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.

Performance Comparison

A vertical masticating juicer, the Tribest Slowstar.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

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, as well as 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.

The Slowstar produced an average quality juice.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

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 had better yields of leafy greens over soft and hard produce. The "Romaine - Apple - Orange" juice we made had a potent leafy green taste.

Credit: Austin Palmer

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.

The Tribest had an even flavor in our "Sunset Blend" test.

Credit: Austin Palmer

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 out.

Apples proved troublesome for a handful of juicers.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

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.

The Tribest did poorly for apple juice yields.

Credit: Austin Palmer

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 did only have minimal pulp.

The Tribest had poor performance for cucumber juice, but made up for it tying for first in celery juice yields.

Credit: Austin Palmer

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 extremely 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 did very poorly at juicing sweet potatoes, again producing well below the average amount of juice.

Carrots were not a strong suit of the Tribest.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Leafy Greens

The Slowstar Vertical actually did quite 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 at 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.

The performance of the Tribest jumped considerably when it came to juicing leafy greens, but it wasn't enough to earn it an award.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

The Slowstar couldn't carry its good performance into juicing wheatgrass, however. 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.

Out of the masticating juicers, the Tribest was the most difficult to clean.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Value

The Slowstar Vertical is an abysmal value option, scoring very poorly and having a very high price point.

Conclusion