Pearl Soda Company - 3 Reviews

Is this the long lost Arnold Palmer pop? Kind of. In its most core sense it is until you realize that some time and love went into crafting this syrup. Taken directly from their website:

Bold, black tea from India the Nilgiri Blue Mountains of India blended with lemongrass and lemon myrtle

That's not messing around, man. That's not some garbage, every day black tea and some lemon squeezed over a cinder block into a cup. This is real. You can taste that it's different, too. This is not me being a snob, you actually can taste that it's different. It's not "just" anything.

You want to impress someone who likes to drink Half and Half, you buy them a bottle of this. Sure, they've got to have seltzer on hand but it's a small price to pay for such a quality drink.

If you're looking for a natural tasting beverage this is certainly for you. I don't know what this has to do with a dragon, dancing or not, but what I do know is that it tastes like someone made a soda out of throat coat tea and it's a little much. I like sips of this drink. I've been nursing the glass I made for the past 45 minutes. If I take tiny sips it's enjoyable, but if I drink too much at once it becomes a bit too overpowering and medicinal. If you're not familiar with throat coat (which is absolutely wonderful hot) imagine chewing on a licorice stick (the plant not the candy) while drinking some black tea. It's pleasant and helps your throat. It's not quite the same in soda form but it is a re-imagining of a classic soda.
In here the tea is a mixture of pu-erh (fermented tea)and yerba mate. The rest of the flavor comes from a combination of sarsaparilla root and honeybush. It kind of tastes the way a natural market smells. Take that as you will. To me it's not bad thing, but it certainly is unique. Out of all of these tea sodas, this is the one that is certainly not for everyone.

When a representative from the Pearl Soda Company emailed us about sending us samples to review their products I was traveling and it wasn't until after I hit send on a message giving them my address that I realized, “Are we even going to be able to use these syrups in their proper fashion?” I had no idea if these were the type of soda concentrate that bars and restaurants used in their guns or what. I decided that instead of writing them back I would just figure it out when the samples arrived.

As soon as I opened the package I knew everything was going to be just fine. I mean look at those fancy little bottles. They look so classy. I ran out to the store and bought a bottle of plain seltzer water and got to mixing. Now normally the recommended amount of concentrate/flavoring is on the duller side of flavor town, but I mixed it as prescribed and it tasted great right off the bat.

I guess I should have stated that these are tea infused flavored syrups. I've never tried anything like it before and they are fantastic. This lime twist is made with greenbush tea with ginger, lime, lemongrass and lemon myrtle mixed in. The results are a concoction that tastes like a lemon-lime ginger ale that was specially made just for you. Underneath it all is a faint tea flavor that simply adds to the experience. Who needs to go to an overpriced bar, filled with turds who you would never interact with in any other scenario, when you can pretend to be your very own mixologist at home. I drank this with just seltzer water, but I can only imagine that people would love it with booze mixed in. I personally think that would be sacrilege and detract from a wonderful beverage.