What Does A Powdered Greens Taste Like?

February 28, 2022 3 min read

Macro shot of dark blue-green spirulina powder lit hard against a black background, captioned “Blame the spirulina”.

We get this question multiple times a day on our Facebook page, and through to our support email. It’s probably the biggest concern people have about buying a super greens powder for the first time

No surprise really, because how good can a drink made from vegetables, grasses and water-based greenery actually taste? Especially when they can look like they’ve been taken from the local stagnant pond. 

Greens drink supplements can vary massively in taste. Some can have very bitter flavours, some can be neutral, and others have had artificial flavours added such as peppermint, chocolate, and fruit to mask the stronger flavours.

So What Influences The Taste of Your Greens Drink?

There are a couple of common powdered greens ingredients that make many greens drinks taste really rough. The main one, in our opinion, is Spirulina.

Spirulina is an algae-based green. Yep, the stuff that grows in water!

No wonder it tastes rough! The thing is spirulina is an amazing ingredient, it is a nutritional powerhouse which is why its use is fairly widespread.

If you thought Kale is the height of superfoods, spirulina kicks sand in the face of Kale and steals its lunch money too!

What is Spirulina?

Spirulina in its raw powdered form is a super dark green colour, packed with chlorophyll, is almost a complete protein, and contains literally dozens of vitamins and minerals. 

But it tastes like you’d expect rotting veg to taste. Even just typing this sentence I am getting a gag reflex just thinking about the smell and taste.

Now, I’m not exactly selling you on the idea of powdered greens right now, but hang with me for a moment, because it’s not all bad news.

Do You Need to Suffer to Get Decent Nutrition From Powdered Greens?

Traditionally, greens drinks prided themselves on the fact they taste awful, almost a rite of passage to the health gurus if you could stomach a wheatgrass, spirulina and chlorella blend.

Whilst nutritionally these drinks are amazing, the benefits were only available to those that could keep them down after drinking them.

But that has now changed, with a handful of high-quality drinks that have created a neutral-tasting blend, whilst still including the powerhouse ingredients.

Purists may suggest that these better-tasting products are not as nutritionally “perfect”, but at least they are more accessible to the people who’d benefit from them most.

Whilst this quote is not perfect, it relates nicely to this subject:

“The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.” ― Timothy Ferriss

So What Does Lean Greens Taste Like? 

Here at Lean Greens, we set out, back in 2012, to create a greens drink that practically anyone could drink and still benefit from some amazing ingredients, even the original co-founder’s 3-year-old son.

As I mentioned back at the start, we get asked every day about the taste. So here’s what we commonly respond with.

We've worked hard to create as neutral a taste as possible so it's easy for almost everyone to drink. Some people taste a slight grassiness, others taste the spinach, and some taste the green tea.

Most importantly the taste gets MORE neutral the more often you drink it. So stick with it over the first few weeks and it actually becomes something you look forward to!

The beauty of Lean Greens is it can be mixed easily with juices, smoothies, squash or Ribena, to help you still get the benefit of the greens without suffering poor taste. 

Want to find out how to mix your super greens for optimum taste? 

Check out our blog post! 👇🏻

Mix Your Super Greens Powder

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