A little while back I was given a box of 12 whole young coconuts to enjoy. After a bit of practice I perfected the art of chopping the top open with a butcher's cleaver to insert a straw and suckle the sweet nectar contained within. As much fun as that was, whole coconuts take up too much space in the fridge and I'm always concerned that they must use some kind of chemicals on them to keep the "fresh" from their home in Thailand to my grocer's refrigerators.Without knowing really anything about the whole packaged coconut water game, I assumed very incorrectly that I could just select a container of any random brand off a store shelf and it would taste as immaculate as the perfect juice from a fresh-cracked coconut.I could not have been more wrong.I first tried Vita Coco because it seems to be the most common brand really everywhere. It was even at Costco, so I bought their handy 12-pack expecting to delight in the treat. I got the tetra-pak all nice and chilled before taking my first sip, and when I did I was furious. "How can they call this coconut water?!" I exclaimed. It tastes kind of like diluted, sour, used, soapy dish water that leaves a funky wang in your mouth and does nothing toward quenching your thirst. It seemed to make me thirsty for some plain old water. Yuck!At first I thought maybe I got a bad batch, but then I headed online for some reviews and I found I was not alone. How unfortunate. However, I also found lots of reviews of some other brands that people seemed to love. "Yay! There's still hope!" I thought to myself.The confusing part was that for every brand for which I found good reviews, there seemed to be countless other reviewers disgusted by each one. I read a review comparing Zico, O.N.E., and Vita Coco to one another, and it ranked the former two far above the latter. I went ahead and bought a bottle of each Zico and O.N.E. and determined they are swill, especially Zico, which tastes like tap water that was spit into by someone who just ate a rotten coconut.I continued reading reviews and found several stating that Amy & Brian is really great, but that some find it overly sweet. I am not a fan of sugary sweetness in my coconut water, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. The results? Meh. It's really not sweet at all, and although there is more flavor, it still doesn't taste like fresh coconut water. Yet another review stated that Nature Factor was a close second behind Amy & Brian, so I gave that a shot. It's definitely a little worse than Amy & Brian, but it is very similar and doesn't taste like a real coconut.I was just about to give up hope when one of the small ~9 oz. bottles with pulp of Taste Nirvana landed in my hands. I presumed it was going to be more funky wang sauce, but I took my first sip and whoa-ho-hoooo what have we here? A miracle in a bottle? A fresh coconut shaped like a bottle? Nay, it was really bottle coconut water that really tasted like coconut water! In fact it tastes even better than fresh coconut water because there's a subtle sort of butteriness to the flavor. I thought it had to be a fluke, but I took another sip (and about finished the bottle), and every drop went down as unbelievably delicious as the first.I immediately hopped onto Amazon and started a subscribe & save subscription. My first case of these 16 oz. tall cans sans pulp arrived today and after a quick 1 hour in the freezer, I just tried my first can. Son of a biscuit, it almost brings me to tears to tell you this, but it was possibly the best canned beverage I've ever guzzled. I tried so hard to make it last, but I almost chugged the darned thing because the deliciousness was so unstoppable.In short, if you're looking for some good coconut water and don't want to deal with cleaving real coconuts, save yourself a lot of time and heartache; don't try anything but Taste Nirvana. You won't regret it. I just wish I had someone else giving me this advice at the start of my misadventures in coco-hunting.=== Update April 2013 ===After commenter Anita suggested another brand, C2O, I found some at my local grocery store and gave it a shot. If you're still on the fence about which coconut water try, that's the only other brand I've enjoyed just about as much as Taste Nirvana. Depending on your personal preference, you may like that one even more than Taste Nirvana; Anita does.If you are able to, you should definitely sample the different brands one can at a time before buying a case on Amazon, but if you aren't able to, I think you won't go wrong with either of the above two brands. Enjoy!=== Update May 2013 ===Commenter Jamie suggested a brand called Harmless Harvest that's apparently only available at Whole Foods. If you have a Whole Foods near you that carries it, stop whatever else you're doing (don't even finish reading this) and go buy some of that coconut water. That is truly what I never thought possible: raw, fresh young coconut juice *exactly* as if drinking it directly out of a coconut. It's not heat treated nor pasteurized, and it is naturally organic which means it tastes flawless and it has a shelf life of at least a month due to a new high-pressure process in which they put thousands of pounds of pressure on each bottle to prevent the growth of flora.As you might imagine, it's quite pricey, but oh so worth it. I've seen a smaller bottle for under $3 and a larger bottle for over $5. There's just no comparing Harmless Harvest to any canned coconut water, but if you feel this stuff is too expensive, I'd recommend sticking with some canned stuff but occasionally supplementing your coconut high with a nice, slowly-sipped bottle of raw, organic, pure, untreated coconut water. Yummy!(Check out their website for all their awesome details and where you can find their product near you: harmlesscoconut.com)
