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
drinks polar tart cherry limeade seltzer 3.0Trader Joe’s Calamansi Cooler: I’m a fan of the increasing number of calamansi-flavored products I’ve witnessed overt the past year, and there is perhaps no bigger institution to bring visibility to this tropical fruit than Trader Joe’s. Their calamansi cooler contains less than a 12oz can but looks substantial given its slender and tall packaging. Non-carbonated, the beverage tastes like a cross between lime and grapefruit with a trace of a more acidic, funky fruit like passion fruit. Overall, it’s a bit too sweet for my... (read more) 3.0/5.0
drinks tjs traderjoes calamansi cooler 3.0Arctic Ocean Orange soda: Arctic Ocean is a Chinese orange soda that has a neon-yellow color similar to Lemon Gatorade. It’s slightly less sweet than Sunkist or Fanta but has a similar underlying citrus flavor, though milder. It tastes more like tangerine to me than your typical orange soda. As you may expect, its ingredients are just high fructose corn syrup, orange juice, sugar, and water. A decent level of carbonation, with smaller bubbles than Coke soft drinks. Overall, not anything particularly out of the ordinary. 3.0/5.0
drinks chinese citrus arcticocean orange soda 3.0Bubble Tea Share Time Thai iced tea slushie: I went to the dentist yesterday and didn’t have any new cavities, which is quite a feat given the existence of this blog. Also, it’s getting hot in Berkeley. To celebrate, I got a Thai Iced Tea “slushie” with boba from Share Tea, a bubble tea shop on Shattuck in Berkeley a few blocks away from downtown. While I asked for it to be less sweet, I should have asked for it to have 0 added sweetness as it was still overly sugary. But the Thai iced tea flavor, though classic, was refreshing, and th... (read more) 3.0/5.0
berkeley bubbletea drinks sharetea thai iced tea slushie 3.0