A Foray Into Polish Juice

In most supermarkets there is a section filled with strange lexicon, unusual ingredients and a general leaning towards flavours that would strike the western consumer as exotic. I like to call this area the "Pantheon of foreign delicacies"; most would probably know it as the place you can get eastern European and Indian products.

Today's foray into the wild world of "foreign delicacies" is a bottle of Polish fruit juice I found known simply as Frugo.

What is Frugo Polish for? Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.

For starters, what is that fruit on the front? It looks like a mix between an orange, a passion fruit and a zombie pathogen. In reality, it's something know as Lulo, or Solanum Quitoense. However the ingredients reveal that only 0.1% of the entire thing is Lulo so that seems a bit misleading. Probably more disconcerting about the ingredients is the listing of locust bean gum. I just... forget about it.

Upon trying it I'm met with a somewhat disappointing taste; I had no idea what Polish juice from concentrate might taste like when mixed with sugar and water but it turns out it's pretty similar to what we would have done. A pretty uninspiring mix of random fruit-esque flavours that ends up being a bit too luminous to warrant any health claims.

"Ultra Fruit, Ultra Green" is the catch-line across the bottle and I guess they can lay claim to at least 25% of that: it's definitely green. Frugo, unlike such things as pistachios and good pickles, is something that the Poles can keep.