Tribest Slowstar Vertical Review

The Tribest Slowstar Vertical is a masticating juicer that performs well at juicing leafy greens — and not much else. While this may be a draw for folks that love their green juice, the price of this device is just too high to justify its weak performance in other areas compared to the juicer competition.

Performance Comparison

Juice Quality

In our first test to judge overall juice quality, we created a juice blend called "Can't Beet It." This drink consisted of the eponymous beets and apples, carrots, celery, cucumbers, and ginger root. The Slowstar Vertical created a drink that was the worst overall. It had by far the most pulp and tasted off, with the ginger root completely overpowering the rest of the other fruits and veggies.

It did a little better with our second recipe, a blend made up of romaine lettuce, apples, and oranges. The finished drink was still extremely pulpy, but it tasted alright and had a good texture and consistency.

The Slowstar Vertical continued to improve in our third test, creating a slightly above average "Sunset Blend." This juice cocktail consisted of beets, apples, carrots, oranges, and sweet potatoes. The Slowstar still produced a surplus of pulp, but the final drink tasted fine. It had a slightly too strong beet taste and was a bit watery, but all in all, it was a decent beverage.

Soft Produce

In our first evaluation for this metric, juicing apples, the Slowstar Vertical delivered a very subpar performance, generating a below-average amount of juice with moderate amounts of pulp. The juice also had a non-trivial amount of foam that did not separate.

The Slowstar did much better at juicing oranges, yielding more juice than the average with only mild amounts of pulp. It also did well at juicing celery, producing a well above average amount of juice that did not separate and had no foam, with only mild amounts of pulp.

Unfortunately, the performance of the Slowstar plummeted in our final assessment for this metric: juicing cucumbers. It received one of the lowest scores of the entire group, yielding well below an average amount of cucumber juice. This juice also had mild amounts of foam, though it only had minimal pulp.

Hard Produce

We used beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes as our different test cases for this metric, again evaluating the juice yield and quality to determine scores. The Slowstar Vertical did particularly poorly in this metric.

For the first test, carrots, the Slowstar Vertical yielded about 16mL less juice than the average with only mild to moderate amounts of pulp. This model also performed exceptionally poorly with beets. It produced almost 40mL less than the average and created about a half-inch of foam in the process. Continuing to struggle with harder produce, this juicer also struggled to juice sweet potatoes, producing well below the average juice amount.

Leafy Greens

The Slowstar Vertical did well in this metric, performing above-average at juicing kale, spinach, and wheatgrass. It produced about 15mL more spinach juice than the average, but about an inch of foam was created. However, it did a phenomenal job juicing kale, tying for the top spot overall. The Slowstar produced about 20mL more kale juice than average with about a half-inch of foam.

However, the Slowstar couldn't carry its good performance into juicing wheatgrass. It essentially failed to create any juice whatsoever, hurting its score by a few points.

Cleaning

The Slowstar Vertical isn't particularly easy to clean. The various components of this juicer are not safe to clean in the dishwasher, though it does include a cleaning brush. The brush feels somewhat durable, much better than some other included brushes, but still substantially flimsier than others. The majority of the components of the Slowstar are easy enough to clean by hand, except for the strainer bowl. The squeegee can accumulate food remains and be a little difficult to clean, leaving fruit or vegetable pulp caked on if you aren't careful.

Should You Buy the Tribest Slowstar Vertical?

Overall, we would recommend steering clear of this product. While it did juice kale well, you can get the top-scoring model of the entire review for significantly less than the Tribest Slowstar Vertical. The Slowstar Vertical is an abysmal value option, scoring very poorly and having a very high price point.

What Other Juicer Should You Consider?

Depending on your juicing goals, you might be looking for a masticator or a centrifugal machine. The Omega Nutrition Center is a less expensive better-performing juicer that provides impressive test results for most of the tested produce. If you don't have the budget or were hoping for something centrifugal, we love the Breville Juice Fountain, which is significantly cheaper than the Omega and the Tribest. This machine offers the best hard produce processing and is easy to clean.