CocoLove Chocolate Coconut Water: Read the Label Before You Sip

Chocolate coconut water sounds like the perfect sugar-free treat: real cocoa, natural electrolytes, a clean little can from a fun brand. CocoLove — a Las Vegas-based company, of all things — just launched CocoLove Chocolate, its first flavored drink, and the pitch is tempting. But this one is a masterclass in why we read labels. Because that chocolate can has sugar in it. Added sugar.

What's Actually in the Can

• The recipe: 100% coconut water (never from concentrate) blended with real alkalized cocoa, natural chocolate flavor, and a touch of coconut cream — plus cane sugar. It's right there in the brand's own product description.

• The asterisk trap: CocoLove's site advertises "No Added Sugar*" — with the fine print

  "(Original)." The no-added-sugar claim belongs to the plain coconut water, not the chocolate one. The asterisk is doing heavy lifting.

• Coconut water's own sugar: even before the cane sugar, coconut water is naturally sweet — roughly 19g of sugar in an 11oz serving of the Original. "Natural" sugar still counts when you're managing blood sugar.

• The good stuff: 433mg of potassium per 16.9oz can, Non-GMO Project Verified, vegan,

  gluten-free, fat-free, and no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. The ingredient list is

  short and honest — once you read it.

  
  

So Who Is This For?

If you're a "cutting back" household swapping chocolate milk (often 24g+ sugar with a pile of

additives) for something cleaner, CocoLove Chocolate is a reasonable step sideways-to-better — real cocoa, real electrolytes, short label. If you live genuinely sugar-free, or you're counting every gram for blood sugar, this is not your drink. No shame in it; it's just miscategorized in a lot of the hype you'll see online.

Want the Flavor Without the Sugar? DIY It

• Blend: 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk (carton, not canned), 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, your sweetener of choice, a pinch of salt, ice.

• Shake hard or blend 20 seconds. You get the chocolate-coconut combo at roughly 1–2g sugar instead of 20g+.

• Electrolytes: add a pinch of potassium salt ("lite salt") if you want the post-workout angle coconut water is famous for.

  
  

If You Still Want to Try It

CocoLove Chocolate is sold on the brand's site (a 12-pack of 16.9oz cans runs $47.88), and across its retail network in 11oz 6-packs and 16.9oz 12-packs, with 1-liter bottles coming. The company does some genuinely nice things — aluminum cans instead of plastic, and a slice of proceeds funds food-forest planting through Roots4Change. Buy it with open eyes, as a treat, not as a sugar-free staple.

The lesson isn't "never drink this." It's that "no added sugar" on the brand's homepage doesn't

follow every flavor — and the only way to know is the 20 seconds it takes to read the can.

Asterisks are where the sugar hides.