Is americano bitter or sweet when tomato juice is added?

Tims launched two spring drinks on February 6: Lucky Snake Fruit Americano and Provence Tomato Americano, both promoted as 0 fat, low calorie, and made with real fruit juice, with calories listed per cup. The tomato version drew polarized reviews, with some drinkers calling the combination strange and hard to finish, while others ordered it out of curiosity.

The question of whether an americano is bitter or sweet changes once tomato juice is added, because the fruit brings its own sweet-and-sour note on top of the coffee's roasted bitterness. Tims is the first chain after Starbucks to pair tomato juice with coffee. Employee taste tests were reportedly difficult, and consumer feedback on social platforms remains divided.

Just after the Spring Festival holiday, Tims couldn't wait to launch two spring new products—Lucky Snake Fruit Americano and Provence Tomato Americano, promoting a healthy route of 0 fat, low calorie, and real fruit juice. Among them, the tomato Americano quickly went viral with its novel combination, but it also sparked polarized reviews on social platforms. Some find the taste strange and hard to swallow, with even employee taste tests reportedly collapsing; others are full of curiosity about the tomato flavor. Is this new product a bold innovation or another dark cuisine? Let's take a look at everyone's real feedback.

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The Spring Festival holiday has come to an end, and office workers are gradually returning to their desks. Coffee brands are also speeding up the pace of launching new products, because only in this way can they have a chance to make their logo appear in everyone's return-to-work Moments.

On February 6, Tims launched the spring new products "Lucky Snake Fruit Americano" and "Provence Tomato Americano." The R&D team clearly wanted to cater to the post-holiday weight-loss trend. Both coffees were promoted under the banners of "0 fat," "low calorie," and "real fruit juice," and each cup also specifically listed its calorie content, taking a healthy and refreshing route.

Although the Snake Fruit Americano fits the 2025 zodiac theme better and has a slightly lower labeled calorie count, it can be guessed from the name that it is nothing more than apple juice plus a regular Americano. For coffee lovers who are naturally fond of trying new things, its appeal is clearly not as strong as the tomato-flavored new product next to it.

Tomato, as a fruit and vegetable suitable for all ages, has a refreshing taste and a broad audience base. Its sweet-and-sour flavor plus its bright red, tempting appearance have always made products made with it popular. However, as a fruit and vegetable juice, tomato has hardly been seen in special blended coffees from other brands in previous years. Tims is, after Starbucks, the first chain brand to single out tomato juice and pair it with coffee. As soon as the new product launched, it attracted many "tomato fans" to place orders and try it.

As is well known, whenever this kind of unusual combination appears in the coffee world, the result is bound to be polarized—either it becomes an instant hit and successfully wins fans, or it gets put on the dark list and avoided by the whole internet.

As more and more people posted the new product on social platforms and shared their real feelings, discussion around Tims' Provence Tomato Americano kept rising, but unfortunately, what it received was almost entirely sharp complaints from netizens everywhere, all pointing without exception to that "tomato flavor."

There are quite a few people who think the taste is strange: "Ketchup-flavored coffee, drinking it in the morning broke me," "This tastes way too weird, do not order it without mental preparation," "Tims your new product is so hard to drink, I got a traditional Chinese medicine aftertaste," "The taste of tomato skin," "It's like applying hand cream, then directly touching a tomato and juicing it."

In the eyes of these adventurous tasters, the tomato flavor of Tims' new product is not only strange, but also absurdly strong. Some people went to the store to pick up their order and could smell the pungent tomato aroma as soon as they got near the cup; some carried it home wearing a mask, and the fruity sour smell kept wafting from the bag the whole way; some ordered takeout and before even opening the packaging, the smell was already faintly spreading around them; others brought the coffee to their desk, left the lid open for a while, and the whole room instantly turned into a boiling scene of tomato soup base.

In fact, besides consumers' elaborate complaints, frontline employees responsible for making the drinks also couldn't help joining the complaining camp in the comments. "I'm an employee, I made the new product for a taste test and threw up," "As soon as I opened the tomato juice lid, the whole square meter around me smelled like this," "After making it I took a sip and threw up, it felt like rotten tomatoes were beating me in the mouth," "When I make this, even through a mask I'm nearly suffocated by the tomato smell. Every day I hope no one orders it, and that it gets discontinued as soon as possible"...

Overall, Tims' Tomato Americano is indeed full of controversy.

Problems such as overly strong flavor that is hard to accept, easy oxidation, and unstable quality have always been reasons why vegetable juice is criticized and difficult to promote on a large scale. If such products are then paired with coffee, plus unpleasant bitterness or sourness, the audience that can accept them will probably be even smaller.

Image source: Xiaohongshu screenshots

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.