Ranking the 20 Snapple Flavors from Worst to Best - Tasting Chart (2023)

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VonJolee Sullivan/May 4, 2022 2:35 p.m. EST

Did you know that there are more than 1,600 Snapplereal facts? Also, did you know that with some Snapple bottles, there's no actual fact waiting for you when you open your bottle? This is something about Snapple that we discovered when we tested 20 of their most popular flavors (one of the 20 had a sadly empty bottle cap).

While many Snapple enthusiasts prefer to read their true facts before taking their first sip, we like to believe that it's the refreshing, fruity taste of Snapple's various flavors that has fueled the brand's popularity since its humble beginnings in the year maintained in 1972. Known for its efforts to use only fresh, all-natural ingredients, Snapple now carries over 30 flavors, from teas to sodas to fruit juices. Although we ranked these 20 flavors from worst to best, they were all pretty good, including the no-sugar flavors. Read on to find out where your favorite flavor ranks, or discover a new flavor you haven't tried yet.

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Since most Snapple fruit juices are pleasantly juicy and sweet, we had high expectations for the orangeade taste. Before we opened the bottle, we expected a super sharp explosion of orange flavor like you get from a sip of SunnyD. But this was not the case. While the scent of Snapple's Orangeade was very orange, like that of a pack of fresh orange juice, its taste missed the mark. It wasn't very flavorful and tasted extremely artificial. If you squeeze the juice from a single orange and then add tons of sugar water and some artificial flavoring, it could taste like the Snapple Orangeade.

We're puzzled by the artificial hint in this drink, as Snapple has always been adamant about its natural flavors (hence the bold "all natural" emblazoned on most bottles). While we were disappointed with the taste of Snapple's Orangeade, we couldn't expect it to have the same concentrated sweetness asother drinks like SunnyD, which is made with high fructose corn syrup. In 2009, Snapple stopped using high fructose corn syrup in its beverages to maintain its natural credibility (viaDie Chicago Tribune).

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As an adult, Cabernet Sauvignon is our grape juice of choice. We won't say thatDrink all common types of red winesolely for its heart health benefits, but extra antioxidants are always a plus. We wondered if kid-friendly grape-based juices also offered health benefits, and found that depending on the type of grape used (viaMayo Clinic). The Mayo Clinic also reports that even grape extract or grape powder may still contain the fruit's nourishing benefits, so Snapple's Grapeade, made from grape juice concentrate, could offer something better than just its taste!

And we kind of hope it does. Overall, neither the smell nor the taste of Snapple's Grapeade juice was appealing. The scent wasn't very grapey, but it was reminiscent of an artificial grape jelly. When I found out that this drink is made with thejuice concentratesof apple, pear and grape, we can see why its smell was kinda off. As for the taste, it was super sweet in an uncomfortably way. This drink was one of the most artificial-tasting of all Snapple's fruit juices.

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In 1999, Snapple launched a line of drinks called Snapple Elements (viaguilty eats). Despite their popularity, the drinks were discontinued, but in March 2022, Snapple fans were excited to find that the company was relaunching the Elements drinks, albeit with a bit of a makeover. According to Guilty Eats, this line of drinks is made with less sugar than other Snapple drinks and is marketed as containing no artificial sweeteners.

The new line of drinks Snapple Elements includes the flavors rain, fire and air. They're very new, but we were lucky enough to track down all three flavors to try. Snapple Elements rain flavor is agave cactus. We weren't sure what rain, agave, and cactus might taste like, but this was a disappointing flavor overall. Although theingredientsContaining pear juice and agave nectar, the drink itself had an overwhelming smell and taste of cane sugar, but not much else. It wasn't overly sweet, it mostly tasted like sugar water, and we'd suggest skipping this drink for one of Snapple's tastier flavors.

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Snapple carries a variety of fruit-flavored sodas and teas. A well-known combination of both is the Iced Tea Half n' Half Lemonade. The impeccably balanced combination of earthy iced tea and tart lemonade is often associated with famous golfers,Arnold Palmer, who is said to have dreamed up the brew himself.

LikedArnold Palmer from Arizona, half iced tea and half lemonadeIn the past, we've looked forward to trying Snapple's version of the combo. We were also skeptical how similar it might taste to lemon tea. While Snapple's Lemon Tea smells distinctly lemony, the Half and Half Lemonade Iced Tea doesn't. Its scent actually reminded us of Lipton's iced tea powder mix. The taste reminded us more of a juice than a tea. It didn't have that classic lemonade tartness and was way, way too sweet.

Compare Snapple'sIced tea with half and half lemonadecontains a whopping 51 grams of sugar per 16-ounce bottle, while a 16.9-ounce bottle of AriZonas has half and half 44 grams. As far as resemblance to Snapple's lemon tea goes, the two are not comparable. During Snappleslemon teais sweet, it's also refreshing and lemony, with 36 grams of sugar swirled into each 16-ounce bottle.

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Even if you're not one of the many diet drink drinkers in America, you may have heard of itcontroversyabout aspartame, the artificial sweetener of choice in most manufactured diet drinks. While aspartame has been loosely linked to various health complications like cancer and seizures, it has been approved and confirmed safe for consumption by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Snapple, among othersgiants of the beverage industry, uses aspartame in their sugar-free drinks — which, by the wayare now called "zero sugar" instead of "diet".Snapple's Sugar-Free Raspberry Tea certainly has an artificial smell and taste. We had this tested by a seasoned diabetic who has consumed more than her fair share of sugar-free drinks, and she wasn't impressed, claiming this is one of those diet drinks that leaves a chemical aftertaste in your mouth. The tea gave off a faint raspberry scent and tasted rather watery overall. The judgment? This isn't Snapple's best sugar-free flavor.

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Is there a difference betweensweet teaand ice tea? Sure, sweet tea is just plain old "tea" to many people living in the Southern States, but technically, sweet tea and iced tea are made differentlyfood network, sweet tea is characterized by being sweetened while it is brewing, not after it has already cooled. When sugar is added during the brewing process itself, it mixes more directly with the tea, giving the sweet tea its distinctly sugary flavor.

Snapple's honeyed tea certainly has a very different taste to all other iced teas. Slurping the drink at room temperature, the overpowering smell and taste of honey were the focus of our palettes. Poured over ice, the taste of this drink immediately reminded us of McDonald'scontroversially cutesweet ice tea. Snapple's honeyed tea tastes a lot like runny honey, and you can base your personal Snapple ranking on this information. The drink was a bit too sweet for us, but if we specifically wanted a sweet tea, that would be just the thing.

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Here's an interesting fact you'll actually find on the outside of your Snapple bottle: Theingredientslisted on Snapple's fruit punch and Grapeade juices are exactly the same. According to theSnapple-Website, both drinks are made with "filtered water, sugar, apple, pear and grape juice concentrates, citric acid" and "natural flavors".

When we sniffed the fruit punch before sipping, we expected strong hints of citrus or apple or some other fruit indicated on the bottle label, but while the scent was certainly fruity, we couldn't really distinguish any specific fruit. In fact, the scent of the punch bore a very clear resemblance to that of Hi-C fruit punch. Despite being made with the same ingredients as Snapple's Grapeade, the fruit punch didn't taste very grapey, but it was super sweet. Overall, Snapple's fruit punch isn't spectacular, but tastes like you'd expect from a bottled fruit punch, so we'd think it's good.

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If you're an avid fruit juice drinker or candy fanatic, you might be familiar with the distinct taste of watermelon-flavored products. You probably know that watermelon as a fruit and watermelon-flavored food offer two very different flavors. That's not to say that drinks or foods taste watermelon-flavoredPoorly, but it's significantly more difficult for companies to mimic the taste of watermelon than other fruits like strawberries or bananas. According toLos Angeles TimesThis is due to the unique breakdown of the compounds that give watermelon its distinctive scent.

As a result, Snapple's watermelon soda gives off that notoriously artificial watermelon scent that we've likened to that of a watermelon Jolly Rancher candy. As for the taste, the lemonade aspect primarily and deliciously attracts the attention of our taste buds. We like that this lemonade is wonderfully tart but not too sweet, and the watermelon note is light and refreshing, well, watery, but in the juicy way that makes a ripe watermelon so appealing.

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When you're craving something sweet and tropical, mango is usually a foolproof fruit of choice. As such, the Snapple Mango Madness flavor tastes like the tropics, meaning it tastes like the actual nectar of a fresh mango. We decided to try the flavor of Mango Madness in a blind taste test, and when we cracked the bottle's seal, we were able to immediately identify its flavor. This drink has an overwhelmingly strong and unmistakably sweet mango scent that reminds us of theminute girlFruit juice cartons we had as kids.

As expected, Mango Madness tastes just like mango, and in a pleasantly unartificial way. Also as one would expect, this is a super sweet juice that swims with a whopping45 grams of sugarper 16 fluid ounces. Interestingly, we noticed that with this bottleingredient list, after water and sugar, kiwi juice concentrate is listed before mango puree concentrate. Although we didn't initially distinguish a kiwi flavor in this drink, we can appreciate how its slight acidity - almost like that of a lime - complements and balances the overwhelming sweetness of the mango.

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After more than a decade of successfully selling natural fruit juices, due to pressures from the ever-changing beverage market, Snapple executives (viaNew York Times). True to its all-natural promise, Snapple makes its teas with real tea leaveshis side, although the first flavor wasn't perfected until years of work went into the recipe. Founder Arnold Greenberg told the New York Times, "We made the first ready-to-drink iced tea that didn't taste like battery acid," and consumers have loved the stuff ever since.

Although there are Snapple tea flavors we never knew about, like the strictly sugar-free onesTrop-a-Rocka-Tee, there are staples like the lemon tea and the raspberry tea that have been accompanied throughout our lives. As such, the taste of Snapple's raspberry tea is one we're used to, but once we started comparing this flavor to Snapple's other beverages, we realized it wasn't anything standout. The Snapple Raspberry Tea tastes exactly how you would imagine a raspberry tea to be: light, slightly tart and appropriately sweet. While it wasn't necessarily bad, we can readily agree that Snapple's other tea flavors are more appealing.

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In March 2022, Snapple relaunched its Snapple Elements range. After trying all three flavors, we concluded that theelements fire, which is dragon fruit flavored, ranked second best. The Snapple Elements line is obviously intended to be associated with the earth's natural elements, and as such, the drinks contain nothing artificial. At 20 grams of added sugar per 15.9-ounce bottle, the drink might not necessarily be considered healthy, but it does contain less sugar than similar Snapple drinks, like the fruit punch juice drink, which has more than 40 grams of added sugar per bottle (aboutSnapple).

Accordingly, the Elements fire drink certainly tastes less sweet than other Snapple juices, although it smells a lot sweeter than it tastes. Sniffing the dragon fruit-flavored drink, we were reminded of the sugary-sweet scent of our favorite '90s candy, Baby Bottle Pop. This Snapple flavor was light, refreshing, berry and not too sweet, so we give it a thumbs up.

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We're probably not the only ones who were very skeptical when we discovered a banana-flavored Snapple. It's no secret that bananas tend to have an overwhelming and distinct flavor when added to juices or smoothies. Most Snapple juice flavors have a fruit base made up of berries like strawberry or blackberry. Because berries and citrus fruits have a higher water content than bananasMy food data, they tend to taste more refreshing, which is what people usually expect when they grab a Snapple.

Because of this, our expectations for a banana flavored fruit juice were low. However, we were pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed the juice from Snapple Go Bananas. Surprisingly, it didn't actually smell like banana, and we couldn't exactly identify the smell, other than being a bit tangy. As for taste, one sip at room temperature imparted a tart banana flavor that might sound strange but tasted pretty good. After chilling the drink and tasting again, we felt the banana flavor was certainly there, but not in a slap in the face sort of way. It's a sweet, smooth drink that doesn't warrant the adjective "fruity," but it's still a satisfying and refreshing treat.

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According to the Snapple website, the brand currently offers fourLemonadeFlavors in addition to their half and half lemonade iced tea. We tried the flavors Strawberry Pineapple Lemonade and Watermelon Lemonade and we can confidently say that we were satisfied with both. In terms of ranking, we decided to base our review on the lemonade aspect of the drink. When you're in the mood for a lemonade, you usually want something decidedly tart, sweet, and refreshing. You don't necessarily want to drink something particularly fruity or sugary—the condiment should be the star of the show.

Snapple's Strawberry Pineapple Lemonade was certainly very tart, but we wouldn't use the word "tart." Upon opening the bottle, we noticed an appealing strawberry scent, similar to Snapple Kiwi Strawberry Juice. The taste was delightful; You get the tartness and pronounced acidity of pineapple, tangy lemonade and a pleasantly fruity strawberry flavor in the background of each sip. There is a great balance of all flavors and the pineapple comes through strongly, but not in an overwhelming way. Pour this drink over ice and you have the perfect refreshing summer drink.

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We tried 20 of Snapple's most popular flavors, which meant we searched a few different stores for more desirable flavors. Despite the variety of stores we visited and flavors we sampled, we somehow only came across one Snapple bottle that looked different from the others. Most people will probably realize that this bottle looks a lot more like the original Snapple drinks that used to be made in glass bottles. Snapple is a very contemporary company and has continually evolved as a brand to meet the needs of the ever-changing world we live in and a major shift has been the evolution of its bottle materials. According toSnapple-Website, its new plastic bottles are far more sustainable than its glass predecessors.

We give Snapple bonus points for its eco-conscious choices, but this particular bottle is the only one out of 20 we've tasted that didn't have a whimsical true Snapple fact in its bottle cap. While we were a bit disappointed with this, we were quite happy with the rest of the bottle's contents. The kiwi strawberry juice had an unsurprisingly sweet strawberry scent. It tasted sweet and tart and like strawberry, and while there was clearly another underlying flavor, it didn't scream kiwi. In fact, there was almost a hint of tangy lime in the drink. Either way, this would be a harsh taste not to like.

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We'd like to give this tea bonus points for its fun, whimsical name. If you visit Snapple's website, you'll find that most of their tea flavors (and juices) have fairly generic names, like the tell-all raspberry tea or fruit punch. However, the notoriously quirky, non-stuffy branding that Snapple customers love is maintained through their fun pun, as seen in drink names like Go Bananas and Trop-a-Rocka Tea.

We know that Snapple makes both fruit juices and teas, and that the two differ by the inclusion of tea (we knowduh). The distinction likely influences consumer behavior: if you want something refreshing, lean toward lighter drinks like iced teas, and if you're craving a fruity and sweet treat, grab a fruit juice. theTakes 2 to Mango Teaconfused our tea cravings as it was bloody sugary for an iced tea. At 38 grams of sugar per 16-ounce bottle, it has more sugar than some of their other teas, but not as much as the peach tea or honeyed tea, which each have 40 grams of sugar per bottle.

Aside from its unexpected sweetness, Takes 2 to Mango Tea had a pleasant taste that made us feel like we were on a tropical beach under the summer sun. The mango flavor was distinct and not at all artificial. This is one of Snapple's drinks that validates its "all natural" claim for us.

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After trying all three flavors in Snapple's new Elements line, we have a clear and easy winner. We think this is Snappleclaimthat their Elements drinks are "incredibly light and refreshing" is a bit of a stretch, but the flavor of air best fits the bill. The Elements Air flavor is called Prickly Pear & Peach White Tea, and that's exactly what it tastes like. While most of Snapple's tea products are made from black and/or green tea leaves, this is the only flavor to date made from white tea. AfterSimple Loose Leaf Tea CompanyWhite tea shares many similarities with green and black tea, such as the fact that they all contain hearty amounts of antioxidants and caffeine. As such, Elements air is the only one of the three Elements flavors to contain caffeine — about 18 mg per 15.9-ounce bottle, according to Snapple.

Despite their similarities, white tea tends to have a lighter, less bitter, earthy flavor than green or black tea. This feeling is reflected in the crisp, very slightly sweet taste of the air drink Elements. With a lovely peach flavor with hints of apricot, this refreshing tea tastes like both peach and pear without feeling too much like a heavy fruit juice.

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Did you know that the very first Snapple flavor was apple? When three friends came together to start a beverage company focused on using fresh ingredients, crunchy apples were the go-to choice, hence the company's name, which is a combination of the words "bitty" and "apple" (viaDie New York Times). As such, they still produce a widely available apple-flavored juice today, and it's the only one of their flavors that actually includes the company's name in its title.

Snapple Apple isn't your average apple juice, and we mean that in the best possible way. Snapple Apple is certainly on the sweeter side, but not in the saccharine way typically bottled apple juices are. A sip of Snapple Apple tastes like a crisp, refreshing bite of an apple freshly plucked from the vine, and it smells like an orchard in the best way. We love it, but it could be a little less cute.

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Despite recent tensions surrounding the word "diet," the diet drink industry continues to boom, he saysTODAY. In fact, Snapple recently took notice of society's growing disdain for food culture and rebranded all of their sugar-free drinks as "zero sugar" rather than "diet." The change is only in the name, asSnapplecites that their sugar-free drinks are made the same way as the Diet Snapple flavors.

Having already tried some of Snapple's sugar-free flavors, we felt like we knew what to expect from the sugar-free half and half lemonade iced tea - a decidedly artificial smell and taste that defines the drink more than its taste . And yes, this particular drink gave off a distinctly artificial smell. However, we were pleasantly surprised at how good this sugar-free flavor tasted. It was the least diet-tasting of the no-sugar options, and thanks to its subtle citrus note, we think it's even better than its full-sugar counterpart, the Iced Tea with Half Lemonade and Half Lemonade. Poured over ice, this Snapple flavor got a 10 out of 10 from us.

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On Valentine's Day 2020,Snapple had tweeted, "Real Fact #1017: The phrase 'You're a real peach' comes from the tradition of giving peaches to loved ones." The tweet was cleverly celebratory, but we checked Snapple's website and found that Real Fact #1017 does not exist anymore. According to Snapple, when a "fact" is disproved, they retract it. At least they are transparent!

Of the 33 flavors listed on Snapple's website, seven are made with itNull Zucker. Of the three sugar-free flavors we tried, the sugar-free peach tea was by far the flavor that tasted the best. In fact, this popular flavor was so good that it tasted better than many of Snapple's juice and tea drinks, which are made with sugar. Snapple's Sugar-Free Peach Tea has a lovely, peachy scent that doesn't smell entirely natural, but isn't overly artificial either. It just tastes like a high-quality peach-flavored tea, and while it has a hint of artificial sugar flavor reminiscent of most diet drinks, it still tastes refreshing and not overly artificial. Pro tip: We've found that every Snapple flavor tastes infinitely better when poured over ice, especially the sugar-free ones!

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When life hands you lemons, create a sweetened lemon-flavored tea beverage, bottle it, and watch your company's sales soar by 60%, he saysfinancing universe. In the late 1980s, Snapple's founders, after spending years perfecting their bottled iced tea recipe after selling only fruit juices and sodas (viaDie New York Times).

When you want a refreshing drink, nothing beats iced tea. And when you want an iced tea, nothing beats a simple touch of sweetness and a squeeze of fresh lemon. Snapple's iced tea experts knew this well, and lemon tea, a now staple of their range, certainly doesn't miss the mark.

With a lovely citrus scent, this drink naturally has a distinct lemon flavor. However, unlike the fruit aspect of raspberry or peach tea, the flavor of lemon doesn't overwhelm the tea - it complements it. Likewise, the tea itself smooths out the acidity of the lemon, making this Snapple flavor much more enjoyable than the sweeter, tart, half-and-half lemonade iced tea. Snapple Lemon Tea is refreshing, smooth and timeless, which is why it's our most popular Snapple flavor.