Hype

Well, the original Hype. I've always admired Hype, but so far, they haven't impressed me, to be honest. I'm hoping the regular Hype can make up for the mediocre Enlite. I love the sleek and elegant can design with the vertical blue "HYPE" going up the side and the stylish metallic background. I haven't had a full-on energy drink in a while, and this one will surely get me going. I don't know what else to say; I'm eager to open this can.

Ooh, it smells a bit like a Crunk, when I think about it. The vitamins are prominent in the aroma, with some sort of herbal quality to it. The color, I found, is a bit similar to apple juice with red and brown mixed in. The taste didn't wow me immediately, but it's okay, I guess. It's a more complex and intricate flavor than I've found in many drinks. It starts out tasting sweet on your tongue and turns into an acidic sourness that resembles the tartness of a raspberry. Halfway through the acidity come the vitamins. Vitamin B is prominent as well as Vitamin C in this drink. The aftertaste left is sour and yes, a bit nutty. I'm sure if it were cold, the vitamin taste would be gone and it would be very refreshing, that's for sure. However, I don't find this to be an addicting and really tasty drink. The MFP was far more flavorful, I believe, with that very pleasant flavor, reminding me of caramel and having a delightful sourness to it that went well with the sugar. I'm very sad and disappointed about the regular Hype because the flavor didn't really grab me and I no longer believe in the saying that recommends you buy Hypes in twos.

The thing I like about the packaging is that the whole design is sideways on the can; very stylish. The first thing I look for in the labelling, usually, is the amount of sugar. The Hype has 27g of sugar, the same as a Monster, less than an Amp, more than the Java Monsters. Knowing the grams of sugar in a drink is a good guage telling how sweet the drink is going to be. When I drank this, I thought it actually tasted not as sweet as a Monster. I'm not sure what caused that. Now, the energy ingredients: taurine (amount undisclosed), ginseng and guarana extracts (amount undisclosed), Caffeine (amount undisclosed). I wish Hype would give us the amount of these ingredients, because it's always fun to compare the amount of ingredients in different drinks. If you want to do it another way, you could say taurine is number 5 in the list, ginseng and guarana are number 6, and caffeine is number 9. I can't be sure, but I have the feeling there isn't very much of any of these supplements in here. However much is in here, it did give me an adequate boost, but I noticed a nasty crash at the end of about two hours. This isn't my favorite drink, but I can tell many other people would probably like it. I didn't think it would be so, but I have to say, Monster still remains my favorite energy drink.

Taste: 7 - Complex; perhaps too complex for me
Kick: 7 - Crashes aren't good
Overall: 7 - Not my favorite, but you have to try it for yourself

Reviewed by: Jeff