As it seems we finally have a day (and maybe a string of days) without water falling from the sky, let's talk about water anyway. (Sorry, knitting is very slow right now.)



About six or so months ago, I found this product at Wegman's.

Celestial Seasonings Wild Berry Chill Zingers to Go


Yummy, delicious, and refreshing. I was drinking them mixed into my water when teaching, mixed into my water with meals, and mixed into my water when working out. If you check out the website, you'll see that there are no calories, just yummy flavors (and a little stevia for a slight sweetness). What I really love about the Zingers is that the flavor was strong and not sickeningly sweet.



But then Wegman's didn't have them anymore (and I never saw them in the crappy, terrible grocery stores in Yonkers). I found them online, but after I ordered I got an email that they were out of stock. I did manage to get a few from online, but that source seems dried up. And while Celestial Seasonings still has them on their website, I just can't find them. And this is a big deal because I HATE DRINKING WATER. I can't drink plain water and water with some lemon or lime juice is ok, but I don't want to drink it. These Zingers got me to enjoy water.



With only 5 little packets left, I headed back to Wegman's Thursday to assess my options. There are various types that add vitamins to your water in addition to flavoring (Emergen-C and One Day Women's) and even ones that add fiber (Benefiber... their commercials are on constantly). And then there are the standard Kool-Aid, ice-tea, and lemonade types.



I wanted something without aspartame (for various reasons), something that was preferably calorie free, and something that came in little to-go packets in a berry type flavor. The no aspartame eliminated most of the possibilities (Crystal Light, Snapple, Wyler's, Ocean Spray).



I ended up getting Emergen-C in raspberry, 4C Totally Light 2 Go in Wild Berry-Pomegranate and a mixed box with strawberry-kiwi, dragon fruit-acai, and something-citrus. I've tried them all over the past couple of days (expect the something-citrus which is why I can't remember what it is).

• Emergen-C... weak flavor, kind of fizzy, horrid after taste. I forced myself to drink it while working out. And I mean forced. It was not pleasant tasting on the tongue or the back of the mouth after swallowing, and the fizziness was making it worse. It recommended about 4-6oz of water, I used 12-13oz. It didn't completely dissolve and there was a sludge at the bottom of the glass. Yuck! Plus it made me burpy while working out... not good. I don't know that I can force myself to drink the OTHER 35 of them.


• 4C Wild Berry-Pomegranate... strong flavor, quite sweet, very tasty. I liked this quite a lot. The pomegranate is the dominate flavor. The sweetness was a lot more than the Zingers, but part of that could be because I was using about 4-5 oz less water than recommended (who owns 17oz glasses?!) I might try splitting the packet between two glasses next time.


• 4C Strawberry-Kiwi... yum, yum, yum!! Same deal as the pomegranate with being a bit sweeter than I'd like. But otherwise, great flavor and highly drinkable.


• 4C Dragon Fruit-Acai... also a big yum and the same issues as above!!