Japan - 27 Reviews

I came across this while looking for drinks to gift to Engineer Jay Zubricky at GCR audio while my band was working on our new record. I saw it and though, “Awesome, a green melon cream soda. Jay loves honeydew and while I'm sure it will be super sweet, it will probably also be tasty.” Little did I know at the time instead of it being a typical vanilla cream soda, it was actually a “creamy soda” meaning that it is soda with milk in it. Now that is strange. It certainly tastes like a regular, cheap, cream soda that has some melon flavoring added to it, but the milk adds another dimension to it, that I can't 100% get behind. It leaves a weird taste in my mouth and it also changes the viscosity of the beverage and makes it a little thicker than I was expecting. I was able to drink a few sips. Jay drank more than I did and seemed to enjoy it more as well. I guess all drinks are not for everyone.

Imagine going out into the fields and picking tea leaves, when they are at just their right point in growth to be considered prime green tea. Then you dry the leaves out in the sun for a decent time, so that they are perfect for brewing. Gather up your ancient pot that was created for and has help nothing other than green tea. You steep the tea at the optimal temperature for the precise amount of time, before you chill it. It is at this point that you have a perfect cup of iced green tea. Now you can go through all of this trouble, or you could buy a can of Matcha Love and the results are essentially the same, well at least to my unrefined taste buds.

This is what green tea boils down to if you ask me. If I am offered green tea, this is what I hope I am served. Sure it's made with matcha powder as well as brewed tea, but if the result is the same I have no qualms with that. I believe it's a healthier way to get your green tea anyways. I see no downside to using matcha. Sure it comes in a tony can, but it's got a big flavor that you're not going to beat. It's made by Ito En, when have they put out a tea beverage that wasn't great?

Chili oil. Natures gag gift. Oh, is this regular oil? Uh, no. It's chili oil and you just got pranked. Now your mouth is on fire and I'm sitting back laughing. Now, so that everything is out in the open, here I give to you chili oil Ramune. Now you can know what you're getting into. Is it hot like that prank chili oil? Hardly, bro. Hardly. It is a light tickling and, if anything, kind of a refreshing burn similar to one you would get from a light ginger beer but with a fruity pop instead of a...well...ginger. This is a mix between a kids party pop and "I'm an adult and I'm too old for fun and I like to feel pain when I drink" drink. Where are you on the teeter-totter of life. Whatever spectrum you identify with, this has your bases covered. I just wish there was more pain. I guess I know what side I'm on.

Now, listen. You will be happy to know that this is not only a review for a strange and odd drink but it is a milestone. No it's not a sweet sixteen or a sweet sixty. That stuff is for the birds. This review that you are reading right now is, get ready for it. This review is Thirsty Dudes' 4,000th review. That's right. Four thousand. This is not Europe or whatever where they use commas for decimals points and we have reviewed four and no thousandths drinks. This is America and we idiotically use the standard system of measurement and that comma denotes that we have reviewed four thousands drinks. To celebrate we have provided you with a video that we blew our entire marketing budget on. Our marketing budget is, but should not be, zero dollars.



Thank you to all the fans and if you see us, shake our hands. We have done a lot of drinking and it wasn't all for us. It was for you, the people. The fans. The groupies. The dedicated followers of us, the Thirsty Dudes.

I am a relatively recent convert to the love of matcha. I mean I'm pretty sure I would have always loved it, but I was just unaware. I've been drinking/loving green tea for about two decades now, but I was completely ignorant of its powdered brethren's existence. I feel like I had a sibling who I never knew of because they were given away for adoption, and now they have used the magic of the internet to track me down. Luckily for me they aren't looking for money, just to enrich my life with their wonderful flavor…€¦okay that got creepy.

For those who aren't in the know, matcha (or macca) is high quality green tea that has been finely ground into a powder. It can be used in beverages or in order to flavor food. How do you think they make green tea mocha? I myself have a package of it that I mix in with ice cream to make my own flavored version instead of paying the ridiculous price for store bought green tea ice cream. When you mix it with water or milk and it makes a nice little cup of green tea. I find it to be a bit more bitter and stronger than brewed tea, and I personally love it.

The contents of this can are nice and strong, but it has a bit too much sugar in it for my liking. I prefer my green tea to be unsweetened ( I guess I should have bought that version). Don't get me wrong, it is still wonderful, but I'm just stating my preference. It's not like there is an obscene amount of sugar in here, it's just that I would like it more with none. This is probably perfect for most people.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. "Kids. Right?" They just don't get it. Perhaps it's me becoming a curmudgeon…€Ž of an old man but sometimes an unsweetened green tea is all I need to make me a happy man. What pleases me about it? The bitterness and the crispness of it. Jasmine is wonderful because it's a bit botanical. This is a dark green tea, which is code for a sencha which is pretty bitter in its own right and equally fantastic. I've had hot cups of the stuff and it's a strong and equally lovely cup. This is no different. The bitterness is set right in a great place where it's enjoyable to drink at any speed and also strong enough that purists can get what they want from it.

Kids do not enjoy unsweetened tea. Kids drink garbage. Maybe it's just American kids. I think I can speak on behalf of all people that used to be dumb American kids and say that I wish I drank more unsweetened tea as a child. I wasted my time with my mom's diet Pepsi for years. That being said, she pretty exclusively drinks unsweetened tea now so maybe we are all learning what East has known for hundreds of years.

Dear Japan,

Sorry we're so far behind.

Sincerely,
America

I wanted to share this with as many people as I could in the case that it actually tasted like kimchi. Within the last year or two I have really gotten into kimchi from, somehow, never having tried it for thirty years. Now any time it's on the menu I'll try and get it; that is if udon isn't on the menu. There is a restaurant not far from where Jay and I live that has kimchi udon and it is far from terrible. There is a kimchi soup called kimchi jjiGae that just rules. Tofu, pork, kimchi, spice, noodles and rice cakes: the whole thing.

So now you know my recent new love. Big deal, right? Well it's important to have an appreciation for kimchi before you drink this because it tastes just like kimchi. I'm not kidding. It tastes like someone juiced kimchi and added a sprinkle of sugar and carbonated it. It's frighteningly accurate. It's good in that it tastes like what it's supposed to but what it is supposed to taste like is not a carbonated, sweetened drink.

It is what it is but what it is just shouldn't be.

What we have here is the most unfortunately accurate tasting soda I have ever come across. I know I complain a lot that most pops don't taste anything like the flavor they are named after, but I kind of wish this didn't. Actually, no I don't because there was no possible way that a teriyaki flavored beverage could be good. At least it's accurate and true to it's self.

Let me paint this image for you. You pick up some takeout on the way home from work. Once you get home you pull out your fancy pants bullet blender and dump your teriyaki chicken in along with a heaping cup of sugar. Once you have blended the living hell out of it you mix the remaining liquid into some soda water and viola you have this Japanese “treat.”

I want everyone in the world to try this. I want to watch as they make a disgusted face and then sit there because they can't complain about it. They knowingly tried a teriyaki soda and it turns out it tastes exactly like the meal they would have preferred to be eating. Dumb dummies.

So there are balls. Dragon Balls. They've got stars in them, which gives them way more special powers than some lame cats eye. They are marbles with special powers. You collect them and get special powers so you can whoop demons…€¦so many demons. It's not like superheroes where the villains represent some sort of socioeconomic issue. These guys are just bad. They just want to fight and hold lifelong grudges. Mean guys.

Now from what I know about Dragon Ball Z is that there isn't a lot of talking through conflict. It's mostly, "You are going to get it this time!" and then fight. No sitting down and debating. If they could sit down and discuss the issue at hand over a can of this cola, something might actually happen rather than fisticuffs. They could discuss things like who can take over this region of the country while drinking, for all intents and purposes, a better diet Pepsi. Sure, they might yell back and forth and have some empty threats but they will be quenched and might be able to order a nice sandwich platter. Classic dual over lunch.

The weird things I think about when reviewing a drink at 5:30am:

-There's probably somebody in the world who is afraid of Ramune. Whether it's the sound of the marble popping or the marble inside the bottle or the weird shaped bottle, I'm sure this is true for someone.

-I wonder if there are multiple people. I wonder if they have a support group on some rarely visited Yahoo group message board.

- I wonder if they would be more terrified of this "orange" flavor because it doesn't taste much like orange. It's probably the weakest orange flavored soda I've ever had.

- I wonder if there's someone writing a thesis on "nonsensical ramblings written on the internet with no logical reason behind them". If so, I think this website would be a goldmine for them.

Jimmy was a kid growing up in the 1920's who lived in a one-bedroom basement apartment with his parents and 5 brothers and sisters. Unable to afford anything and unable to get to school, he spent his days roaming the streets looking for something to do. He once came across some kids on a stoop playing marbles. He had never seen marbles before and they intrigued him. He was timid, but he managed to ask them if he could join. They were reluctant, but said he could play with them if he brought his own marbles.

This proved to be a challenge to Jimmy, as he didn't have any money to buy marbles. Just then he stumbled upon an empty bottle of Ramune in the trash. He had seen them many times before while he went looking for cans and bottles to return. The one thing he never noticed was the marble in the neck of it. His face lit up as he rattled the marble around the bottle, but slowly faded as he realized the marble was stuck in there.

His initial thought was to smash it on the ground, but he was afraid of cutting himself, causing a scene, and possibly losing the marble. He then notice that the top of the bottle was plastic so he found a sharp rock and started prying it off. It took some work, but he finally did it and retrieved his first marble. But this was only one marble, how was he going to get enough for a whole collection?

Just then he remembered that the karaoke bar down the street always had a lot of empty Ramune bottles in their dumpster. Sure enough, he was right and he found over 30 bottles he could pry the marbles out of. As he was going through one, he noticed a raspberry bottle still had some soda left in it. He had never had soda, and was afraid of his parents catching him drinking it. He hid behind the dumpster as he took a sip of the fizzy beverage. It tickled his throat, but was much too sweet for him. The most sugar he has ever had was a small piece of cake on his birthday last year. To his family, sugar is "not-essential" so he has learned to live without it.

Within a couple hours he had a couple dozen marbles and returned to the kids on the stoop. They were impressed with his collection and promptly punched him in the face and stole them all.

Moral of the story: don't play marbles with randoms on the street.

For those of you who do not know, I have a love of melon. I don't know when it started. I don't know what brought it on, but over the past couple of years I've been drawn to anything melon related. I even got a honeydew Swiss cake roll from Chinatown in Toronto. It was mind blowingly good. I tend to stay away from Ramune drinks, as they tend to be far too sweet for my tastes, but how could I turn down a melon one?

We drank this as part of our second visit on the Buffalo Eats podcast. While I was stoked on it, I was afraid it would be too sweet, and I wouldn't want to finish it. I figured this was it would be shared, and perhaps we could capture the sound of the marble being popped in for some live magic. Do those marbles serve any real purpose other than fun? I mean they are fun, but it seems like it's a lot of extraneous bottle design for a little fun, that so many companies have embraced.

This definitely tastes like candied generic melon. I assume it's supposed to be honeydew, due to the green color (no pun intended). It was pointed out in the podcast that it tastes like a Jolly Rancher if they made a melon flavor. I can see where they thought that, but the flavor doesn't have the intensity that those candies do. Perhaps it tastes like a watered down, overly sugared version of that. Yeah…€¦let's stick with that.

It's been a while since I've had a bottle of Ramune. I had forgotten how hard it is sometimes to push that marble down. Or perhaps I'm just getting weak/old. I bought this bottle on our last trip to the Asian market because I love the little face on the bottle. It looks happy because of the smile, but it's almost a mischievous look. It's as if he's saying, "go ahead, drink this... I DARE you." Maybe I've been watching too much of The Office, but he kind of reminds me of Dwight.

Actually, that is the perfect analogy to this drink. Lychee is great so you think this soda is going to be great. Then you see the mischievous character on the label and you start to second guess yourself. Then you turn it around and notice there is high fructose corn syrup in it and you think to yourself "I thought only Americans used that awful sweetener?" Then the marble is really difficult and gives you a really hard time. So by the time you finally taste it, it's delicious but you're really scared that it might actually be poison.

This drink is Dwight K. Schrute. If only it was beet flavored.

The flavors behind this drink take you where you want to go when you retire, around the world. Tea taste? Present. Lemon taste? Wildly present. Coffee/espresso taste? Lacking. The lemon though, man...there in full effect like Reggie. I don't know what an espresso tea is since none of the ingredients are reflective of anything coffee related. The tea, though, is a sweet lemon tea. Although I assume it's black, I can't taste because of the sweet lemon going on in the forefront.

I didn't know what to expect with this drink because I thought that I was going to get a trifecta of flavors but instead, I only got a duo. Instead of getting the Thompson Twins, I got Tears For Fears. Instead of Beastie Boys, I got Lightning Bolt. I was discounted by 33.3% and I think that I would have rather gotten the full lineup.

Gene you've done a great job here with this white grape juice. It has a great flavor and nice carbonation. Wait…€¦what? It's not carbonated? I guess it's just that good that my mind somehow imagined the bubbles. Let me take another sip. You're right it's not. Why on Earth did I think it was?

Now Gene this is great but as you know us here at Sangaria are trying to take the company in a “green” direction. You know, reduce our waste and all. We've been getting in a lot of trouble with the government as of late. Is there anything you can think of to help us out? Wait you want us to put the remainders of the grapes in the drink? That's just plain weird Gene. Who would want to drink that? Okay find I'll try it. This actually isn't too bad. My only complaint is that the grapes could be peeled. You have a machine that will do that? Where do you get those wonderful toys? This is going to be perfect. It's a wonderful tasting white grape juice with whole peeled grapes thrown in to make drinking fun again. Kids are going to have a hay day and you Gene are going to have an awesome compost pile with all of those grape peels. I told you we had to get rid of waste, so now you have to take them home. Enjoy.

Imagine for a second. You have a five-month-old kid who won't sleep. He's up every three hours including that awesome "ten minutes after you fall asleep" move which makes you contemplate, if only for a second, that you'll just let them starve and sit in pee for another hour so that you can get some sleep. Due to this constant up and down your sleep schedule is crunched down to a scatterbrained four or five hours night after night. You are up at six in the morning and you get some stuff done around the house and decide you're going to go to one of your favorite restaurants to get something for breakfast.

Your kid is sleeping soundly and for a minute, you actually and stupidly think that you're going to get time to enjoy a meal out without...woop...there it is. You eat like you have been stuck at sea for months and haven't had a good meal since you left shore and don't even get a chance to finish one single glass of iced tea, which you wanted…€¦a lot.

Since you're up so early, you decide to errands, all the while craving the tea that you had no chance to drink. Two hours later you're home and have no chance to sit and drink something because now you've got to do stuff around the house. You mow the lawn, plant a new hibiscus tree that you hope does well in your crappy soil, and try a new weed killer on the lawn which is fifty percent weeds.

Finally you're done. You're tired. You're accomplished. Your kid is asleep. You are all alone with silence in your house. You go into the fridge and there it is. Green tea, just green tea. No sugar. No preservatives. No fuss. You can't open it fast enough. You can taste the cool bite of the tea on your tongue. You wish it would never end. Had that can been bottomless, you would have somehow gotten to the end and asked for seconds. It's perfect. In this moment you are happy. And then your kid wakes back up and starts crying...

Green tea? Had it. Black tea? Been there, too. White tea? Old news, friends. I think that it's about time that we vary our tea selection to varieties that aren't colors. We're adults. We're worldly. We travel by boats and planes to foreign countries. Worldwide trade is in full effect. Treat yourself to something not from the country you live in. Look, brand loyalty is fine, but look at Thirsty Dudes. We've reviewed drinks from dozens of different countries.

Take this team from Japan. Japan has sugar but does this oolong tea need it? Not at all. In a world filled with even the purest of sugar, sometimes you can't beat an unsweetened team on a hot summer day. This tea is a nice shortstop between green and black tea. A little bitter and a little earthy but just like you would make at home.

You don't have to love unsweetened tea, but as an adult, at some point you have to accept that some drinks don't need to be sweetened.

When I'm at work I am at the height of being a "thirsty dude." The amount of beverages that I drink borders the insane. I don't know if I'm really as thirsty as I think I am, or if it's just a way to pass the time. I used to just drink whatever was on hand, but I got to a point where all the sugar was too much for me. After that I turned to mostly water. Even when I'm not working I drink nearly a gallon of water a day. Water is delicious, refreshing and cleansing. Now that I've discovered these huge bottles of Teas' Tea, everything else is out the window. They are water, tea and ascorbic acid. 0 calories and 0 sugar means that I don't have to feel guilty about drinking a two liter of it a day. On top of that it tastes great. It tastes like perfectly brewed tea that has been cooled down. If you have any interest whatsoever in unsweetened teas this line is something you need to check out.

So the Teavana ad keeps popping up when I load our site. I have to say their tea is delicious. Possibly the best I've ever had. To be fair I haven't had much loose-leaf tea in my life, but the types I've had from there are over the top good. They have tea that has been picked by trained monkeys (Okay I think it was just a story about a monkey picking tea, but for the sake of the review let's pretend it's their tea that is monkey picked). Having a trained monkey would be pretty rad. At first I think I'd have him run errands for me, but eventually I would probably just hang out with him and play Uno or something. If I were ever in Japan I'd sure as hell have that little bugger pick me some tealeaves.

The leaves Teas' Tea uses may not be picked by monkeys, but it is pretty pure tasting. It's all natural and unsweetened. It's water, green tea and ascorbic acid (vitamin c). In the world of unsweetened green tea it doesn't get much better than this. Lucky for us Big Lots got a bunch in and they are blowing them out for $1 a bottle (they are normally about $4). I will be drinking this all day at work for weeks to come. Now how do I acquire a monkey, and then how do I train it?

It scares me to push the marble down on bottles of Ramune. It always feels like I'm going to break it. Then the moment it finally gives, I get scared that the soda is going to bubble up and start spilling out of the cap. To try and prevent this, I keep the plastic plunger in the top until the fizzing dies down. There is a process to this.

Once again, we have a company that doesn't put the flavor of the drink on the label. Hawaiian Blue? Really? What does that even mean? I'll let it pass Ramune because this is actually kind of tasty. Like most Ramune I've had so far, I can't really distinguish a strong flavor. I feel weird writing this, but it really tastes like "blue soda". It's lightly sweetened, and doesn't have the usual syrup flavor that HFCS gives drinks. I keep getting suckered into buying Ramune because of the cool shaped bottle, but I'm always left unsatisfied after drinking it.

Every once in a while I come across a drink that sounds so disgusting that I can't wait to try it. Today I had this pleasure once again while shopping at an Asian market. When my friend Robyn pointed out a curry flavored soda, I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't wait to try it so I opened it in her car. I let her know there was a chance of me puking and she was OK with it.

Sadly I did not puke because this does not taste like curry. I can't even figure out what this tastes like because my mind so wants this to taste like curry. It's not a bad taste either. It's almost like a weak ginger ale. Now I want to find a drink that is marketed as curry flavored that actually lives up to its name.