Posts Tagged ‘japanese drinks’

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It’s Mango Mania in Japan.

July 23, 2009

Summer is in full swing, and that means it’s time for all of the tasty tropical flavored things to go on sale. This year, the flavor of the year is mango. Here’s a quick rundown of a few things you can now find:

Peach and Mango drink

Peach and Mango drink

Here’s a drink that’s a combination of peach and mango with an overall yogurt flavor to it. This “World’s Kitchen” brand often releases different kinds of drinks supposedly inspired by various countries, and this time around, they say that they got the idea from Hungary.

Dessert Mango Milk Tea

Dessert Mango Milk Tea

The Kocha Kaden Desserts line also brings out many different kinds of really sweet kinds of milk tea. They’ve done caramel, strawberry, and this time around, they’re doing mango. This really tastes like mango and milk tea separately, but at the same time (if that makes any sense). You can taste the mango, and you can taste milk tea, but for some reason, it doesn’t come off as tasting like “mango milk tea”. The previous varieties got a little too sweet about halfway through the bottle, but I’ve had no problem finishing off many of these.

Mango Pudding Country Ma'am cookies

Mango Pudding Country Ma'am cookies

Country Ma’am is a brand that I’ve, unfortunately, been neglecting since I started reporting on flavors. They always are coming out with new flavors of cookies every season, and have been doing so as far back as I can remember. Well the neglect ends now!

They certainly look the part.

They certainly look the part.

For a cookie, these taste surprisingly accurate. There is a lot of mango flavor in these tiny little cookies. The while chocolate chips get completely overshadowed by the mango flavor of the cookie, but they still had that nice texture that comes with chewing on a chocolate chip cookie.

They normally reccommend that you microwave them for 20 seconds or so to make them hot and moist, and normally, this is a good idea.  I thought that they flavor was more pronounced when eaten “cold”, but what it lacks in flavor, it makes up for in being realy moist and warm (although doing so always makes them kind of oily).

Mango Pudding KitKat

Mango Pudding KitKat

Of course there’s a new KitKat flavor as well. Unfortunately, those ripoff “combo packs” are back in Pog form once again. At least this time around, the chocolate to mango ratio is a lot better than with previous flavors. In this particular bag, you get 7 pairs of milk chocolate and 6 pairs of mango pudding. Still a long way to go, but things are getting better (I gueeessss).

An individual mango pudding KitKat.

An individual mango pudding KitKat.

Unfortunately for the KitKat, there’s a lot of competition in the mango flavor department, and these don’t really stand up to the others, specifically the Country Ma’am cookies. There’s a nice mango smell to them, and there’s a decent initial mango flavor, but it doesn’t really last. As you keep eating them, the flavor kind of fades into more of a generic white chocolate wafer with a hint of mango. If these were the only snacks in town, I might have given them a more favorable review, because they are pretty tasty, but unfortunately, there are others who can do mango better.

Coconut Mango Cocktail

Coconut Mango Cocktail

Even the alcohol gets frutier in the summertime, much to my delight. This “coconut mango” flavor sounded like it would be right up my alley, but by trying to pull off three flavors at once, they end up lacking with each one. They mix all of this with vodka, but these things never really taste like alcohol, so that’s never a problem. The mango doesn’t taste as good when compared to the peach and milk tea drink mentioned earlier, and the little bit of grapefruit that they decided to add in just detracts from the mango and makes it more sour than I felt it should be. That might just be to cover up the alcohol taste. In a time like this, I would expect the sweetness of the coconut flavor to come in and make everything better, but there was barely any coconut flavor to be had, which is what attracted me to this in the first place. If they had axed the grapfruit in favor of making the coconut flavor stronger, I could see myself enjoying this a lot more, but alas.

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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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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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New Assorted Snack Flavors

June 11, 2009

So there’s always new and exciting products being released, and I’ll try and list of a couple that caught my eye recently.

Soft packs of Pretz

Soft packs of Pretz

Here we have three flavors of Pretz: Purple Potato, Tomato, and Asparagus. While these have been around since last fall, I still think they deserve some recognition. These are also the only flavors I have seen in these “soft” packages.

Hai Chu display

Hai Chu display

“Hai Chuu” is a pretty popular snack similar to taffy. They just started releasing a bunch of flavors under the “World Fruits” banner. In the above picture, you can see the new “Dragon Fruit” and “Blood Orange” flavors.

Koala's March

Koala's March

“Koala no March”, known as Koala Yummies in the U.S., just came out with these two flavors: Strawberry & Milk (with honey) and Banana Crepe.

Almond Pocky

Almond Pocky

The new Almond Pocky seems to put the almond flavor in the cream itself rather than sprinkle the real thing all over it like the Crush Almond Pocky did.

Mitsuya Cider Zero

Mitsuya Cider Zero

I always tell people that Mitsuya Cider is a much cheaper, more available, and usually better tasting alternative to Ramune. Now, there’s a zero calorie version of it as well. It certainly does taste like a diet drink. It still kind of taste like the regular version, but, as you would expect, it’s not as sweet, and there’s a strange aftertaste that you don’t get with the regular stuff.

Baby Star Gyouza Chips

Baby Star Gyouza Chips

I like Baby Star, and I like gyouza, so this seemed like a sure thing. The chips themselves are like little wafers that are like the kind you’d get if you were a Christian and took communion at church. Unless those, these smell exactly like gyouza. Unfortunately, that’s their strongest point. They don’t really taste as accurately as I had hoped and they do have kind of a strange “cardboard-y” taste that lingers as well.

Teriyaki Chicken Pizza-La Doritos

Teriyaki Chicken Pizza-La Doritos

Finally, there’s a new flavor of the long-running “Pizza-La” Doritos: Teriyaki Chicken. I’ll be doing a video review for these, and I hope that they taste better than the recent regular Teriyaki Doritos.

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Green Tea Diet Coke

June 11, 2009

Well, this caught me by surprise. I simply went to the store from some milk, and ran across this:

Coca Cola plus Catechin

Coca Cola plus Catechin

I would guess that the full name is “No Calorie Coca-Cola plus Catechin”. What’s catechin? According to Wikipedia:

Catechins are polyphenolic antioxidant plant metabolites.

and

Catechins constitute about 25% of the dry weight of fresh tea leaf, although total catechin content varies widely depending on clonal variation, growing location, seasonal/ light variation, and altitude. They are present in nearly all teas made from Camellia sinensis, including white tea, green tea, black tea and Oolong tea.

When I first took a sip, I didn’t taste anything particularly special, but it was not as chilled as it could have been, so I put it back in the fridge for a bit. During the second tasting, I still didn’t taste anything close to green tea, so for those who are waiting for a diet carbonated green tea drink, you still have some waiting to do. On the plus side, it didn’t have the normal Diet Coke aftertaste that I’ve come to expect, and not even the kind that’s in Coke Zero. So, while it’s not as sweet as regular Coke, it taste better than the diet varieties, but if there’s anything related to green tea in here, I really can’t taste it.

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