AIR UP Pods Pack of 3 Peach Flavour - Flavoured Drink, Fruity Flavouring Water - No Sugar No Calorie - For air up Drinking Bottle Only - Adequate for 15 L Still or Sparkling Water

Product Information

Kids obviously won't accept that as an alternative, though, as what they're really after is an opportunity to show off owning the Air Up brand to their peers, and to get excited about trying out the snazzy flavours. Strawberry-Balsamic, Wild Berry, Raspberry-Lemon, Orange-Passionfruit, Iced Coffee, Orange-Vanilla, Basil-Lemon, Sweet Coconut, Guava, Watermelon, Mango Passion Fruit, Elderflower You need to keep the bottle upright while drinking from it, as it uses a built-in straw. Once you've attached your Air Up Pod to the bottle, you need to raise the pod slightly to get the flavour, and lower it again to drink unflavoured water. The experience of using the Air Up Pods took me a bit of getting used to. Essentially, Air Up mixes flavoured air with your water, and I found swallowing gulps of water that contain air bubbles an odd sensation. If you've seen the Air Up water bottle on social media, you may already know that it's a water bottle that utilizes flavor pods to enhance the taste of your water without actually adding any flavoring to the water itself. The pods are placed on the water bottle and when you take a sip, the flavored air bubbles travel through your mouth to your nose where your brain interprets it as flavor.

That said, Air Up is not for everyone, especially those who drink a lot of water and need a larger water bottle capacity (the plastic version holds 22 ounces while the stainless steel version holds 28 ounces). One tester said, "I wish it were available in different sizes, so I didn't have to refill it so often." Weight: We found the plastic Air Up bottle to be lightweight, but the stainless steel version is on the heavier side. Did we find that our water tasted like each flavored pod? The short answer is yes. We were particularly impressed with the mango-passionfruit pod and its juicy "flavor," but we thought the orange-vanilla tasted artificial.That means u sing the science of retronasal olfaction, you will perceive scent as flavor through Air Up. In our Lab, we performed drop and leak tests on both a plastic and a stainless steel model, and we tested nine different flavor pods that we rated based on flavor, longevity and strength. We also evaluated the water bottle for how easy it was to fill, carry, drink from and clean. What is in the flavor pods? Smell and taste are linked. It’s the reason why things like oranges and strawberries taste how they smell. Using this link, the Air Up system uses scented pods to add flavour to water without actually adding anything to it. In the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, we've tested countless water bottles over the years. We evaluate them for performance, durability and ease of use. In addition to Lab tests, we send water bottles to consumers to get their opinions on how the water bottles fare in the real world. According to Air Up, " the majority of what we taste comes from our olfactory receptors (part of our anatomy that plays a central role in our sense of smell)." It is believed that the average person can identify over 1 trillion different scents. The brand goes on to state: "Retronasal smelling is what makes everything we do possible, as it’s how we ‘bring flavor’ to plain water. Our bottles allow the 'flavored’ air contained within our pods to be consumed with every sip. Your nasal receptors interpret this 'flavored' air as taste, even though the water itself isn't flavored. Think of it as tasting through your sense of smell."

It also got me drinking more water for the week I used it, although that probably has more to do with my needing to write this article than any sudden strong desire to drink more water.My favourites were the Orange-Vanilla and the Raspberry-Lemon. In both cases, one of the flavours was more dominant than the other (orange and lemon, respectively), but they gave my water a pleasant citrusy zing, and I enjoyed sipping away at those. To me, Air Up is really an alternative to flavouring your water with bits of fruit. I don't know how disposable plastic pods, which can be recycled a maximum of two or three times (as with all recyclable plastics), can possibly be better than using fruit, which you can eat or put in your compost bin once you've used it to flavour your water.

When you sip from Air up, scent-flavored air bubbles travel through the straw into your mouth which produces a bubbling sound and means it’s working. As the scent-flavored air bubbles rise it is perceived as taste. Flavour preference differs from person to person. I found the cherry flavour a little too much, with an odour more akin to cherry-flavoured sweets. Strawberry and lemongrass, on the other hand, was right up my street, as were the yuzu and rosemary pods. My daughter, on the other hand, was particularly taken with the kola flavour, the more artificial and sweet taste appealing to her. Air Up was founded by Lena Jüngst and Tim Jäger, two German university students who, during their studies, read Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters, a book by neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd that posits that the sense of smell is a more powerful component of flavor than previously thought. In both my case and my daughter’s, the flavour did mean that we both reached for the water bottle more often than we’d normally be inclined to, which can only be a good thing.

In This Article

When you attach an Air Up Pod to the top of your Air Up bottle, the pod releases a scent as you drink, giving you the impression that the water is flavoured when it hasn't actually had anything added to it. According to Air Up, the flavorings in the pods are made from natural flavors, extracted from plants, fruits and spices. The company noted that specific details that "relate to Air Up's [intellectual property] are proprietary." There's certainly novelty in the way the bottle works, and it appears to be well-made. The steel bottle I bought is sturdy, looks good, and kept my water cool for a long time.

To make matters a worse, at the time of writing the plastic pouches the Air Up Pods come in aren't recyclable at all, although Air Up does say it's working on changing that soon.

Explore

Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition Lab Director Stefani Sassos, M.S., R.D.N., C.S.O., C.D.N., NASM-CPT said, "I think people who struggle with staying hydrated would enjoy this bottle, and people who say that they hate the taste of water or think it's boring would really benefit from this product." So if you're a consumer who doesn't have time to cut up fresh produce to infuse your water, you might enjoy Air Up.