Happy Tree Maple Water (Discontinued)

Happy Tree, which is a brand of high pressure processed maple water, has expanded their flavor lineup yet again. This time around it’s with a pomegranate flavor, something that appears to have the mainstream in mind.

The product is a blend of three ingredients: organic maple water, organic pomegranate juice, and organic lemon juice. According to the label, the juice content totals nine percent; the pomegranate juice content is clearly pretty low as the liquid has only the slightest red hue to it. No matter -- we don’t think anyone will be consuming this to replace pure pomegranate juice.

As far as the flavor goes, it’s light and very refreshing. The entire bottle has only 48 calories and 11g of sugars, but having only three ingredients creates a straightforward and clean flavor. The base of maple water works quite well, while added tartness from the pomegranate and acidity from the lemon create a balanced and well rounded flavor profile.

The liquid is packaged in a 12 oz. cylindrical plastic bottle with a white label, which is the same as the rest of the Happy Tree family. They’ve refined their label a few times and this rendition is very clean and visually appealing. It features a top to bottom placement of the logo, flavor name, supporting images, and seals calling out their certifications and calories. Lastly, there’s a simple tagline of “more nutrients, less sugar.” Put all of this together and they’ve successfully created the vibe of a healthy, low sugar product.

Overall, we really enjoyed this flavor and we’re pleased with the direction that Happy Tree is progressing. While maple water is still something that’s in its early stages, the brand is evolving and filling in its flavor profile quite nicely.

Happy Tree Maple Water’s Cold Brew Coffee offering is a high pressure processed (HPP) blend of maple water and coffee.

What’s really unique about this offering is that they’ve actually cold-brewed the coffee with maple water rather than water. This results in a unique and smooth flavor profile that’s really outstanding. The natural sugars of the maple water give the coffee some mild sweetness (there are 6g of sugars per bottle) and add a light maple note. Both the coffee and the maple flavors are really balanced and we’re very impressed that they’ve managed to create this much flavor with only two ingredients and minimal sugar content.

From a packaging and positioning point of view, again, we’re big fans.  It’s fair trade, organic, and low calorie (only 30 calories per bottle), which are all nice boxes to tick. The design of the 10 oz. bottle is clean and simple, with a front panel that is very intuitive, polished, and approachable. Aside from potentially calling out the fact that the product has only two ingredients, there’s really nothing else that we could suggest.

We’ve seen a variety of attempts to flavor or otherwise use maple water in a way that broadens the core ingredient. But what we’ve seen to date, including from Happy Tree, hasn’t felt as transformative as this product. Incorporating the maple water in a coffee in such an integral way feels very true to what maple water is all about (simple, natural flavor) and the execution of this product is really quite impressive.