Saturday, April 4, 2015

Monster Energy Ultra Citron


Ultra Citron is a new flavor in Monster's Ultra line up that was just released in the US. With any luck we might also get it a few months from now. It seems that Monster has been slowly bringing most of the Ultra line up across the border and the Ultra Zero, Blue and Red flavors are widely available now in grocery stores and gas stations. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the Citron one will also make its way across in the near future. But for now, this flavor is only available in the US.

Taste

As expected, Ultra Citron is lemon flavored (if you didn't get that from the word Citron, then you should consider opening a book). The aroma is rich and veeeery lemony. Every whiff I take reminds me of freshly picked and peeled lemons. It is shocking how real the aroma is.

The taste is not as rich as the aroma, but it is still damn good. It starts off semi-sweet and a little tart with a not too intense lemon flavor. Mid-way the tartness intensifies and a more rich lemon flavor comes out, which lats for mere moments before the finishing sweetener note comes in. The aftertaste has the rich, tart lemon flavor for just a brief moment and then turns into a blend of sweetener (after all the Ultra flavors are all sugar free) and subtle, distant lemons notes.

This flavor has to be the most refreshing and easy to drink Ultra flavor made to date. I love it.

Energy

Aaah, so many mixed feelings about this part with this drink. On one hand, there is a bit more caffeine than the other Ultra flavors (152 mg here VS 140 mg in previous flavors), but on the other, why is there so little caffeine? Other sugar free drinks, like the Pure Zero line up, contain 240 mg without affecting the flavor in any way. Maybe there is a health or regulatory reason for this that I don't know about.

So how do the 152 mg of caffeine work? Quite well actually. I got a nice buzz going within 15-20 minutes and even felt a little jittery which is odd since there is no sugar in the drink. In another 15 minutes I was fully feeling the effects of the caffeine and felt like running around in circles for the first 10 minutes. Yup, felt very energetic! After about 3 hours I was feeling pretty normal and didn't experience a crash.

Scores:
Cost - $3.29 from a random gas station in NY state
Taste - 9.2/10
Energy - 8/10

Overall - 17.2/20...most refreshing Monster Ultra flavor with slightly more caffeine

3 comments:

  1. Love how condescending you are at the start about it so clearly being Lemon flavored, even though it's not.

    Its flavored like the Citron, which although a member of the citrus family, is not actually a lemon.

    Even says so on the can, scratch opening a book, look at the container of the product you are reviewing.

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    Replies
    1. You are right about the Citron. But it still tastes like lemon to me.

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  2. And for the international take on this topic:
    On the german can it says "Ultra Citron" but the fluff text is talking about "Zitrone" (lit: lemon). Not about Citron which in German would be called Zitronatzitrone

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