One of my roommates came home early this morning wearing work out gear, carrying a dubious-coloured smoothie and grinning from ear to ear. She told me I had to try the juice bar around the corner and seeing as I’ve a grim head cold and needed to squeeze in a quick ‘new thing’ today before catching a flight, I agreed I should give it a go.

I ended up going to Juice Press in Soho and at first it was overwhelming. The bottles and menus were filled with ingredients I wasn’t 100 per cent sure I wanted to ingest, like field of greens powder and aloe extract. Just another overpriced fad, I thought, as I scanned the menu for an order I could pronounce.

But when I told the juice bar guys, Freddy and James, that it was my first time, they jumped to my aid – and launched into an impromptu tasting session.

They served up spicy ginger smoothies and cracked open bottles of apple and kale juice, thick, sweet Lait de Coconut and ‘Miracle Mylk’. Freddy said a lot of people claim the Mylk tastes like a glazed doughnut. No one will ever convince me juice is a good doughnut substitute, but he was right that the mixture (hemp sesame milk, cucumber juice, agave nectar, coconut sugar and sea salt) was a life changer.

Among the tasters, I did pay for one of the drinks – the ‘guru’ smoothie with banana, strawberries, apple, acai berry, coconut meat, goji berry, hemp protein, raw cacao and field of greens powder. Who knows what that means, but it tasted so delicious. Like a fruity chocolate milkshake.

But it cost $16. Yes. $16. The ready-bottled juices were also painfully pricey at $10+. It was unbelievable the number of people that came in for three bottles of the stuff and enthused about how their world had changed since sampling acai and unicorn hair. It’s juice!

The shameful thing is, I kind of get it. Some of the flavours were so good and I can’t stop thinking about that coconut milk. There were just so many choices, from savory (like gazpachos) to sweet. Plus it’s good for me. So not going back would be detrimental to my health, right?

As a side note, This experience really highlights the importance of good service. I was half tempted to walk out after I was faced with the bizarre, pretentious ingredients. But after Freddy took the time to help me understand what was going on, I left certain that I’d be heading back.