Orange juice

Orange juice is the plain benchmark fruit juice: familiar, sweet-tart, and usually chosen for breakfast because it tastes clean and needs no explanation. By our assessment, that familiarity is also its strength, since the drink is easy to place and easy to use in very ordinary routines. The downside is just as familiar: quality varies a lot between fresh-squeezed juice, from-concentrate cartons, and the heavily processed chilled versions that flatten the orange flavour. In practice it is one of the simplest juices on the shelf, which is part of why it has lasted so long. Against apple or mixed fruit juices, it has a sharper citrus edge and less of the candy-like softness some people expect. It suits people who want a standard breakfast juice and do not need surprise or complexity, and it leaves little to say beyond that.