I often find myself arriving at home with an unquenchable thirst, but absolutely nothing sounds good enough to drink. 

One day last week, this feeling struck me yet again. Luckily, my mom happened to be headed to the store, so I joined her on a quest to quench my thirst. 

Oddly enough, none of the wide assortment of generic sodas (not pop—soda) fit what I wanted. Until that is, I spotted a white can with a van and surfboard sprawled across the front. 

I picked up a can of mango Wave Soda expecting it to be a pure cane sugar soda like I often find in the specialty soda section of a multitude of grocery stores. I was utterly confounded to see “6g sugar” above the brand’s logo. How could this can of soda only have six grams of sugar? This is a mere 15 percent of the amount of sugar a can of Coca-Cola has.

I put the can of unsweetened mango soda in the shopping cart and turned around to grab a blueberry can and, to my mom’s urging, a grapefruit can.

Mango

Upon arriving home, I knew mango was the first flavor I had to try. I cracked open the white and yellow can not sure what to expect. I knew it wouldn’t taste as sweet as a normal soda, but I wasn’t sure if it would just taste like sparkling water.

I found that it fits somewhere in the middle. It was sweet enough to not be bitter, but it wasn’t overpowering. 

The flavor was entirely mango, almost as if I was eating the fruit itself, plus some bubbles. The carbonation level was absolutely perfect. The bubbles were smooth and not overpowering—which I often find to be the case with sparkling waters—but definitely still there.

Blueberry

After having the mango Wave Soda, my expectations were high for its blueberry counterpart. In all my anticipation, I forgot that I often don’t like blueberry-favored food or beverages. Despite my aversion, I did somewhat enjoy this drink that also contains only six grams of sugar.

If I liked blueberry flavors in general, I’m sure the soda would have been a five-star rating. Compared to other blueberry beverages I’ve had, it was. But against the mango flavor, it just didn’t live up to my expectations. 

Grapefruit

The last grapefruit-flavored sparkling drink I had before grapefruit Wave Soda was a grapefruit Spindrift. I suffered my way through that can. Due to my bad experiences with that, I was expecting a similar situation with Wave Soda. It was, surprisingly, so much better.

The grapefruit flavor was less intense compared to Spindrift. I also believe the aforementioned carbonation amount contributed to Wave Soda’s less-offensive nature. 

Since grapefruit is naturally sweeter than blueberry and mango, the grapefruit can of soda had five grams of sugar rather than six. This was the one flavor that I wish had added sugars. 

My grocery store cravings led me to an entirely new soda concept than what I had known before. Despite ranking mango above blueberry and grapefruit, I would still give Wave Soda five stars.