50 Tea Longan Red Date drink with grass jelly: On my last visit to Oakland, iTea was out of ice and only offering hot beverages. Given the beautiful weather, I decided to go across the street to a new tea shop instead. Named 50 Tea, the shop is iconic Chinatown – half of the storefront is for tea and ice cream while the other half is for purchasing various goods like DVDs and small trinkets and gifts. Their walls are covered in hand-written menu additions with distinctly Asian flavors like winter melon and sour plum. I opted for thei... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Almond Dream Pumpkin spice almond drink with cinnamon: Purchased from Whole Foods, I was hopeful about this seasonal pumpkin spice almond drink, but it became immediately obvious upon tasting that this is meant as a flavoring for coffee or other beverages, rather than something desirable to drink on its own. I tried adding it to chia seed pudding and even to oatmeal, but the flavoring just made me want to eat those things even less. Too sweet and artificial tasting. 2.0/5.0
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Bundaberg blood orange sparkling drink: I'm attending a conference in Brisbane, and most meals are provided except breakfast. This has made me unable to try as much outside food as I would like, and it also means I've found myself purchasing non-breakfast items at 7am (I'm still jet lagged). I'm a fan of Bundaberg's ginger beer, so I was excited to see a blood orange offering in its native country. Overall, though, I found the drink to be too sweet and the blood orange flavor to be slightly generic. It reminds me of a less fizzy, ... (read more) 2.5/5.0
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Calpico White peach drink: As a kid, I used to drink Calpico when visiting family in Taiwan. A Japanese “soft drink,” Calpico has a milky-white color but is much thinner in consistency. I remember it being very sweet but probably haven’t had it in over a decade until I came across this white peach flavor. My memory ended up being pretty accurate, though, as the drink was far too sweet and tasted like liquid peach gummies. It’s hard to imagine a situation when it would be desirable to drink this. 2.0/5.0
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Calpis Taste Calpis Melon Drink: Melon is a very popular flavor in Japan not just for candies but also for drinks like fruit sodas. This drink is the melon-version of the popular beverage calpis, a milky yogurt-flavored drink common enough to find in most Asian supermarkets in the US. This line of products is part of their low-calorie offerings, and it contains the artificial sweetener aspartame. It tastes like a slightly milder version of liquid candy, definitely with an aftertaste I'm familiar with from drinking diet so... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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