Coca-Cola

Ayataka is a very popular bottled beverage in Japan and to speak the truth also my personal favorite. The trouble character of it’s liquor adds to the authentic experience of a freshly infused loose leaf Japanese Green Tea. It also has a slightly bitter character and sufficient sweetness to make it a favorable drink to consume on a rather hot day.

This stuff is the best. I bought whole flats of it when I was in Japan. If you’re the kind of person who makes a Earl Grey tea with one sugar and a bit of milk, leaves it for a while, and then really enjoys those sips after it’s cooled off, this is as good as it gets. If I could find it where I am, I’d continue drinking it non-stop.

I tried this from Whole Foods today. I had “Defend”. This had milk oolong, black tea, guava leaves, and ginseng. It is delicious and unsweetened! So light and not bitter at all. Yummy! I would definitely get this again.

Regardless of how I feel about this tea, I will treasure the experience of drinking it forever because while entering it into the database I learned the Japanese word for bracket fungus. Truly, my life has been an empty shell until now.

So…who thinks that a blend of green, oolong, pu-erh and yellow tea is excessive? Everyone? Good, good. They appear to be operating along the idea of “stuff as much healthy tea into one bottle as possible, thereby creating the ELIXIR OF LIFE.” I wonder if they brew the teas separately and then mix them or just dump the leaves all in together and brew it like that. Hopefully it is the former.

Surprisingly, the result isn’t too bad, although, as would be expected there are absolutely no traces of the green or yellow tea (not that I know how yellow tea tastes, but I’ve heard it’s delicate so…). The oolong and pu erh are both quite present and create a not unpleasant combination. I also feel like I’m getting the orange peel – definitely some citrusy type taste going on. I’m getting other stuff as well but considering I don’t even know what a “chameleon plant” IS there is absolutely no way that I can tell what it is. Although, the label sez there is carrot and it COULD be carrot.

All in all, despite the slightly offputting amount of stuff in this tea, the overall taste is actually not overwhelming and the combination of oolong, pu erh, and orange peel seems to be working well. Regarding the health benefits – it appears to have hit almost every single “health craze” button (whooo goji berries!) so therefore it must be healthy! It doesn’t have acai though. Perhaps I should demand my money back? I’m generally contemptuous of this sort of blatant gimmickry but as I said the taste isn’t bad and it was actually cheaper than some of the other teas (125 yen instead of 150) so…reluctant thumbs up!

Another Coca-cola iced tea (the vending machine by the center where I have my program is Coca-cola brand, can you tell?). I confess I have no idea what they are getting at with the “nigori” thing since it’s a term that usually used to refer to unfiltered sake. Unfiltered tea? Maybe! I have my doubts about the whole high quality thing too, and anyway, it’s probably wasted on an iced tea.

I didn’t find this tea particularly memorable. It was cool, which was the important thing. It’s got a bitterness to it that does sort of remind me of matcha, which was kind of nice, but that only came to it as it warmed up a bit more. Straight from the vending machine it mostly just tasted cool and green-ish. The matcha thing is neat, but I’d still put it below Sokenbicha since that at least catches my attention while I am drinking it.

It’s summer in Japan and that means drinking LOTS of bottled iced tea (available at a vending machine near you! I mean really near, like, 10 feet away. Also, there’s another one twenty feet further. Thanks Japan!)

The last time I was here, I never really went about choosing them in any sort of systematic fashion, usually just going with whatever caught my eye at the time. But this time! This time will be DIFFERENT. I am going to systematically try and then log as many of these bottled iced teas as I can so I can actually figure out which ones I like best. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. Then, other people going to Japan can reap the benefits! provided their taste in tea is at all similar to mine, of course :P

I remember having this stuff a lot when I was here, mostly because the whole “blend of twelve different teas” amused me (and continues to do so). Just from what I recognize: looks like several different kinds of barley tea, some green tea, some pu erh, senna tea, chicory (which I didn’t know you could make tea out of!), dandelion root, corn, beans, and a partridge in a pear tree.

It has a pleasant enough flavor and isn’t bad as a go-to tea since, being a coca-cola product it is guaranteed to be pretty much everywhere. I’d classify the taste as “barley tea lite” with the barley teaness being smoothed out a lot by the rest of the stuff in there and a more earthy direction achieved with the pu erh. It probably is totally healthy too since it is so full of STUFF. The name translates to refreshing, healthy, beautiful tea, although I’m not sure if the TEA is beautiful or if it will make YOU beautiful. Both, probably.

Amazingly, this stuff isn’t bad. I drink a lot of tea and a good bit of it on the go. This is a decent tea available in most marts and vending machines here in Japan. While I won’t rave about it being great, I will say that, as far as prepackaged teas go, this is not a bad choice. It has a decently earthy flavour, and is not sweetened. If you need some tea on the run, this is a good choice. It is typically available cold, and honestly tastes a bit nicer that way.