Tribest Slowstar Vertical Review

The Tribest Slowstar scored second to last overall, only outperforming the BELLA 13694. However, the Bella costs about $330 less than the Tribest. The Slowstar matched the performance of the Gourmia GJ1250, but costs significantly more. All of the above products are inferior to the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth, our Best Buy award winner, which usually retails for the lowest cost of any product that we tested.

A vertical masticating juicer, the Tribest Slowstar.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Performance Comparison

To determine which juicers really are the best, we bought the top products currently available and tested them head-to-head to find the winners. We conducted over a dozen different assessments, dividing them up among five weighted metrics to score each product, with the Tribest's results below.

The Slowstar produced an average quality juice.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Juice Quality

The most important of our metrics, our Juice Quality metric accounts for 40% of the total score. We used three juice recipes to judge the performance of each juicer, basing the score on the taste and texture of each beverage produced. The Tribest delivered a lackluster performance, earning a 5 out of 10 for its results.

In our first test, 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 Tribest 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 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

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 pulp, but tasted alright and had a good texture and consistency.

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

Credit: Austin Palmer

The Tribest 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. This product still produced a surplus of pulp — more than the Hamilton Beach — but the final drink tasted alright. It was a slightly too strong beet taste and was a bit watery, but all in all, was a decent beverage.

Apples proved troublesome for a handful of juicers.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Soft Produce

For our next metric, worth 20% of the total score, we assessed the ability of each product to juice soft produce. For this metric, we used apples, oranges, celery, and cucumbers as our representative types of soft produce. The Tribest again delivered a mediocre performance, earning another 5 out of 10 for its results.

In our first evaluation, juicing apples, the Tribest 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, but it did not separate out.

The Tribest did poorly for apple juice yields.

Credit: Austin Palmer

The Tribest did much better at juicing oranges, yielding more juice than the average amount with only mild amounts of pulp.

This product also did well at juicing celery, generating a well above average amount of juice. The celery juice also did not separate and had no foam, with only mild amounts of pulp.

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

Credit: Austin Palmer

Unfortunately, the performance of the Tribest plummeted in our final assessment for this metric: juicing cucumbers. It received the second-lowest score of the entire group, only doing better than the Aicok, yielding well below an average amount of cucumber juice. This juice also had mild amounts of foam, though it did only have minimal pulp.

Carrots were not a strong suit of the Tribest.

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Hard Produce

Similar to the prior metric, our Hard Produce metric is also responsible for 20% of the overall score. We used beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes as our different test cases, again evaluating the juice yield and quality to determine scores. The Tribest did particularly poorly in this metric, earning the lowest score of 2 out of 10.

For the first test, juicing carrots, the Tribest yielded about 16 mL less juice than the average of 96 mL. The juice also had mild to moderate amounts of pulp.

The Tribest also scored extremely poorly in our next test, juicing beets. It produced almost 40 mL less than the average and created about a half inch of foam in the process. Continuing to struggle with harder produce, the Tribest also did very poorly at juicing sweet potatoes, again producing well below the average amount of juice.

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

Leafy Greens

For our next metric, also worth 20% of the total score, we looked at the abilities of each juicer when it came to juicing leafy greens. The Tribest actually did quite well in this metric, earning a 7 out of 10 for its above average performance at juicing kale, spinach, and wheatgrass.

It produced about 15 mL more spinach juice than average, but there was about an inch of foam created. It did an absolutely phenomenal job at juicing kale, tying for the top spot overall with our Editors' Choice award winner, the Omega. The Tribest about 20 mL more kale juice than the average amount, but there was a little bit of foam created — about a half inch.

However, the Tribest couldn't carry its good performance into the remaining test for this metric: juicing wheatgrass. It essentially failed to create any juice whatsoever, hurting its score by a few points.

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

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Cleaning

For the remaining 15% of the total score, we assessed the difficulty in cleaning each product. The Tribest scored a 5 out of 10, as it wasn't the easiest 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 felt like it was somewhat durable, much better than that included with the Hamilton Beach, but substantially flimsier than the brush included with the Breville juicers. The majority of the components of the Tribest are easy enough to clean by hand, with the exception of 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.

Value

The Tribest Slowstar is an abysmal value option, scoring very poorly and having the highest price of the whole group.

Conclusion