I had my very first shot of wheat grass today. If that sounds cryptic or illegal to you, you’ve never had that healthy trendy juicing kick. I was never the healthy trendy juicing type, but I was surrounded by the healthy trendy juicing culture throughout my college career, and now everyone at work has decided to get healthier, while some of them are even going to the juice bar up the street every now and then to get a fruit or vegetable smoothie and a nice little shot of sweet, green wheat grass. So I let myself get carried away by that healthy trendy juicing wave, and I tried some wheat grass for myself this morning.

I wish I could say that it doesn’t taste at all like grass, but I’ve never eaten grass at all in my entire life. I couldn’t possibly make a comparison. I’m happy. I’m Californian. But I’m no happy Californian cow. I’m quite happy snacking on my sugar plum tomatoes and crispy raw snow peas—genuinely happy, and not I’ve-got-to-eat-healthy happy. I mean, I truly like eating fruits and vegetables.

But grass?

It was served in a little paper butter cup, the kind that usually houses spooned little balls of creamy butter at a restaurant. You know what I mean if you’ve ever been served hot bread or dinner rolls before the main dish is brought to the table. It was also green, which—while it is one of my favorite colors—looks disturbingly odd on a “beverage.” And it was fluid… surprisingly so. There was no grassy pulp swimming in the liquid at all, or at least none that I could see, just a little sea of green in a small paper cup and maybe a bit of foam on the edges, like you would get in a cup of coffee.

They served the shot of wheat grass with a slice of orange on the side. It was speared in the middle of the rind with a toothpick like a fancy bit of appetizer or garnish. Apparently, the orange slice is meant to sweeten the palate afterwards, which to me implied that the taste of wheat grass needed to be forgotten rather quickly or dire consequences were to follow.

Note that it’s called a shot of wheat grass, so I had it in my pea brain that it was to be taken quickly, like a shot of tequila. Quickly! Salt. Tequila. Lime. Go!

Only instead of salt and tequila I had the wheat grass, and instead of lime I had the orange, and down they went, like a bullet down my gullet. I figured it was best that way, in case it tasted bad and I needed to hurl it back out.

Meanwhile, my co-worker savored his, swishing the green liquid grass in his mouth like it was a sip of fine wine, and I felt like an idiot. The wheat grass was actually sweet and tasty. Not at all like grass. Yes, really.

Cowabunga. I think I like it.

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