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Afternoon Tea: Straight Tea Cookies

June 29, 2009

I tried out the Straight Tea Cookies as well as the accompanying Straight Tea itself.

Straight Tea cookies and Straight Tea...tea.

Straight Tea cookies and Straight Tea...tea.

In the original post, I wondered if these were made to be eaten alongside the tea in order to be able to truly appreciate the flavor, or if was simply trying to taste like the tea itself. I’m going to have to conclude that this was made to try and taste like the original straight tea.

The cookie. Oh so straight.

The cookie. Oh so straight.

I took a bite before taking a drink, and I could kind of taste the tea flavor. Kiiiiiind of. I’m not sure what those black things are, but I’m pretty sure that theyr’e responsible for any similarities this cookie has with tea. Aside from the slight hint of tea, it was a pretty standard sugar cookie.

After that, I tried the cookie with the tea itself, which led me to believe that these were meant to be eaten separately. The flavor of the tea totally overpowers that of the cookie. Once you get that flavor in your mouth, you can’t even taste taste anything in the cookie, and it becomes just a sugar cookie that’s not impressing anyone.

By itself, the cookie will probably get a, “Yeah, it does kind of taste like the tea, I suppose” reaction, but it definately won’t have anybody thinking that it tastes exactly like the drink itself.

I’ll be doing either the lemon or milk tea ones tomorrow. *Gasp* Maybe I’ll do both!

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Lipton Ice Chai Tea

June 28, 2009

Lipton just came out with a new flavor of milk tea.

A bottle of Ice Chai

A bottle of Ice Chai

I really like it. It tastes like your typical milk tea with a little bit of cinnamon and and ginger flavor to qualify it as “chai”. I’ll choose this over regular milk tea if given the choice, because I think the spices give it that edge it needs to compete with the standard milk tea brands.

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Gatorade Comes to Japan

June 28, 2009

It looks like Gatorade is now available in Japan.

Orange Gatorade

Orange Gatorade

I must admit that I like the minimalist design of the bottle. For now, there seems to be just the “orange” flavor. There’s no indication of a flavor name anywhere on the bottle, so it looks like they’re just trying to establish this as Gatorade itself rather than a multi-flavored brand.

We’ll have to wait and see if it can stand up to the well-established Aquarius and Pocari Sweat.

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Afternoon Tea Cookies

June 28, 2009

What is up with all of these drink-inspired snacks!? This time around, we have three kinds of cookies inspired by the Morinaga “Afternoon Tea”, or 午後の紅茶, line of drinks.

Straight, Lemon, and Milk tea.

Straight, Lemon, and Milk tea.

There are three “main” flavors of the tea, and therefore, there are three kinds of cookies. The “Tea Cookie” goes with the Straight Tea, and it looks like a regular cookie to me. The “Lemon Tea Cookie” goes with the Lemon Tea, and it seems to be some sort of sandwich cookie with lemon cream in the middle. Finally, there’s the “Milk Tea Pie” that goes with the Milk Tea, my personal favorite. When they say “pie” in Japan, they mean something more along the lines of a flakey pastry crust and/or cookie and not the baked desserts that I would normally think of.

I'm seeing double!

I'm seeing double!

I just got these, and therefore, I haven’t tried them yet. I’d be a whale by now if I always ate everything as soon as I got it. Good for me, bad for productivity I suppose. Anywho, I’m curious to see what they’re going for with this, as I can see it being one of two possibilities:

1) Each cookie is made to accurately taste like its respective drink, and can be enjoyed alone.

2) Each cookie is made to perfectly compliment its respective drink so in order to get the full experience, you must enjoy the two together.

I’ll make a review post as soon as I find out.

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Sakana-kun chips

June 28, 2009

I was surprised to see that Sakana-kun got his very own brand of snack chips. If you don’t know who Sakana-kun is, watch this clip first. It’s how I first came to know of him. So yeah, anyways, onto the chips!

Sakana-kun Chips

Sakana-kun Chips

The official flavor is “Salted Seaweed”, but it also contains bits of Shrimp and Cod as you can see from Sakana-kun’s fine drawings on the bag.

When I first opened the bag, I got a large whiff of fish smells, but that was only at first. The chips themselves don’t really smell “fishy”, but rather, they just smell like salted chips.

The chips

The chips

These are also put out by “Baby Star”, so they are made of the same stuff that the Gyouza Chips were. They didn’t really taste anything like fish, which is good or bad depending on your preferences. It tasted exactly how they advertised it: Salty seaweed. The flavor was simple that of a lightly salted chip with a hint of seaweed, which taste kind of salty themselves. So, if you don’t like your snacks smelling and tasting like the sea, you have nothing to fear here. These chips are about as safe and delightful as Saka-kun himself.

I still really want his hat.

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Uji Green Tea Video Review

June 25, 2009
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Like herbs? Pepsi Shiso is for you!

June 23, 2009

Pepsi Shiso is the newest flavor of Pepsi in Japan, and it went on sale June 23rd, 2009.

Pepsi Shiso

Pepsi Shiso

I had never heard of Shiso before hearing about this, so I have no idea what real Shiso tastes like. The Wikipedia article states that while it’s a member of the mint family, it is not, in fact, a mint. Therefore, it came as no surprise to me that this was not simply mint Pepsi. Pepsi Shiso doesn’t taste like mint at all.

The first thing that came to mind is “herbs”. At certain points while drinking, I could imagine the taste being that of simply grass or leaves, but there was always a little bit extra flavor in there to bring it above such generalizations. It doesn’t taste like tea. It tastes like you walked into the herbal section of a health foods store, so if you like that herbal taste, than you might enjoy this.

My only problem with Pepsi Shiso is that they’re calling it Pepsi, and this isn’t the first time that I’ve made this complaint. With a lot of the other brands such as Coke, Dr Pepper, or Mountain Dew, their flavor variations still retain certain characteristic of the original flavor, but these Pepsi ones always seem to just go off in some random direction. I can’t really say that this tastes like “Pepsi and herbs”, because there’s not really any “Pepsi” in here. It tastes like a carbonated herb drink, yes, but no Pepsi, so I find it odd that they are calling it that. Perhaps they felt like the drink couldn’t stand on its own without relying on some Pepsi brand recognition with a dash of novelty, and I must admit, that I would not just up and buy some other herb flavored drinks if they were sitting right there in shelves next to the other drinks.

Pepsi or not, this is still an interesting drink to try out, but I wonder how much of that interest is simply because of the Pepsi logo on the bottle and not the “Shiso” itself.

2006-2009 Limited Edition Pepsi flavors

2006-2009 Limited Edition Pepsi flavors

It looks like this will be the last Pepsi flavor that I can personally try in Japan without having to get someone to send me a bottle (and paying dearly for it). Whether or not they can be called “Pepsi” is up for debate, but I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of them. Also, yes, my favorite out all of them is the 2008 Pepsi Ice Cucumber. I’m still hoarding a bunch.

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