The human sense of smell is one of our strongest survival tools. Without our olfactory perception, we might eat rotten food, not shower for days, and fart in church. We are biologically engineered with the ability to deduct that something that smells like crap probably tastes like crap, too.
I almost didn't want to take a sip when I first opened a bottle of Knetic Energy, an energy drink made by England-based Prospect Beverages that's supposedly really popular in the Middle East. The smell was thick and cheesy, and my first thought was, "This is going to taste like ass."
To my pleasant surprise, it didn't taste that bad. The flavor was rather like a really syrupy peach soda that's gone half-flat -- not exactly delicious, but more than tolerable. I was able to finish the bottle.
Knetic Energy contains caffeine from guarana, though the exact amount is not listed on the bottle, and there is no Taurine in the drink. So while this drink is competing in a market with beverages like Red Bull, its composition is quite different -- made from natural plants and tea extracts (hence, the funky, earthy smell), not bursting with B-vitamins and amino acids. The result is that Knetic Energy provides an energy "boost" no more substantial than a caffeinated soda. That wouldn't be so bad if the drink tasted better, but we're going to follow our noses to the next product.
