Product: Kola Inglesa--The red kola
Origin: Miami, FL
First looks
Nick:
I just want to point out that this is only "The red kola" because they put red food coloring in it. I'm cautiously optimistic about this; it smells nice and fruity, and I like fruit sodas. Not sure how much of a kola taste this is going to have, even though I'm sure the marketing team stayed up many a sleepless night coming up with the slogan "The Red Kola" for this stuff.
Katie:
Wow, the cherry smell on this soda is cutting through the stuffed nose I have at the time of this writing. This is going to either be mildly pleasant or horribly medicinal tasting. I'm not sensing a middle ground here. I do appreciate the k in kola, though. C is a superfluous letter. We already have k for the hard sounds and s for the slithery snake sounds (like the c in cider sssssssider. Sssssssidah. I'm a touch goofed up on DayQuil. Don't judge me).
Nick:
Oof. I don't think I want to inglesa too much of this kola. The cherry flavor has a kind of bitter, slightly medicinal taste that I'm really not enjoying. I think I'm just going to stick to Cherry Coke and not care about what color it is because I'm drinking it out of a can anyway.
Katie:
It's not bad. As Nick said, it has medicinal elements but also this subtle vanilla taste at the end. I guess if you really like medicinal cherry flavoring--somehow--you could get this odd soda. I know certain readers seem to like it when we actually like a food so here's hoping we enjoy one of these drinks.
Product: Pink Guava Juice
Origin: Taiwan
First looks
Katie:
The juice is indeed pink so we have not been falsely advertised to. Have I had guava before? Not sure. Do I know what a guava is or looks like? Nope. Did I completely forget that guavas existed before I saw the can? Yes. Yes, I did. Hey, maybe they'll make a million guava gummies so Nick has a new flavor to hate!
Nick:
Well! I'll save all those gummies for you since you love gummies so much. I'm pretty sure I've never had or even seen a guava before, not even in those goofy Nintendo DS deserted island survival simulators where I ate a ton of taro root or whatever. This smells extremely fruity, I guess unsurprisingly; the can says it's only 30% juice and the rest is water and sugar, but I'm still a little scared of the taste being overpowered. Overpowered by guava.
 |
| Yup, it's pink juice. |
Katie:
Quite delicious. Not too sweet, not bitter at all. It's like a creamy fruity taste, if that makes any sense. I almost finished my entire portion before Nick had even finished writing his initial thoughts down. So yeah, we--or at least I--liked something! Score one for...liking...something?
Nick:
Wow, this is good! Like Katie said it's sweet, but it's not too sweet; it tastes like what I imagine peach juice would taste like if peaches weren't disgusting. We polished the can off pretty quick. I would definitely get more of this. Guava job. See, like good job, but it's guava. It almost rhymes, like the first letter... ahhh, never mind. I'm curious to see if this can top what's up next.
Drink #3
Product: Ramune Carbonated Soft Drink - Watermelon
Country of origin: Japan
Nick:
Aw yussssss. I'm afraid I'm cheating a little here because I've already had this (for sale at the candy store) and it's quite good. This is the famous marble soda where you smack a marble down into like a soda antechamber in the body of the bottle and it supposedly keeps it from going flat or something. Katie didn't want much in her glass, so I don't suppose she thinks she's going to like this, but I'm looking forward to it.
Katie:
I don't think I will like it much. The Ramune sodas have not been my favorites but maybe I'm allowing one bad one to color my memory. I'll try to give this one a fair shake. Awkward transition time. The color is pink, like the guava juice, except exceedingly so. Bright pink in the way no natural drink (or real watermelon) is.
Post-sip thoughts
To the surprise of few, I like this. It's basically watermelon soda, that's all you need to know and pretty much all there is to it. It could stand to be slightly sweeter, but it really does taste like watermelon. Katie, you love watermelon, did you love this?
Katie:
If you didn't tell me this was watermelon, then I tried some, then you told me it was watermelon, I'd have called you a flat-out liar. This doesn't taste like watermelon at all. It tastes like bubbles and faint minerals. Like that horrible, horrible flipping Saratoga water that everyone is always "this is great!" and meanwhile, it tastes like you're licking a rock monster. A really sweaty rock monster. Anyway. It's possible my stuffiness and mega coughing is affecting my taste here so try it for yourself and see what you think. Nick is a famous picky person so if he likes something, it's probably actually good. Unless it's gummy. Or a Skittle that fell on the floor. Or the last season of Boardwalk Empire where everyone just stared grumpily and nothing happened and they skipped over the most interesting part of the whole 20s gangster scene (i.e. the fall of Arnold Rothstein, the actual rise of Capone, Luciano becoming a thing and not just some guy, etc.).
Drink #4
Product: Badam Drink--Almond Drink (real bits of almond and saffron)
Origin: India
First looks
Saffron is one of the most expensive spices in the world, right? Or at least that is what I heard on Food Network. Not sure I can place the smell other than milky. I hope this is going to be better than Malk.
Nick:
Katie pretty much covered everything I had; I'm sure this will be better than Malk (I'm not sure how it could be worse unless it started making racist remarks when you opened the bottle or something). I have no idea what to expect from saffron-flavored almond milk, and I don't really know how to describe the smell. It's like chalky milk. If nothing else, I guess I'm having my horizons expanded. Thanks, Munchpak!
Post-sip thoughts
Katie:
By the gods, there are chunks. I guess the can was not lying when it said "real bits of almond and saffron". The almond milk part isn't bad. It's sort of like kefir...kind of? Just...the chunks. I can't get past the chunks, dudes.
Nick:
Aaaaaaargh! The chunks! Why are there chunks? Who did this?? I withdraw my thanks. The taste is nice (mildly spicy milk), but my god. The chunks. Absolutely disgusting. You should be ashamed, badam drink. More like, uh, bad, um, drink. Maybe if you put it through a fine mesh screen; I did really like the taste, it's just the chunks. If anyone knows a nice almond milk saffron drink WITHOUT @*% CHUNKS, leave it in the comments. Or maybe I'll have some kefir, which I also have totally had and definitely know what it is without looking it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment