product review and tasting: Moms Meet Uncle Matt's Organic Orange Juice

copyright Durhamonthecheap - home-made sign with tasting information, Uncle Matt's juice and cake

Through Moms Meet, I was able to get a coupon for a free sampling event. I was included in the Uncle Matt's Organic Juice campaign and was happy to try a new brand of juice. I never even realized that this brand was available locally at Harris Teeter. It may be available at other local stores, but I usually stop by Harris Teeter regularly and found it there in the refrigerated section. Harris Teeter sells apple juice and a couple of varieties of orange juice from Uncle Matt's.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - not a lot left over from my Crumb Cake. With one pound of butter, it was tasty!

I decided to treat some of my colleagues at work to the sampling event. To add a food item, I made homemade crumb cake. The recipe came from Rachel Ray's magazine (Every Day with Rachael Ray, April 2013). Her sour cream crumb cake look good, easy to make and provided a cake big enough to feed a crowd. The recipe is available here. The cake turned out great and was very tasty. It freezes well, if you actually have enough left over for the freezer.

So now some more about the actual topic of this blog entry - Uncle Matt's Juices. The website for the company is here. They make juices in both 12oz bottles for individual servings as well as the large family-size 59oz bottles. All juices need to be refrigerated, something to keep in mind when selecting Uncle Matt's juices for an outing.

59 oz. organic juices

Calcium + Vitamin D	With Pulp	Pulp Free	Grapefruit	Apple	Lemonade

I had to select an orange juice for the tasting event and since I was targeting women, I selected the Calcium + Vitamin D. As adults many women do not drink enough milk, which we all need for strong bones. Osteoporosis better never be in my future since I still drink two glasses of milk a day. So getting this health benefit in an organic orange juice is great!

copyright Durhamonthecheap - the tasting event in the office. Organic orange juice and home-made cake.

I brought in some small tasting cups and paper plates and put the cake and juice in the shared office for a sampling during the morning hours. This location is open to a lot of people and I could leave the food out for several hours, so everyone could come and go as they pleased. Since it was at work, I did not want to force people to show up at a specific time. I added plenty of ice to keep the juice cold. Since it is organic and no preservatives of any kind are added, this juice needs to be stored in the refrigerator or on ice.

So now for some more about the company Uncle Matt's. The company is a fairly young company, founded in 1999, with the founder receiving his degree in Business Administration from the University of Florida (which other state did you expect the company to come from). Interestingly, what led down the path of organic orange juice was an inquiry by a German customer in 1995. Being German myself, I know that organic is maybe even bigger in Germany than in the USA, so not surprising that a German customer would also expect Florida to produce a good organic orange juice. Uncle Matt's juices are 100% not-from-concentrate organic and you can taste it.

The verdict at work was that the juice tasted very good and several people commented that it tasted fresh and not too sweet. The regular orange juices tend to be very sweet and lack therefore to true fresh orange flavor that is flavorful, refreshing, but also a little bit tart. So Uncle Matt's juices come closer than other juices to real fruit flavor. Overall, everyone at work liked the juice and several colleagues indicated that they will go back and use the coupon to get some more Uncle Matt's juice. Yes, you read that correctly, there is a coupon and I will share it with my readers. So if you are interested in trying out some Uncle Matt's Organic Juice, here is a $1off coupon that you can redeem at your local grocery store for your bottle of Uncle Matt's Juice.

link for $1off coupon: http://bit.ly/unclematts 

I want to thank Moms Meet for giving me the opportunity to try out this juice. I really liked the juice. It tasted like fresh squeezed orange juice and the addition of Calcium and Vitamin D made it even better than the real thing. I would have never thought of buying this juice without this sampling event and I am glad Moms Meet made me aware of this brand. Last time I checked, I did not see Grapefruit juice in the store, but I will check again because Uncle Matt's Grapefruit Juice is definitely something I would want to try out to see how real Grapefruit juice is supposed to taste when it is as close to nature as Uncle Matt's products are.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - the insulated grocery bag that I got for holding the sampling event.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free coupon for the sampling event and also a free insulated grocery bag through Moms Meet Sampling Events. The opinions expressed in this blog are solely my own and have not been influenced by Moms Meet or any other third party.