Being that I am, admittedly, prone to episodes of 'I should stop whining about what I don't like and do something,' I came across something somewhere that touted Greek yogurt as a good 'I need to get through this morning on something not ridiculously caloric' option. What the hell is Greek yogurt, I wondered. Not that didn't know of its existence; I'd seen it on the shelves, I just didn't know why the yogurt being Greek suddenly made it all that different. It had high protein, the article/yogurt cups said.
All they had to tell me was "it's twice as thick as normal yogurt. AND WE MEAN IT." The extra protein's a nice bonus for a carb-based lump like I am, but the real reason I fell for it was, when I finally went 'okay, I'll try it,' it was THICK.
(FYI: The only brand/type of Greek yogurt I can really go by is Chobani, so I'm going to use that as my example for now.)
It's actually to the point that the fruit-on-the-bottom types of the yogurt are thicker than plain, likely because they strain the yogurt just a little more to compensate for the liquid of the fruit that's...y'know...on the bottom. Chobani basically comes in Plain or fruit, with the Honey (and probably the Vanilla, too) being the exceptions. For its part, the Honey was a bit liquidy though -- like it was a fruit-on-the-bottom already mixed up for you, which I guess makes sense against dealing with honey-on-the-bottom.
For the fruit yogurts, I can't say I've tried all of them because (a) I haven't come across all of them and (b) some flavors, such as Lemon, I know on principle I probably will not enjoy, and I'm not paying for a three-dollar (where I get it) yogurt just to see if there's some manner of exception. As such, I can only go by the flavors I've had, which may only amount to three, actually.
Chobani has several (about 20) flavors. Besides Plain and the aforementioned Vanilla and Honey flavors, they have a large assortment of fruit flavors that are either non-fat or low-fat (a distinction that I, personally, take little notice of, because 160 is only 10-20 calories more than the non-fat flavors, assuming we're not going for the 100 calorie plain. Also, this means MAX 160 calories, come on! For a pretty satisfying/healthyish breakfast, that sells the calorie counter in me.) The flavors range from Pineapple to Pomegranate, Raspberry to Apple Cinnamon (or so the website says, this one I have not seen). Black Cherry, Passionfruit, Pomegranate, Blood Orange, Peach...I just listed a large portion, but my point is, they have a LOT of different fruits.
There is also something listed on the website as Chobani Champions, a kids version of the yogurt. The four flavors are Orange-Vanilla (creamsicle, anyone?), VeryBerry, Vanilla Chocolate Chunk (fighting urge to underline CHOCOLATE) and Honey-Nana (honey + banana). These I've never seen, but the one with chocolate I definitely want to try. Do not joke with me about chocolate every meal of the day, I will take you up as serious.
I've spent long enough talking about the flavors -- if you're still on board, you're probably screaming okay, that's great, but HOW DOES IT TASTE?!
Like I said earlier, Greek yogurt is yogurt that's THICK. Granted, regular yogurt doesn't have to be uber-liquid (though it tends to be that way when heavily flavored, is what I'm guessing), but it usually has some manner of gloop to it - sort of like sour cream or mayonnaise, where it's not liquidy, per se, but it moves pretty easily. So far, besides the Plain yogurt I tried that had a reservoir of liquid on top of and inside the cracks of the yogurt, these have been pretty stable and thick. It's still soft and, well, yogurt, but it's got more resistance. I stress this so much because even the most delicious yogurts, after a while, become virtually inedible to me because I can't get over the liquidity.
Flavor-wise, the fruit on the bottom seems to be a puree of real fruit, almost like a little dollop of preserves was spread out on the bottom. If you mix the fruit, the viscosity goes down, of course (hence my aside about yogurts going uber-liquid), but even if you don't, you still get the fruit flavor. It seeps up from the fruit on the bottom, so it's lighter at the top, but even then if you're having, for instance, Strawberry, you'll get a nice light strawberry flavor that intensifies to the strawberries on the bottom. It's an effect I, personally, find quite nice.
Now, I would be doing a great injustice to this newfound breakfast love of mine if I didn't talk about the light-pink-colored cup. At first I thought it was Strawberry, yum. But then I saw the darker hue of the Strawberry packaging, so I looked closer, and saw this:
Strawnana is hands-down one of my favorite flavors ever. Especially with fruit-flavored things (as opposed to eating actual fruits), seeing anything strawnana makes me really, really happy. This yogurt basically has the strawberry preserve-like-stuff on the bottom, only it's not clear, it's milkier-looking due to the pureed banana mixed in. Like the other fruit yogurts, this one has the gradient of strawberry-banana goodness if left unmixed. It gets a more level, intense flavor if you mix it, which probably also varies with how much yogurt you have left to mix, but the beauty of fruit on the bottom is you get to choose. (This is actually one thing I disliked a bit about the Honey flavor -- the honey was even throughout the yogurt so it overpowered the yogurt flavor in a strange way, or mixed with it in a ratio I wasn't quite sure I found enjoyable.)
I will be honest, one of my biggest motivations for writing this was to do a happy dance about the strawnana yogurt. Overall, though, I really like this stuff, even without that amazing icing to the yogurt cake! (...yogurt cake?)
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