Coffee is life. In Coffee Veritas. If most of us here don’t have a cup or two (or four, in some cases) in the morning, we turn into terrible people. Think those Snickers commercials on crack. Because of that, when the ad for GoCubes, a new product from NootRobox popped up in our FaceBook feed, we were curious. We needed to know. Would these actually work? In order to see if they would, we ate them for a straight week instead of drinking coffee. Here’s what we found out:
Flavor — The potential for this part (perhaps the most important part aside for effectivity) to go terribly wrong, terribly quickly is great. Think about all the other foods that have been translated into some other form: Baked Potato-flavored potato chips, Swedish Fish-flavored vodka, Thanksgiving Stuffing-flavored soda, any of the Harry Potter-themed jelly beans. These products have taken something wonderful and to varying degrees of success, turned it into a sad excuse for a digestible. GoCubes, though, aren’t bad. Actually, if you like coffee flavor, and you like sweet (this is key) they’ll probably be pretty good to you If you’ve ever had Jelly Belly coffee-flavored jelly beans before, the taste is closest to that. If you are a coffee purist, drinking it as black as an Goth kid’s hair, the sugar in GoCubes might throw you. If, on the other hand, you dump sugar and cream into your coffee like you come from the Domino’s family itself (alternatively, if you think Starbucks makes great coffee drinks) then GoCubes will be right up your alley.
Related: 4 Must-Have Cold Brew Cocktails for Summer
Texture — The GoCubes are gummies covered in tiny sparkles of sugar. They’re a little bouncy to the touch and chewing them doesn’t take long. If you’ve ever had the energy gummies that they sometimes give out at races, think something similar to that (but, you know, coffee-flavored and consumed not while contemplating why in hell you signed up for this stupid race anyway). They give easily when chewed and they don’t stick to your teeth, leaving you no need to worry about having to pick your teeth during your 9AM meeting.
Effect — Each GoCube contains 50mg of caffeine, with two cubes acting as one serving (each pack contains four cubes). With one serving having 100mg, this is right around the average amount contained in an 8-ounce cup of coffee. This is where they get you. Unless you’re living in a dollhouse, most mugs are not 8-ounce containers. Twelve, sixteen, or even twenty-four ounces (here’s looking at you, travel mugs) are what most of us are probably used when we think of a cup of coffee. Call it addiction, or habit, or whatever, but it is what it is. In order to get the full effect, you’d more than likely have to take more than two cubes. When we did take four cubes, as opposed to two, the effect was felt much more. It was indeed like drinking coffee. Alertness came back, and all seemed to be right with the world.
Overall — The GoCubes work, but they’re going to work best under a few circumstances: you really need a boost (when contemplating a five-hour energy or a Monster seems like a good idea), you don’t typically drink a lot of caffeine (which, for shame), or you’re on the go and don’t have time or can’t stop for a cup of Joe. Keep some GoCubes in your car or your bag and, if you realize you’ve run out the door without your coffee (because you’re too tired from not having your morning coffee or because you’re running late), pop a couple GoCubes and people won’t think you’re acting like the Beast of Gévaudan by the time you get to the office. (As an added bonus, and something to think about for those times when you’ll be on the go without getting to go—GoCubes don’t cause coffee shits.)
If you’re constantly busy, constantly on the go, and constantly in need of a jolt of caffeine to get you through the day, GoCubes might be for you. They’re handy and portable, and cost, on average, right around an average cup of coffee. If you’re pounding down half a pot per day so that you can meet deadline, GoCubes might not be the best idea. They’ll help, sure, but they’re not going to be the be-all, end-all. Your caffeinated body is going to react to the GoCubes like the crusty veteran welcoming the rookie to training camp.
GoCubes cost $20.70 for a sampler pack (containing six sets of four cubes each) or $53.10 for a full box of twenty.
