble fiber acted like a buffer of sorts for the "dust"... the drink itself had only a very minor amount of body, and it was quite smooth as far as things go (my sanity remained intact at any rate). The granules shown in the picture dissolved to a much, much finer state; I personally found the texture fairly enjoyable for what it was. One cup of cold barley grass juice down the hatch... I'm feeling zippier already. The pictures in this article resemble my experience pretty closely:
http://blog.q-taro.com/health/fashionably-tasty-aojiru/
Next up was a glass mixed with hot water (not boiling, but not far off the boil) according to their directions. This, in comparison with the previous glass, is the way to go in my opinion (I never got to try milk). The bitter/tannic twang was noticeably decreased and everything seemed much sweeter and fuller, more so like what I now imagine "young barley grass" to be. The texture is also much improved in my opinion, now smooth in most respects (I wouldn't say "creamy" or "velvety" by any stretch, but definitely not "grainy"). Not half bad, if they knocked the price down, I might actually drink this once in a while. Several minutes later as the remaining barley grass concoction achieved "lukewarm" status... HOLY ----, WHAT HAPPENED? I won't speculate as to why at this point, but the once enjoyable cup of tea had acquired a very strong smell resembling the ocean. It tasted about like it smelled. This is not my thing, down the drain. Blah.
My interest at this point is now at least piqued, thank you free sample. After a brief drive around the internet though, I feel slightly cheated with my experience. These two sets of pictures are what I was secretly hoping for I suppose, something that would make me think twice about whether I wanted to finish drinking it (I'll end that rant there):
http://int.kateigaho.com/spr05/tea-aojiru.html
http://www.mikesblender.com/indexblog106.htm
The fresher kale versions apparently pack a pretty good punch. I looked in the specialty food stores around here, but all I found were teas and powdered drink mixes containing barley grass or some kind of powdered "greens" mix,
see here for an example. The price on the ones I saw ranged anywhere from $25.00 to $60.00 a container. I'm personally sold on the "dark leafy greens and/or super foods" type thing; I had broccoli sprouts on my sandwich today as a matter of fact. I just don't get as enthusiastic about it as some people do for whatever reason (not necessarily saying that's a good or bad thing). I have to suspect that the treatment process has surely taken something out of the food though, being dried and powdered and whatnot. The company markets this particular variety as if drinking it will make a 100 year-old man sprout wings and drive his cock through a 2 x 4. I can appreciate the rationale of overselling something like this a bit, and I'm sure it's good for you in the popular sense of the word. I just don't think I'm cut out for this crowd yet for whatever reason. I do genuinely try to vary my diet appropriately and get plenty of the good stuff in; I suppose juicing or eating raw kale would be one of the best bets here as far as nutrient content is concerned. Not-so-oddly enough, all this talk of kale gave me a craving for it, so I made my deliciously spicy kale salad tonight and got my dose of greens that way. I don't have a juicer, but I have friends that do; I suppose the next step is to go and juice me up some kale like the real cowboys do. Sing the praises of kale...
FYI, the nutritional facts label lists each 3.3 gram packet as containing 34.3 micrograms of vitamin K1, which is apparently around 40% of the U.S. RDA +/– for any given person, so I'm sure there are people who should receive their doctor's approval before drinking the "2 to 3 packs a day as a dietary supplement" the company "recommends" on the sheet the packets were attached to (e.g. people who are being prescribed blood thinners) as with consuming massive amounts of dark leafy greens and the like. All the other stuff (calcium, potassium, iron, etc.) listed is what I would think of as small amounts (all less than 3% of the U.S. RDA except calcium at 3.9%). I might try and search out some of the powdered kale aojiru stuff now just for fun, but otherwise it seems the minimum investment in "barley grass" powder and the like for me is $25.00 in bulk form. This is unfortunate, because I honestly might drink it with hot water once in a while "just because" (assuming the other brands are similar, which is probably a mistaken assumption) but as of yet, probably not religiously and/or with the premonition I would become magically healthier, especially given that my diet is pretty good to begin with (by my yardstick). I can buy some (what I would consider) good green tea at that price besides, and even if they sold it in smaller quantities, I think I really would rather just have a cup of good green tea most of the time when my cravings kick in (which is not to say that I couldn't develop "barley grass" cravings as well/to the detriment of green tea).
I also found it interesting there is a fair amount of suspicion maltitol (a sweetener) can act as a diuretic for a lot of people. Maybe that's one of the reasons why Pablo was "sheeting like a goose"...
