Starbucks Apple & Mango Juice 500ml

Apple and Mango Juice 500ml costs £3.45 at Starbucks UK and carries 112 calories with 28g of sugar. It is made with no added sugars and no artificial ingredients, and provides 15mg of vitamin C per serving.

28g of sugar makes this the sweetest thing in the bottled fridge, and the phrase no added sugars is what confuses people about that. It means nothing was tipped in beyond what the fruit brought. Fruit brings a great deal: 28g is more than a Venti Caffè Latte at 19.1g and roughly seven teaspoons. Juice concentrates fruit sugar by removing the fibre that would slow it down, which is the difference between drinking this and eating an apple.

The 500ml bottle is what drives the figure as much as the recipe does. Per 100ml this is not an unusual juice; it is simply twice the size of the 250ml orange juice, which carries 20g of sugar and 91 calories in half the volume. Anyone comparing the two on the shelf is comparing bottle sizes more than recipes.

Flavour is apple first with mango behind it, and it is thicker in the mouth than a pure apple juice because the mango carries pulp. That body is what makes the bottle feel more filling than the orange juice despite both being juice, and it is the reason this one works better with a pastry than alongside a sandwich.

Sugar aside, the bottle does the job it is bought for. 500ml of juice alongside a pastry is a breakfast rather than a snack, and it carries enough to keep someone going through a morning in a way a coffee alone does not. The figure is only a problem when the drink is treated as a light choice.

Vitamin C sits at 15mg per serving, 19 percent of the daily reference intake, which supports normal immune function. It suits vegan and vegetarian diets. The Berries Juice Drink is the smaller option at 63 calories, and ONE Water 750ml is the no sugar choice at £3.00.