Getting juiced           

News to get the juices flowing: Starbucks has opened the first store in its new Evolution Fresh juice bar chain. That ought to squeeze an exclamation of joy out of you.

I’m confident that, like myself, you are overloaded with excitement at the news, but don’t set your cup of Starbucks coffee down and dash out the door. You have ample time to finish that cup and many, many more before there is an Evolution Fresh juice bar near you.

Unless, of course, you live in Bellevue, WA. That affluent city just east of Seattle is the site of the first Starbucks Evolution Fresh juice bar. If you live there, go ahead and head out of the door. But, if I were you, I’d still take time to finish that cup of Starbucks. You do realize the coins you would be wasting if you don’t finish it, don’t you?

The news story I read about Starbucks’ new venture noted that fresh fruit and vegetable juices have gained in popularity in the U.S. with some health-conscious consumers using them as meal replacements. What? Replace my PB&J sandwich (it’s made with whole wheat bread, really!) and chips (the low-fat ones, honest) with fruit and vegetable juices? Hey, I already drink apple juice almost every day; and I have thought about carrot juice to do the vegetable bit, but I’m afraid too much would make me turn yellow.

The news story also said some people drink the fresh fruit and vegetable juices as part of “cleansing” diets. Don’t kid me, the writer of the story didn’t have to put the word “cleansing” in quotation marks for me to understand what was meant. You know, too, don’t you? I won’t say it either, but if you aren’t clear on the meaning, here’s a clue. It has to do with a part of the body named after a punctuation mark.

I did some checking—Evolution Fresh has a website, you know—and found that you can really get juiced. There’s apple juice, but who wants to go a juice bar to drink apple juice? The local little country grocery store has that, and a lot cheaper per ounce. Also available are carrot juice and beet juice. How can you beat that? Sorry, that just popped up on the screen.

Get this, though. Evolution Fresh also has coconut water. That’s not something you find in the friendly little country grocery store. At least not here in Oklahoma. Coconut water? I can’t imagine the reaction I would get from my taste buds and throat if I surprised them with a cold swallow of coconut water. Maybe I could understand it as part of a “cleansing diet” but I’m not sure what meal it might replace. Certainly not my PB&J.

You may be salivating in anticipation of trying out the myriad of drinks available when Evolution Fresh some day makes its way to your town. To further juice up your curiosity, I’ll share with you a few of the drinks on the menu.

Among the tongue-titillating choices in bottled fruit juices are carrot orange mango juice and the always-popular cucumber pineapple ginger juice. Oops, I think I’m puckering. In the bottled vegetable juices, your choices include sweet greens and lemon juice. Be still my heart.

The menu for the new juice bar in Bellevue features “Handcrafted Juices” which sell for $4.99 for an 8-oz. drink and $7.99 for a 16-oz. You might notice that this will save you some coins compared to buying many of the Starbucks coffee and coffee-based drinks. Of course, you may be giving up some caffeine.

I don’t want to give away the entire menu of handcrafted juices, but here is a sampling to get your palate palpitating:

Field of Greens—greens, ginger, apple, cucumber (ginger comes in juice form?)

Sweet Beet—beet, pineapple, apple, carrot (wonder what color that would be)

Sweet Burn—coconut water, pineapple, apple, beet, cayenne, ginger (I bet you taste this one all the way down and maybe for a while after that)

Now that I’ve whetted your thirst, I think I’ll head off to Starbucks. Just a plain coffee will juice me up just fine.