Meco

Another “juice” based option from Meco/my local Chinese convenience store – not a milk tea. I find it really interesting how prominently the pink grapefruit has been made on the packaging of the drink itself and all of the promotional imagery that I was able to find while looking for a good photo to use here on Steepster…

Personally, I thought this mostly tasted like a very nice peach juice, with undertones of sweeter grapefruit. I didn’t think the grapefruit was the strongest note – but if you were going off advertising alone I think that’s the takeaway that you would have. I do like the combination together though – they compliment well, and it makes the peach seem somewhat fresher and more full bodied/rounded out. I’d drink this one again, for sure!

Also – this doesn’t really relate to the drink at all but I thought it was kind of neat seeing these two fruits deliberately comboed together because I know that sometimes peach flavouring is used in tea blend to convey the taste of sweet grapefruit notes as a bit of a “booster” of sorts. Just a fun arbitrary fact – kind of like how almond flavouring and cherry flavouring sometimes can be used in mirror one another or boost one another.

Something else from the Chinese convenience store – not a milk tea though, unlike the other flavours I’ve tried from Meco. Really, this is more of a “juice” but it does have black tea in it so it still counts as tea…

It tasted fine – kind of like a sweet and slightly funky lemon black tea? Lemon with more body, perhaps? It did have that weird kind of “burnt rubber” aftertaste to it though that I got from the classic/straight black tea milk tea I had tried. I’m forgetting exactly what the flavour was called, but there was this element to it that was off putting to me and this shares the same thing…

Last of these “Meco” brand milk teas…

I think this is probably the original flavor of these milk teas? It looks like it’s basically just black tea and the ingredients list mostly confirms that!? I say mostly because the last ingredient is a bit dubious – it just says “food flavour”. Excuse me!? What kind of food flavour is in my drink? It’s maybe just a SLIGHT bit concerning…

Flavour wise, this is somewhere in the middle for me. It tastes distinctly like black tea – but the sort of one note, general black tea that I’d associate with really stereotypical British style black tea – very malty and full bodied black tea. Sweet as well, of course. Like the matcha flavour it’s a sort of “condensed milk” sweetness and it compliments the black tea note well. However, the finish is a bit… off. It reminds me a little bit of that strong rubber/plastic smell you’d get from a dollar store beach ball, deflated and just pulled out of the wrapper to be inflated. It’s jarring, and it kills what would probably be a fine tasting milk tea otherwise…

Another option!

Toffee has still been the best flavour so far, but this one was really good too! It’s very thick, sweet and creamy – reminds me a lot of a matcha latte, but perhaps made in some type of condensed milk? It has that same condensed milk type of sweetness. I enjoy sweet things a lot so this is right up my alley – but I could see it being a bit much if you weren’t in the mood for sweet things.

Trying more of these Meco milk teas! Ironically, once I picked up the first two from the Chinese convenience store I started seeing this brand everywhere. It was like my third eye opened, but only for premade milk teas.

I thought the idea of a lime milk tea sounded pretty good, but I think in reality this is one of those things that is good conceptually but bad in practice. It might have worked if it was a softer, creamier lime but it’s pretty sharp and tangy and the most forward part of the milk tea for sure. It goes very well with the more floral oolong notes but, as I mentioned in with the Peach Oolong flavour, I don’t think floral oolong and thick, creamy sweet milk go well together and the same is true of this really tangy lime as well. Just doesn’t work in milk tea!

This was probably the weirdest/least pleasant flavour so far.

This was the second flavour of “Meco” milk tea that I picked up from the local Chinese convenience store; I was mostly curious how distinctly this would taste of oolong since it was one of few flavours that had a specific tea base call out in the name, aside from the match. The answer, it turns out, is that it tastes a lot like oolong!

I was surprised how strongly, and nicely, this tasted of oolong – it had that nice buttery/creamy “shortbread” note and floral character of a Baozhong or other greener/lighter Taiwanese oolong; though I’m not actually sure that’s what is used here – it’s just what it tasted like to me. That floral body does really compliment the peach note here, which is also fairly floral and sweet; it doesn’t taste like natural peach but it does taste like a pretty good recreation of natural peach; less candy/over the top than most peach flavours. I actually really wanted to like this one because of how nice the oolong flavour seems to be and the really great pairing of it and the peach – but I think it was almost too good of a green/floral oolong taste because I found the combo of thick and creamy milk with highly floral oolong was really bothering me; I just couldn’t drink it as easily as the Toffee flavour.

Still – in general I was impressed by the blend (even if I didn’t love it) and it makes me REALLY interested in trying more of the flavours offered!

Recently checked out a Chinese convenience store near my house that I’ve been meaning to shop at since moving; it makes sense to have a Chinese foods store in this area because so much of the neighborhood is Chinese – but it’s actually quite impressive the VAST variety of things they carry; I’ll have to go back several times I’m sure – there’s enough interesting looking drinks, sweets, baking, frozen foods, etc. to keep me trying new and interesting foods for months.

What really drew my attention was this giant shelf of milk tea! It had so many different kinds of instant milk tea powders, which are cool but perhaps not quite intriguing enough to make me want to blindly pick up a whole tub of instant milk tea. However, there was also a giant row of different flavours of premade milk tea beverages; like getting a bottled tea latte, but more authentically milk tea. There were easily a dozen different options, but I restrained myself and started by picking the two most interesting sounding ones…

So; to drink this you literally just chill it and then it comes with a straw that gets stabbed into a foil top and you have a milk tea ready to go! It’s kinda cool, and I could definitely see myself getting hooked on these are a convenient RTD format – given my love of milk/bubble tea. I was most intrigued by this toffee flavour, and it was actually REALLY impressive! The coolest part, by far, is that it does actually taste like tea! Not necessarily the most impressive/highest quality tea, but there’s a distinct black tea flavour that already puts this quite a step above most milk/bubble tea that you’d be getting from the average shop. The toffee flavour isn’t shabby either; it’s pretty dense and rich – not a “high note” kind of caramel like you’d get from caramel sundae syrup type caramel/toffee but more of that buttery, browned/caramelized sugar type of toffee with an almost treacle-y quality. I liked this a lot and I’d wager I’m not alone in that; of all the flavours at the shop this was the one that looked to be the most purchased/shopped through.

I’d buy this again, for sure.