Another trendy beverage brand launched today with a pastel can, a fake-zen name, and a flavor that tastes like wet paper pretending to have character. These things pop up faster than unlicensed smoke shops on a random block in Bushwick, endless variety, zero real staying power. Most of them live for about one month in a Brooklyn bodega before disappearing into the recycling bin of broken dreams and disappointed taste buds.

Look around the shelves. Names that sound like wellness retreats, Calm, Vital, Align, Uplift, Zen Root Verde, with marketing copy that reads like a self-help book. The ingredients list reads like someone Googled “what’s trending in functional beverages” and then asked an AI to write the back label. If your drink needs a paragraph of copy, a focus group name, and a TikTok angle to explain what it actually tastes like, it’s not a drink. It’s homework.

This city deserves better. One sip shouldn’t make you feel like you need a glossary. New Yorkers don’t want beverages that perform consultancy. We want drinks that first taste good, then maybe make sense. A cold coffee that actually tastes like coffee. A soda that doesn’t pretend it’s a meditation exercise. A juice that isn’t just water that forgot what fruit was.

Here’s the pattern. Trend brand launches. Viral week. Influencers sip on camera. Hashtags explode. A week later, the product is markdown-rack discounted because nobody with real taste actually rested on that “berry adaptogen infusion” nonsense. PDQ it’s gone, leaving behind stock that ends up in clearance bins next to protein powders that also overpromised and underdelivered.

Meanwhile, your wallet feels the betrayal. You thought you were buying a clever beverage. You bought hydration’s empty promise.

Let’s be clear. Innovation in drinks is real. Kombucha, real craft sodas, quality cold brew, true effervescence, those are beverages with lineage and merit. What we’re calling bullshit on is the plastic pastel can brigade that looks cute in a flatlay and tastes like someone forgot they were selling something you actually need to enjoy.

If it takes a paragraph of marketing to justify a drink’s existence, that drink already failed its first test. Flavor.

New York doesn’t need another “enhanced hydration experience.” We need drinks that taste like drinks, not notebooks. Keep the buzzwords. Bring us flavor first.

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