Polar Tart cherry limeade seltzer: Like the initial bite into a ripe juicy cherry, amplified 5x, this seltzer has an intense concentrated flavor without any of the sweet qualities of fruit. It tastes artificial in the way that Cherry Coke doesn’t actually taste like cherry, but rather an imagined scenario where you could reduce the flavor of a mouthful of cherries into a single simplified taste. Lime trails behind, with a zingy citrus note at the end of each sip. Highly carbonated. 3.0/5.0
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Steaz Peach green tea: At this year’s annual Mystery Hunt puzzle competition, my team was stationed close to the 26-100 lecture hall and its cluster of 6 vending machines. This tall can of Steaz came from the machine of non-Coca-Cola-owned beverages selling alternative caffeinated energy drinks. I was looking for a drink to get me through several more hours without the side effect of crashing, and for this, the can did its job-I felt alert and invigorated but not jittery. Flavor-wise, it didn’t stand out to me as ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Reem’s Hibiscus Rose Cooler: Finally made it to Reem’s, the middle eastern cafe in Fruitvale (Oakland) specializing in housemade flatbread. To accompany the robust za’atar-spiced flatbread, I got a cup of refreshing and sharp hibiscus rose cooler, a purple-maroon colored drink that tasted of an amped-up floral pomegranate juice. Well balanced and perfectly complementary, it rounded out a complete, delicious meal at Reem’s. 4.0/5.0
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Steap Lychee Love Tea: I’ve been searching for a quality bubble tea shop in Chinatown, San Francisco and tried this modern bubble tea spot on my most recent visit. Steap prides themselves on highly customizable fruit and herbal teas. The lychee love drink is a jasmine and green tea mix containing lychee jelly (I also ordered boba as an add-in). You could taste the ambition, as the tea was not as sugary as what you might find at a nearby chain, but it taste a bit diluted, and the boba was too soft. The search conti... (read more) 2.5/5.0
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Asha Tea Kiwi green tea: I’m pretty certain this is the last seasonal flavor of fruit tea I had yet to try at Asha, the Bay-area-based tea shop. Like the others, this tea has fresh fruit mashed to a pleasant pulp, which adds texture to each sip. The herbal tea is of clear quality, and the kiwi flavor is slightly tart and fully refreshing. 4.0/5.0
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Bickford’s Creamy soda: In hindsight, there were a few warning signs: 1) the label has “with artificial flavors” in fine print, 2) the flavor is creamy soda and not cream soda (I thought maybe it was an Australian thing), and 3) when was the last time you saw a red-colored cream soda? Turns out it’s red because of Red 40, which of course impart no actual taste to the drink (also ironically the packaging states “a century of purity”). What I got instead was an overly sweet, mediocre cream soda. It just goes to show... (read more) 2.0/5.0
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