Review - Starbucks Refreshers: Very Berry Hibiscus and Cool Lime

Today, Starbucks was giving away free tall Refreshers at US and Canada locations. I tried a small sample cup of the Cool Lime and then ordered my tall sample in Very Berry Hibiscus. The reason for the switch was that the little bit of Cool Lime that I sampled tasted quite frankly atrocious. It had a weird flavor that I could not quite place. Reading through the description, the lime flavor was complemented with mint and cucumber, so either of these latter two may have been the culprit. It was hard to taste the mint flavor, but the beverage definitely had some weird flavors added into the mix.

From the Starbucks website - Cool Lime and Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher

The Very Berry Hibiscus was better, but I was not thrilled with it either. The beverage has whole blackberries added, which is a nice touch and you can taste the fruit. But is also has some strange flavor additions that I cannot quite place.
Both beverages are low calorie and have added caffeine through the use of Green Coffee extract. I did not get a noticeable coffee buzz, but then I drank the Very Berry Hibiscus slowly since I was trying to determine the additional flavors besides the hibiscus and the blackberries. Overall, for a free beverage they were okay. I would not pay for these. Looking over the online reviews, the average is less than positive. While a few people like either the Cool Lime or the Very Berry Hibiscus, overall the majority of people posting online really hated both flavors. Comparisons from Cough Syrup to actual bile vomit very being leveraged against these new creations by Starbucks. So if you are thinking about trying either of these flavors, you may want to wait until you find a coupon or maybe Starbucks will have another sampling event. For the Cool Lime, I was definitely glad to have started with a very small sip because that flavor to me was absolutely horrible. I actually tossed the remainder of the sample, it was that bad.

The carbonated canned varieties of the Refreshers

I should mention that the Refreshers come in regular brewed fresh varieties, but will also be offered as prepackaged VIA beverages as well as canned sparkling Refreshers. As with anything else at Starbucks, you can customize your beverages, not sure how much you can vary or where to begin. I am quite frankly not anticipating that Starbucks will continue to sell these because they are that bad and with Starbucks selling a lot of high calorie and high fat beverages such as their frappuccinos, I would not be surprised if these Refreshers never really take off.
The Starbucks website with additional Refresher flavors available in the canned variety is here.