We love “behind the scenes” stories at O2 (our team is hooked on “How I Built This”), so I wanted to share the BTS story of how we developed what people are calling our “Best flavors yet” - the two new flavors of O2+ Hemp CBD, Pomegranate Guava and Peach Pear.
Making a drink is hard. Making one without artificial ingredients that tastes really good and delivers on its functional promise is really hard. Add CBD to the mix and confine yourself to 15 calories and 1g of sugar, well - you get the picture.
It’s taken us about a year to develop this incredible product.
Here’s how we did it.
Meet Tom
Tom is our resident flavor expert who knows more about flavors than 99.9% of the population.
In fact, he’s got the creds to prove it as a certified flavor chemist by the Society of Flavor Chemists. Yes, there is such a thing.
We told Tom that we wanted two new flavors of O2, but we wanted them to include 10mg of Hemp CBD and only 15 calories/1g of sugar per can.
Tom laughed. We didn’t.
(I’m pretty sure we’re Tom’s least favorite client.)
So Tom set out to work, with the direction of making one flavor caffeinated with a taste profile of “bright, energetic, and vibrant,” while the other flavor caffeine-free and “relaxed, subdued, and pleasant.”
Initially we looked at a bunch of different flavor combinations.
Tropical Pineapple, Goji Pomegranate, Raspberry Lime, Lemon Blueberry led the caffeinated pack, while Peach Passionfruit, Tart Cherry Rose, and Honeydew Melon led the caffeine-free group.
Like most things, the “first draft” was pretty rough. Every flavor combination they sent us tasted like hemp. It quickly became clear to me that we needed to find a new source of CBD, so after heavily vetting several, we landed on one that produces the highest quality, organically grown CBD using technology that makes it tasteless. This was a game changer.
Tom and team had a much easier time in development, and after several months of back and forth we spent a full day together refining the top 5 formulations: Pomegranate Guava, Peach Pear, Tropical Pineapple, Peach Ginger, and Blueberry Lemonade. They all tasted incredible.
Unfortunately, we had to pick just two to launch. Fortunately, we had friends lining up around the block to try our free samples of O2+ CBD, and the Peach Pear and Pomegranate Guava flavors won out by a narrow victory (we see you, Blueberry Lemonade).
I can’t wait to hear how you like O2+ CBD. If you haven’t already tried it, head to drinko2plus.com and pick up a case or two. I’m so confident you’re going to love what we’ve made, I’m backing it with a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee. Don’t like it? Let us know and we’ll give you a full refund.
Cheers to the best-tasting recovery drink on the planet (IMHO), and shoutout to Tom!
