Degustabox UK January Box: Review (and a chance to win!)

It’s that time of the month again! Every month, between the 25th and 30th, I receive a surprise package from the lovely people at Degustabox UK, filled with between 10 and 15 surprise products – many of which are new to the market.

My December box was packed full of treats that we’re still working our way through, and I was intrigued to find out what January would bring. The Degustabox team do not tell you what the box will contain before it arrives…it’s like Christmas all over again!

Boxes cost £9.99 per month plus £3 delivery: a bit of a bargain, as the contents are worth more than double this price. Quite a mixed bag this month, with a mixture of food and drink, sweet and savoury – and a huge number of products that we had never tried before.

Each month’s box includes a double sided card, with details of the products on one side, and recipe ideas featuring a couple of the products on the other. As with last month, I ignored the card at first to make the box more of a surprise…

The first product I tried was the ZICO Coconut Water. I’ve tried their original coconut water before, but never ZICO Chocolate, which was included in this month’s box. Low in calories and high in various electrolytes, it’s not too bad for you and tasty too. The coconut flavour does linger in the background, but the flavour is predominantly that of chocolate. Delicious.

The following morning, we both enjoyed a bowl of the Dorset Cereals Berry Granola for breakfast. A combination of oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkins seeds, blackberries, blackcurrants and raspberries, this new cereal has a beautiful crunch and a lovely tang from the freeze dried fruit. It also gives the milk a wonderful fruity flavour and colour!

A selection of three Maggi recipe mixes will be great for easy, no-fuss midweek meals. The box included two of the So Juicy range (Sticky BBQ for Chicken and Mexican Chicken), providing seasoning and a bag in which to cook the chicken. The box also featured the Italian Herbs Chicken from the So Tender range: 4 seasoned cooking papers in which to wrap the chicken and cook. We’ll be trying a few of these next week…

I’ve not eaten a huge amount of quinoa in my lifetime, but am excited to try the Quinola from Alice & Oscar’s that was included in my January Degustabox. This sachet is a mix of pearl and black quinoa, and can either be eaten cold straight from the packet as part of a salad, or heated in the pouch in the microwave or on the hob to serve warm. I love the sound of the Quinola, thyme and beetroot soup that was provided in the box!

I cracked open the Jules Destrooper Butter Crisps so that I could enjoy one with a cup of tea this morning. Traditionally baked as a good luck gift in Belgium, these super-thin butter biscuits are still baked by Jules Destrooper to an original recipe. Perfectly tasty on their own, I reckon they’d also be great with ice cream and other desserts…

While I’ve seen Amy’s Kitchen soups before, I’ve been a little reluctant to buy them due to cost (£1.40 per tin in our local supermarket). All of their products – both soups and frozen ready meals – are designed for gluten-free and vegetarian diets, and I enjoyed their Chunky Tomato Soup for today’s lunch. Containing only tomatoes, tomato puree, water, cream, onions, sugar, salt and pepper, it only contains natural and organic ingredients – and very tasty it is too. It tastes beautifully creamy, and the chunks of tomato flesh give it a really fresh feel. A definite thumbs up.

Goody Good Stuff produce an all-natural and gelatine-free range of sweets that are suitable for vegetarian, halal and kosher diets. Their sweets contain no gluten, dairy, soy, high fructose corn syrup or nuts and use only natural colours and flavours, and this month’s box contained two different packets. The Tropical Fruit mix features five flavours – pineapple, raspberry, banana, orange and pear. They’re a lot stickier than “normal” sweets, but taste far more natural than most other sweets. The flavours aren’t quite as pronounced, but they’re delicious – especially the banana!

The Sour Mix & Match are equally delicious – not quite as sour as other alternatives, but still with a lovely kick. I’d happily buy these in the future.

The most unusual product by far in this month’s box was a bottle of Go! Kombucha tea. This is a live raw tea, consisting of water, sugar, two different Chinese white teas, organic kombucha culture and nothing else. According to their website, it is a drink that has been enjoyed for millennia – and it’s gained popularity in recent years due to a claimed ability to help with a number of health problems such as arthritis and digestive problems – as well as being used as a detox aid. With <0.5% alcohol thanks to the fermentation process, it also gives a bit of an alcohol-like “kick”, and is now being used as a halfway stage for those coming down from an alcohol addiction. It also has 2/3 less caffeine thanks to the kombucha cultures.

While I can understand it being drunk for health benefits and as a pick me up, I’m still getting to grips with the taste! It’s almost like a vinegary cider that is past its best – the longer it has been left to ferment, the more vinegary it is. They recommend just small servings each day for the first five days, so I’m going to persevere and see how I get on…

Degustabox have kindly given me the opportunity to offer one lucky Bristol Bites reader a free Degustabox to try for themselves. If you are 18 or over and resident in mainland UK, you can enter via the Rafflecopter widget below. If you can’t see the widget, click on the link to enter…

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Even if you don’t win, you can still get a £3 discount when you register for Degustabox! Simply visit their website to register – and type in code U0J99 where it says “enter promotional code”. Enjoy!

For more information about Degustabox, visit their website, follow them on Twitter or find them on Facebook.

Please note that I received this Degustabox free of charge, but it in no way impacted on my opinions expressed in this review.