Cucumber: a post-mortem

On paper, cucumber was perfect. Fresh, green, mildly sweet, beloved by anybody who has ever been handed a glass of water in a spa. We were sure it would be flavour six.

What went wrong

Cucumber is about 96% water. Getting enough of it into a can to actually taste meant either a lot of juice, which went cloudy and then slightly sour in a week, or an extract, which tasted exactly like hand soap.

We tried pairing it with mint. Too obvious. With chilli. Too much. With black pepper, which was almost interesting and then was just a salad.

“Like drinking a nice bathroom.” — the most generous tasting note we got.

What we kept

We learned how fast fresh vegetable juice turns in a sealed can, which is going to matter, because one of the two autumn flavours does have a vegetable in it. It isn’t cucumber.

The cucumber coupon on the coupons page is retired, like the flavour. We left it there as a reminder.

Written by

Nell Okafor

Nell started PULP in a rented kitchen in Bermondsey with a soda siphon and a spreadsheet of combinations that mostly didn't work. She still tastes every batch, and still writes down the bad ones.

Everything by Nell