More Food News From Food Expo

The most beautiful booth at the food show was Republic of Tea. They're a big company, and they put a lot of money into their booth. They had a Feng Shui designer help them, to make sure everything was just right. It was stunning, with candles and color everywhere, lovely glass pots of dozens of different tea blends sitting on the lit votives, and friendly employees ready to pour you a sample. It was a feel good booth, and I sampled several tea blends because the booth was so beautiful, even though I'm not a great lover of tea.

Not much has changed in the cold drink section. Kumbacha is still popular, although it's something I can't drink. Fresh ginger ale, by Bruce Cost, was absolutely delicious. It is very carbonated, very gingery, and even has small pieces of ginger in the drink. Extremely refreshing. Bruce Cost also has a pomegranete drink and a jasmine tea drink.

Another trend in cold drinks is to combine fruit and vegetable flavors in a cold fruit drink. This is nothing like V-8. My favorite was a cucumber cranberry drink. You could taste both flavors and I loved it. They also had a beet orange drink, good but not great. The company is not in full distribution yet, but look for fruit/vegetable combinations in the future. They're good.

Aloe drinks, pomegranete drinks, probiotic drinks, green tea drinks, coconut water, and kefir were all found in abundance. I said to my son, "How can there be so many drink companies? There's so much competition." His answer was that many of the companies will be out of business by next year.

Of course coffee and tea are always big, flavored coffees and chai coffee and tea are very popular again this year. Natural sodas are making a comeback. For many years the public has wanted nothing but diet drinks, but the tide seems to be turning. Many companies are making natural sodas sweetened with real sugar, honey or agave. People seem to be turning away from artifical sweeteners, especially in the natural foods section of the market.

What else was at the food show? Plenty. I will write one more blog which will be a potpourri of many other food products that I sampled and loved. You will be surprised at what manufacturers can come up with.