Review: Calpis Calpico Water - 5 Assorted Flavors

I love Calpis Calpico Water now. March was the first time I tried it after years of staring at it on store shelves. Nothing much better than an ice cold bottle of Calpis Water on a warm day now. There's a variety of flavored Calpis Water available in the U.S. and I picked up as many as I could find to try. The one odd thing I found was that the original uses high fructose corn syrup and sugar while the rest use just sugar. Why must this be so? I think this is for one of two reasons; Either the original version is produced more than the others and high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than sugar, or the natural flavors and juice concentrate from the fruits sweetens the drinks enough in the flavored ones while the original needs something a little extra. After the jump are my reviews for five of Calpis Calpico's assorted flavors.

Strawberry - Judging by the stock on the shelves, the strawberry flavor of Calpis Water might be the most popular out of all the flavored ones. It has a strawberry milk flavor. The coloring is a milky pink like a strawberry Starburst. I liked it a lot, but it wasn't my favorite.

Lychee - I'm not a big fan of lychee stuff, but this was actually good. It's not too strong of a lychee flavor, but you definitely do taste it. It does seem to be a bit more sour than the rest of the flavors though.

White Peach - The peach flavor one is not very memorable. It's still good, but I can't say this drink screams peach at me. It's not one I would get very much.

Mango - Mango has to be my favorite flavor of Calpis Water that I've tried, and I'm not even a fan of the fruit. The drink has a yellowish look to it and you might be able to fool some people into thinking that it's sour milk. The mango flavor is very much present, but I think I really liked it because it reminded me of the almond tofu that my mom makes. She mixes the almond jelly with fruit cocktail and that mixture tasted very similar to this.

Aloe - Certainly the oddest flavor for me personally, but aloe drinks are pretty popular in Asia. Thankfully the aloe taste is not very strong, but there most certainly is aloe vera juice concentrate in it. One interesting difference between this one and the rest of the flavors was that it has less calories in it. Not enough to make it a diet drink or anything, but still notable. I was surprised that I liked this one as much as I did, but I guess I'm a Calpis fan now.

In the end, nothing beats the original flavor of Calpis Calpico Water for me. But, if I had to put these drinks in order of what I liked the best to least best, it would go:
1) Mango
2) Strawberry
3) Aloe
4) Lychee
5) White Peach