Another win for Natalie's! Serious Eats votes Natalie's #1 in their Orange Juice Taste Test. "Tastes real," said one taster, which is always good news. "Actually tastes like it came from an orange." Check out the full article here!

Taste Test: Orange Juice, the Pulp Edition

Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 31, 2012 at 7:45 AM

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

Everyone's sick or about to catch the sick bug, which makes this as good a time as any to taste orange juices. But how do you like yours—pulpy or pulpless?

Since the pulp question can be a polarizing topic—right up there with creamy vs. crunchy peanut butter—we divvied the juices up into two tastings and judged them separately. Today, the results from the pulp round.

SEHQ is pretty unanimously pro-pulp. Those big orangemeat shreds make the juice taste fresher, like it really was just squeezed, even if they do require flossing after.

The Contenders

We included brands that are widely available at major grocery stores. We tasted both pasteurized and non-pasteurized juices but no juices made from concentrate.

1. Florida's Natural [floridasnatural]
2. Natalie's Orchid Island Juice [orchidislandjuice.com]
3. Organic Valley [organicvalley.coop/orange-pulp-added]
4. Whole Foods 365 [wholefoodsmarket.com/365-everyday-value]
5. Tropicana [tropicana.com]
6. Trader Joe's [traderjoes.com]
7. Simply [simplyorangejuice.com]

The Criteria

In this blind tasting, we were looking for juices that tasted fresh, not like artificial Orangeade or Hi-C, with a gentle balance of citrus tang and sweetness. Since this was the Pulp Edition, we wanted nice, plump shreds of orangemeat.

The Results

The two non-pasteurized juices, Natalie's Orchid Island and Whole Foods' 365, scored the highest in this tasting. Not a huge shocker, this also proved consistent with our grapefruit tasting, where a non-pasteurized juice won overall. Though the non-pasteurized juices have a shorter shelf life, they taste noticeably fresher, more vibrant, and like raw orange juice squeezed that day.

#1. Natalie's Orchid Island (Non-Pasteurized) 7.33/10

Natalie's juice has a pleasant sweet-acid balance. It's also extremely pulpy, which us pulp enthusiasts appreciated but others might hate. (But if you like pulp, youreally like pulp, right?) "Tastes real," said one taster, which is always good newss. "Actually tastes like it came from an orange."