Jordan Myrick
If you’re a person who’s always complained that “water tastes like nothing,” the best water enhancers make staying hydrated a lot tastier. They’re great for school lunch boxes and camping trips. Leave a few in your car or at your desk at work to spice up those 64 ounces of H2O you’re obligated to drink every day. But what’s the best water flavoring of them all? That’s what we wanted to find out.
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Whether you crave the taste of iced tea, aguas frescas, lemonade, or even candy-flavored beverages (whatever that entails), we have a water flavoring for you. Over the course of two separate taste tests, we tried a wide selection of water flavor enhancers, both generic and name brand, in search of flavored water that tastes bolder and better than bottled beverages—and not like a cheaper, diluted version of the real thing. After mixing numerous powders and liquids into our office’s filtered tap water, we found the nine best water flavor enhancers to help you stay hydrated.
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- Wyler’s Light Strawberry Lemonade
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Strawberry can go so wrong in artificially flavored beverages, but Wyler’s Light dodges all the mishaps with this strawberry lemonade water flavoring. For a low-calorie water enhancer, I can barely taste the artificial sweetener. These packets of powder make water taste a little closer to an agua fresca than actual lemonade, but I prefer that to the taste of overtart, lip-pursing lemon juice. Overall, the flavor is very light, bright, and refreshing. Even at the bottom of the list, Wyler’s Light Strawberry Lemonade is still one of the best water flavorings you can buy. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Bolero Advanced Hydration Sugar-Free Iced Tea Sachets
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If you know me, you know I hate things that are sugar free. Not foods that are naturally sugar free, but processed sugar free products. They always have such a weird taste. I’d rather just not eat the thing than eat a sugar free, chemical-y tasting, diet version of the thing. Bolero Advanced Hydration Sugar-Free Tea Sachets (aka, powder packets) taste good, though. I tried them at a food convention and was shocked by the flavor. They make flavored water that actually tastes like a lightly sweetened tea and not a diet drink. Good job, Bolero, for making one of the best water enhancers out there. —Jordan Myrick
Credit: Merc / Amazon
- Starburst Blue Raspberry
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I’ll admit, I was skeptical of Starburst water flavorings. Why would I want to drink candy? The cherry flavor didn’t really hit for me, but oh man, blue raspberry? It’s a game changer. Vibrant and bold, this powdered water enhancer has just the right balance of sweet and tart to make a candy-flavored drink taste actually refreshing rather than cloying. The concentrated blue raspberry flavor actually reminds me more of a blue Jolly Rancher than a blue Starburst. Many of you recommended the Sonic water flavorings in the comments. While Sonic water enhancers, Ocean Water included, were a little too forgettable for us to recommend here, we still found a blue flavored water that we really like. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- Great Value Lemonade
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This water flavor enhancer makes a great classic lemonade with just one squeeze. It’s sweet but not too sweet, and zippy without being sour. You can add just a little to your water for a lightly lemon-ed ice water or you can give your beverage a more generous squirt for a classic lemonade so good that it almost tastes homemade. And one of its best features is the price. It’s so unbelievably cheap. A great taste and a great price? You love to see it.
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Klass Agua Fresca Cucumber Lemonade
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Not to sound gross, but this tastes like a spa. Not spa bath water, okay? I mean one of those cooling, relaxing beverages you’d be served alongside your cucumber eye mask after leaving thes sauna. While the flavor of lemonade doesn’t really come through in this powdered agua fresca mix, there’s a bold and fresh cucumber flavor enhanced by the lightest touch of sweetness. I’ve never personally been a fan of cucumber drinks, but I loved this.—Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- Market Pantry Grape Liquid Water Enhancer Drops
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If you like grape-flavored things, this liquid water flavoring is giving full grape, and I love it. I was shocked to find out I liked this a smidge more than grape Kool-Aid! It’s a little grape-ier. Just a little bit of this squeezed into water and you have a tasty grape drink. It’s not particularly nuanced and I think that’s nice. It promises grape flavor and you get grape flavor. It’s one of the best water enhancers if you just want something sweet and fun. —Jordan Myrick
Credit: Merc / Target
- Klass Agua Fresca Hibiscus
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Klass makes some of the best water flavorings you can find, and they totally nailed this hibiscus agua fresca infusion. It’s so lovely, you guys. It has that bitter hibiscus kick with just the right touch of sweetness to match. No extra sugary syrups needed. Some hibiscus teas are too bitter to be super drinkable, but this is incredibly refreshing. It tastes brisk. I’m a firm believer that the right aesthetic can make you crave a beverage even more, and the gorgeous ruby hue here is just vibrant as the flavor. I’m a big fan! —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Kool-Aid Tropical Punch
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Listen, before you get on my case, let me say this: All Kool-Aid is delicious. Grab any form of any flavor of Kool-Aid and you will be happy. That being said, their Tropical Punch individual water flavoring packets outshines every other tropical punch water enhancer on the market, so it earned one of the top spots on this list. It’s perfectly balanced. No one fruit is more prominent than the others. It’s wonderful! And it’s one of our best water enhancers on the market. —Jordan Myrick
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- True Lemon Strawberry Lemonade
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I don’t know why you’d ever make lemonade from scratch when you can just buy True Lemon Strawberry Lemonade. It’s so sweet and tangy and citrusy. You get both strawberry and lemon, and not just some sweet mystery liquid. I ended up bringing all of these powder packets home and drinking one a day. I couldn’t get enough of this stuff. Plus, it’s made with natural ingredients like crystallized lemon, beet powder, and cane sugar. I love how simple and delicious this is and I will continue to buy it. After two taste tests, it’s still the best water enhancers at the grocery store. —Jordan Myrick
Credit: Merc / Walmart
Best Low Calorie
Best Sugar-Free
Best Candy Flavor
Best Budget
Best Calming
Best Fruit Flavor
Most Unique
Runner Up
Best of the Best
Other water flavorings: Great Value Grape, Kool-Aid Cherry, Crystal Light Strawberry Lemonade, MiO Sweet Tea, Great Value Energy Berry Blast, Crystal Light Berry Sangria, Skittles, Crush, Celsius, Stur Drinks Strawberry Watermelon Liquid Water Enhancer, Crystal Light Peach Iced Tea Artificially Flavored Powdered Drink Mix, SONIC Singles To Go Low Calorie, Ocean Water Drink Mix, SONIC Cherry Limeade Drink Mix, Welch’s Strawberry Pach Drink Mix, Starburst Cherry Drink Mix, A&W Drink Mix Packets Sugar Free
Vinz Karl
Jessica Block
Tyler Bowers
Hi! I would LOVE if you could do a similar ranking on the liquid water enhancers. I have a water carbonation machine, but it works best with liquid enhancers. (It’s hard to properly mix the powders in carbonated water)
Do you know of any without sweeteners (with no stevia either)? Like just cane sugar? My son can not have stevia or sweeteners. Love your work! Thanks!
Oh hell yeah, you included Bolero, which has some of the most realistic flavors I’ve encountered. I’m not a lemon person, but the True Orange Orangeade Mango is so good, which is in line with your True Lemon observations. Also, I LOVE the Arbol Frutal Summer Colada mix. It’s so pineappley and tasty that I had to buy it in bulk.
Wanted to toss this in incase its not been tested. Saw it was brought up by one other comment. But if you want to fill a LARGE water container or have something that tastes good even water down, Sonic Oceanwater is so great. One stick in my 48oz bottle is all I need. Drink 24 oz and fill it back up to still have a lil taste that encourages me to keep drinking.
The biggest downside is the blue color and how potent it is going in, could stain your lips, and coming out may leave you surprised.
The raspberry lemonade true lemon is the GOAT.
For once I actually partially agree with your findings. The Great Value water flavorings are honestly really tasty. Though I much prefer a couple of the powdered packets that include caffeine. Great Value products are so weird. Some of them are better than name brands, some are middle of the road and some are absolute trash. You just have to figure out which is which.
I really like the drink packets that Arizona makes. They have the lemon tea and green tea flavors. It’s not just like cracking a tall boy of Arizona on a hot day, but it’s pretty damn close!
It’s so interesting that y’all chose the Market Pantry Grape. I’ve only tried one of that line and it was Mango Peach. The feel while drinking is good, but the after taste is like fruity pool water.
Great list! Definitely some great new enhancers I can test.
Last time I went through and tasted a bunch of these to see which I liked I landed on STARBURST Zero Sugar Strawberry. It’s my default go-to now and can’t drink water without it. Could it be included in the new roundup to see where it stands?
Just tried wild strawberry crystal light— it’s a godsend.
Most of these are worse for you than the sugar versions. Sucralose is genotoxic, aspartame is just absolutely terrible for you in general and True Lemon’s Stevia has erythritol.
Bolero has sucralose and possibly erythritol in their stevia.
Great Value has sucralose.
Market Pantry has sucralose plus it’s from Target soo that’s another reason not to get it.
Kool-aid has sucralose and the liquid drops from them have aspartame.
True Lemon has erythritol and the Strawberry flavor is one of the worst flavors from True Lemon.
Bobelo, carbonates slightly, solid flavor and sweetened with stevia that lacks erythritol, you can call them and confirm on that. The only downside is they have limited flavors. 4 regular flavors and 2 with caffeine. Orchard, Berry, Lavender Lemonade, and Pina Colada. With Peach Mango and Cherry Vanilla as their caffeinated versions. You’re really just better off buying something pretty inoculous like Monin’s syrup and mixing a drink that way, sure it has sugar, sure it has calories, but it’s not actively toxic and will still come in under soda or juice unless you go overboard adding it.
You should get that autism under control before you kill yourself worrying about a single non-peer-reviewed study done by an *engineering research team* in North Carolina.
Not sure why North Carolina wouldn’t be a reputable source for a study, considering the major scientific universities. The non-peer-reviewed study and the fact that there was only one was enough for it to be meaningless.
You’re wrong.
Did you copy down a facebook book post about this stuff and then regurgitate it here? It took me 5 minutes to google how insanely wrong you’re. For example you shit on aspartame as if it actively kills you and it took me 3 seconds to see how you would have to consume 21 12oz sodas in a single day to approach harmful levels of consumption. You’re just spouting out actual nonsense and replying to multiple posts about it all because you want to seem smart.
I wish I could drink the grapes and tropical punches but red 40 gets me sick. If you know good tasting ones without the red 40 I’d love to hear of them. Thanks!
I appreciate you doing this article and I’m glad the true lemon won. I’m constantly in the search for no artificial sweeteners in a drink packet. I hate the taste of artificial sweeteners and with the new research that sucralose causes DNA damage. Most of the time I can only find drinks for athlete’s which contains a bunch of salt with no fake sugars. It would be awesome if you could find some more of these products I could try. So far I’m using scratch, which is good but high in salt.
Except True Lemon’s Stevia has erythritol in it so it increases your risk of heart attack and stroke. Try Bobelo, it uses Stevia without the erythritol so if you liked True Lemon for the Stevia inclusion then Bobelo is just better, better flavor as well IMO.
Surprisingly, Jordan neglected to mention an important fact regarding the no sugar one. What kind of sweetener is used?
I agree with this. I want real sugar. That fake stuff tastes nasty.
It’s sucralose it’s genotoxic (damages your DNA) it also has acesulfame potassium.
That’s not true.
I will try the ones I haven’t yet on your list. My top 5 are.
1- Klass Hibiscus Berry Aqua Frescas
2- Sonic Cherry Limeade mixed with True Lemon Peach Lemonade
3- Sonic Ocean Water also good mixed with True Lemon Watermelon Limeade
4- Klass Cucumber Lemonade Aqua Frescas
5- Almost all of the Wal-Mart brand varieties.
This team is always so right. Kool-Aid Tropical is fantastic.
Koolaid tropical punch is my go to koolaid. And true lemon raspberry lemonade is amazing. Sometimes though I’ll just put a couple packets of true orange crystallized orange in my water and be good.