Taiwan - 98 Reviews

Sheryl, there isn't enough coffee to make two cups. I know how you get when you don't have your coffee but I too need the energy to make it through the morning. Perhaps we compromise with the following scenario. We take the coffee, we split it right down the middle. Then we take a little bit of creamer and a little bit of sugar to fill up the cup a bit more. Then, since we aren't going to make a coffee with fifty percent coffee and fifty percent milk, we are going to do about a fifty-fifty split milk and water to fill it. Yes, it will cut down on the coffee flavor and it will taste like watered down coffee but hey, we both need what we need, right Sheryl? You agree to this agreement? Let's have a marital shake on it. There we go. Let's take our "probably worst cup of coffee we will ever have" and go to our separate works. I love you, Sheryl. Sorry today's coffee sucks. Let's blame it on our twenty-four year old son who refuses to "conform to society" and instead, doesn't work and drinks all our coffee and sleeps in the basement. I swear, if I have to hear that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis song about the Salvation Army one more time, I'm going to take all his stuff and donate it there since he loves it so much. That'll show that kid. Well, then he'll just spend more time here to acquire more stuff to move out with. Sheryl, he's never leaving, is he? Can't we live our own lives? Why can't we live our own lives, Sheryl. Sheryl? When can we live our own lives?!?!?

When we were at the Asian market, Jay asked if I wanted this pandan leaf drink. I heard "panda meat" and although I knew that wasn't true, I wanted it nonetheless. I'm not surprised they don't have meat-flavored drinks but they're close with Clamato and I had a Goya with clam in it that wasn't half bad. It was like a briny V8. This, on the other hand, was not as good as the other grass jelly drinks I have had. It smelled and tasted like corn cereal. I don't know what pandan leaf is. The crude illustration on the can makes me believe that it looks like an aloe leaf but this didn't taste like aloe at all. There is cornstarch in this drink, which seems odd to me. What business does cornstarch have in a drink? I can't think of one.

Flavor aside, I missed the chunks. This had aloe-esque chunks in it rather than the generous chunks that I wanted and expected and expected my intern to drink. He got off easy today. Better luck next time, malicious me.

There were two things Johnny Snake Eyes loved in life: his switchblade and his dice. To be fair, he really only pretended to care about his blade to give him a tough appearance. He really just lived for his six sided friends. You could almost always find him in some back alley or subway platform running a game of bones. It was more than a game to him. It was a science. He knew the laws of probability and used it to advantage to always come out on top.

He took his love of the game to new levels. The only ate vegetables if they were diced. He would only take a dare if someone said it was dicey. Most importantly for our reading audience, he always had a bottle of Sappe Aloe Vera drink on him. The reason was that the aloe chunks in it were not only diced, but they were actually the exact size of his beloved shakers. Seriously, the chunks are that big and they are wonderful. His particularly enjoyed the apple variety. When he first picked up a bottle (he won it in a game of cee-lo from a worker in an Asian bodega) he had expected it to have that terrible fake apple taste, that is so specific, but in reality tastes nothing like fruit. Luckily the odds of probability were in his favor, and it did taste more like a real apple. The sugar gave it a little bit of a candied flavor, but it was mostly fruit. For that he was thankful.

Next time he's in that area, he plans on playing the shop keep again for a different flavor. It may be a while though because the comic book store that sits beside it always has a gaggle of nerds outside that always challenge him with their twenty sided die, and Johnny Snake Eyes just doesn't roll that way.

Welcome to Tea Shop 168 where we have 168 different flavors of tea. I know it's a bit overwhelming making your choice, but I'll let you in on a secret: 142 of the flavors are different blends of green tea that pretty much taste identical unless you went to school for teaology. I don't really believe that's a real major, but the owners assure me they are teaologists. They probably went to Evergreen in Olympia…€¦hippies.

I know 27 different varieties of tea can still be a bit much to choose from, so may I suggest you try our aloe vera green tea fusion? It's an interesting ride. Some say that it is just green tea with aloe chunks thrown in. Those people are just dumb. I know. I make the tea and I can assure you that there is also aloe vera juice in it. It is mostly green tea, but you can still definitely taste the aloe juice. It's strange having a slightly bitter aloe drink, and the chunks have a fairly different flavor from what you're probably used to, assuming that you have had aloe drinks before. Oh you haven't? Well aloe essentially tastes like a light white grape juice with a little something extra to it. It's delicious, and I can't sing it's praises enough.

So yeah, this is unusual and fun. It certainly isn't mind blowing, but when you're choosing either this or some tea infused with raw meat, it's the choice to make. Teaology…€¦What a joke. The owners just soak random foods in green tea and act like they are scientists. They don't even wear lab coats or goggles. Lamers.

ps. I just discovered that Tea Shop 168 is an actual tea shop with a physical stores all throughout Ontario. AS far as I know they do not have 142 different types of green tea. Also, I can only assume that they do have roast beef tea, as their website does not explicitly state that they do not. Don't forget your horseradish.

Children, gather around the fire and I shall tell you a tale. It is the story of fruit tea. It is a tale as old as time and this is how it goes: some people were thirsty so they decided to brew some tea. They wanted to make it a bit more exciting than their normal afternoon beverage so them juiced some passionfruit into it. The end. I know it is a short story and not exciting in the least bit. There were no lions, or robots, or robots that turned into lions and breathed fire out of their butt, but it is a story nonetheless. If you have a problem with my story, then I shall offer you a sip of my tea and that will shut you right up. It is sweet and flavorsome. If you've ever had passionfruit bubble tea than you know exactly how this tastes. Green tea used in bubble tea has a specific taste and that is exactly what is in this bottle. If you're not a fool then you got it with passionfruit, because it is the king of fruits, or at least is in a Game of Thrones type war for the crown. How on Earth did a television show written explicitly for nerds gain such a normal audience? I think it's the promise of dragons and zombies. Perhaps there will even be an undead dragon. Or an undead robotic lion that shoots fire out of its butt. I would watch that and drink a gallon of this tea as I did so.

Ahh, the "other/weird" category of Thirsty Dudes. Most of the stuff isn't domestic so we have to travel and discover this stuff. This was quite the unexpected discovery, I must say.

I had a handful of people try this and here are some of the one sentence reviews that have been provided to me:

• It tastes like plastic.


• It tastes like grass.


• It tastes like pool water.


• I can't get past the texture.

I don't know what the flavor/ingredient of a"groud" and if I had to guess, I would fail. This drink is semi-gelatinous and really tastes like a goopy brown sugar drink. It's not at all offensive and is very smooth both in flavor and texture. It's not completely gross but I can understand how it is off-putting. It's a chunky drink and that is hard for people to take. It's not particularly great or even good. It's not bad, either. It's just kind of...there. It doesn't taste like much. Between that and the fact that most people just can't accept the texture, I can't give this a high rating. The texture caught me by surprise and I usually like stuff like this.

Do you remember the Nestle Quik bunny, aka Quiky? From the 70s to the 90s he worked promoting the Nesquik powders used to flavor milk. He got all caught up in the glamour and in 2001 he hit rock bottom. The drugs, the interspecial relationships, he realized it was all to much for him and that he needed to walk away. Nestle hired a new rabbit (Nesquik) and most of the world never noticed the difference. Fame can do strange things to a bunny, and it takes a big rabbit to know when to extradite yourself from a situation.

Quiky spent a few years traveling the globe trying to find himself. He got clean, and adopted the vegan lifestyle. While visiting Taiwan he met up with the folks at Mong Lee Shang and he worked with them to create an incredible strawberry soymilk. It was essentially the old Nesquik strawberry powder from the 70s mixed in with soymilk, but it was a taste that Quiky had missed and he never thought he would have again. For some reason the company insisted on adding tapioca balls to the drink. Quiky didn't know why, but he had to admit that they added an element of fun to the drink and didn't really havea taste of their own.

Things were looking up for our bunny friend. He was set to appear as spokesperson for this new drink, and the company promised to keep it wholesome. Everything fell apart though when he found out that the drink actually contained caseinate (milk protein), and that it wasn't really vegan at all. Quiky felt like he had been duped and he walked out of the offices of Mong Lee Shang never to be heard from again.

Steve, why did you start brewing the green tea out in the yard? You didn't like the way it made the house smell? Well that is just dumb. Brewing tea smells delicious. In fact I always look forward to coming home from work so I can open up the door and be greeted by that wonderful aroma. Now, my second question; why did you start brewing the green tea out in the yard in the middle of the bee apiary? Oh, that's the only place it would fit where it wouldn't be in the way of your croquet game. I guess that's understandable, but tell me this did you clean the vats out between batches? I mean I know I probably shouldn't have left you in charge for the two months that I was on vacation, but I leave a life of leisure and I need to do that from time to time. The thing is that the bees seemed to have incorporated the vats into their hives and if we want to sell any of this tea we're going to have to filter out the honeycombs and dead bees. Let's just do that and never mention this to anyone else. I just hope the tale of this doesn't end up on some dumb website.

Steve, we've somehow brewed a tea that tastes exactly like Asian green tea. I don't know how to explain the difference between the green tea I brew from a tea bag and the kind you get in a Chinese restaurant, but this is way more like the latter. The bee residue that we filtered out actually gives this a little bit of a honey flavor. I personally like my green tea unsweetened, but I think a lot of people would be into this. It has a medium level of sweetness, which is what many people need for a stepping-stone to the world of unsweetened teas. Your blunder may have actually been a gateway to a healthier America. Good job, son.

Blasted ladyfingers. Why? Why do you have to ruin a perfectly good dessert with rum? You turds. Why? I don't eat things cooked in or with alcohol so when I found out that tiramisu swam in the lake of Cap'n Morgan, I swore off the sweet treat for eternity. Honestly, I never was that crazy about it to begin with so not eating it doesn't really affect me but when I came across this little guy in a wondrous Asian market in Toronto with the Thirsty Dude called Jay, I had to buy it.

This drink tastes like tiramisu. It's odd. Cake flavored drink. Oh, I'm sorry, have you had one before? We've had ice cream flavored drinks, Masala flavored drinks, corn flavored drinks, but never cake. Why not? It seems to not be a problem for these guys. Maybe a chocolate cake tea would be nice. Try it. This tea tastes like the cake it's supposed to. I know it's a novel idea since it's a self-proclaimed "Tiramisu" flavored but we drink stuff all the time that doesn't taste like it's supposed to and this isn't exactly a "regular" drink so it could have gone either way. As far as the "milk tea" thing goes, it's more milk than tea but they're both there. A black tea powder (odd) and a skim milk (not odd) make up the base of this.

Also, it should be pointed out that one carton of this is about as bad for you as a slice of real tiramisu so if you are looking for a replacement, this is it, but if you're looking to save on calories, don't bother and eat real cake. If you've got your jaw wired shut like Kanye West before he felt the need to make up for lost time and never shut up, this is your go-to-guy.

First things first with a name like Chin Chin this makes me think that monkeys either make it or they serve it. I don't think I've ever watched or read anything with a monkey names Chin Chin, so I have no idea where this thought is coming from, but I just can't shake it.

If there is a monkey that makes this juice, he/she needs to step up their game. This is a decent enough juice, but most guava juices are through the roof good. This is just decent. It's just a bit more watered down than others and there is a tad too much sugar added for my liking. I urge someone who knows sign language to tell this chimp to fix these issues or else they will be shot into space. No one wants to be shot into space. It's scary there.

If you've never had the joy of trying bubble tea, let me try and explain it for you. It starts off with a nice black or green tea (I personally always go for the green), then a shot of syrup or powder flavoring is mixed in. These flavors can be all over the map, there are fruits such as kiwi and guava, there is chocolate, there is even taro root. I've never had a flavor that I haven't liked. There are some that are milk based as well, but who really needs to mess with something like that?

One would think that this would be enough to have a nice flavored tea, but one would also be wrong. The true joy of bubble tea is the “bubbles,” which aren't bubbles at all but pearls of tapioca. I understand that it sounds completely disgusting and I was hesitant to try it at first myself, but they are wonderful and incredibly fun. The tapioca balls are fairly flavorless, so they just add a texture and entertainment (they make the best spit balls you have ever seen). The first time I had bubble tea I didn't realize you were supposed to chew the pearls, so like the idiot I am I swallowed them whole and felt terrible afterwards. After a whole lot of mocking from my friends I tried it again and with some chewing I grew to love it. I bet you will too.

Why am I talking so much about this Asian delicacy? Well that would be because this tea tastes exactly like my flavor of choice at my local bubblery. 95% of the time when I get bubble tea I'm going to go with the passion fruit. What can I say? I have a weakness. I was shocked at how much this tasted exactly like bubble tea, which tastes slightly different than just normal flavored tea. It probably has something to do with the way they flavor it. If this had been poured into a glass with some pearls in it and served to me I would never have guessed that it wasn't from a bubble tea place. It's a very sweet green tea, with a flavor that tastes exactly like passion fruit. It's one of my new favorites. Too bad I've only found it at a market in Toronto.

Also, when I was entering the company information for this review I saw that the web address www.bubbletea123.com was listed on the packaging. It's good to know that my taste buds are working just fine.

I am out on tour again and this is the first time since we started Thirsty Dudes that I am not coming across an obscene amount of drinks that we have yet to review. Where the van would normally be ankle deep in assorted beverages only bottled water takes its place. I was wandering around Montreal, going in various shops and coming up empty handed. You see I was a man with a thirst, but it's been so programmed into my brain that if I'm out of town I can only purchase unreviewed drinks that I could not settle for less. After about five bodegas I found this can of guava juice. Not a bad find at all. I believe guava has actually taken over the top spot in my list of fruits. Yes, I make top five lists for everything. I am a thirty something year old man who is obsessed with music, dumb movies, comics and non-alcoholic drinks; would you expect anything else?

This is a light guava juice. Normally they are very thick and nectar like, but this is very fluid and not as overly sweet as others I've had. I'm just waiting for this fruit to have it's day in the sun. Pomegranate and acai have been in the spotlight for far too long. They need to discover some crazy health benefits for guava so that everything can be flavored with it. The world needs more guava in it. Pray for Mojo.

I find it odd that "drink" is appended to the title of this drink. Is this drink not a tea of the black variety? There are like four ingredients. There are so few ingredients that I will list each and every one. And I read: Water, sugar, black tea, and barley. Done. End. It seems odd that they wouldn't just call it "Black tea with barley" or "Barley Black Tea" like Uni-President did with one of my favorite drinks.

How does this taste? Like cereal. Like if you ate Cheerios with water and drank the milk afterwards. It's not that bad. Perhaps a little too sweet for me, but it's not bad. I don't get a strong black tea taste as the barley cuts right through pretty strongly.

I also don't particularly understand the "The Noir" title of this. Is it a sub-title? Black Tea Drink The Black like people would know what it is. Code name? I don't think there is a line of "Black Tea Drink" drinks that there is a need for another one. This drink is an enigma filled with unanswered questions.

Mike gave me this can of sarsaparilla, and I thought it was the same as the one I had reviewed early on in the history of the site. The can looks pretty much identical, except it's orange instead of red. I can't read the writing so I don't know if there are any subtle differences. I had intended to just sit back and relax with this nice fizzy drink, but when I tried it, it tasted a lot different than I remember. The first can I had tasted very woodsy, with a generic root beer undertone. This one has a light bubblegum flavor with a healthy heaping of licorice root mixed in. It's a weird combo. Some sips I think it's okay and then others I absolutely love it. It's definitely a unique flavor that is worth checking out.

Now the only questions are, “Is this the same stuff as I had before? Am I crazy to think it tastes so wildly different?

Global warming is running rampant. You don't believe me? Well then perhaps you should look at the shifting weather patterns and talk to your local displaced penguin. As a result of it glaciers are melting left and right and scientists have headed north on a mission to find all sorts of things left in their soggy wake. Some of the greatest rewards discovered during “Operation: Encino Man” have been bottles of Kuang Chuan green tea. I mean the government is keeping the whole thing hush hush, but that is the only explanation I can think of as to why this would be called “frozen green tea.” It tastes just like a decent quality unsweetened green tea. There is nothing out of the ordinary about it, but you now what? It doesn't need anything new or different. This is a classic taste that is perfect the way it is. Drinking it right out of the fridge is like pulling it straight from the semi-solid melting ice of the glacier. It's cool, refreshing and just a bit bitter. Who could ask for anything else from a green tea?

I'll take a coffee, please. One sugar. Thanks. Ahh! This coffee is far too hot. Can I put this in your fridge to cool it down? Thank you very much. It smells great, but I just can't sip it without the fear of burning my mouth. We all know that nothing ruins your day like burning the roof of your mouth. Sure, I'd love to go to the mall.

[four hours later]

Did you see the great deal I got on these slacks? It's like I stole them from the store. Oh crudbuckets. I forgot my coffee in your fridge. You know what? I'll drink it. No, you don't need to make me another one. I drink iced coffee at work. What's the difference between that and this? Ice and some fancy but unnecessary syrup? I'm fine with this, thank you very much.

You know what? They must be adding something else I'm missing out on at the coffee shop because this just tastes kind of like cold coffee. I know, I know. It is cold coffee. You know, when I was in Taiwan, they had these tiny but near indestructible cans of coffee by some dude who looked like Dom Delouise called Mr. Brown. This is that, or that is this. Regardless of what it is, I have just created it in your home and now have no need to ever but it again.

This happens all too much. I go somewhere, read the ingredients, get stoked, drink it, and feel instant sorrow. This is a good tea, but don't lie to me. What is the lie? One word that is a secret key to my heart: capsicum. When I read that work, my eyes light up like when you say "boney" or "walk" to a dog and their ears shoot up like tiny, furry radars. Why are they liars? There is no burn in this tea at all. Once again, that's fine, but why add the ingredient if you aren't going to use it to its full potential. Burn my mouth off or at least sting me a little bit.

This tea tastes like a bitter jasmine tea. It's very fragrant and nicely bitter. I like it and would drink it again and again. Also, I would get to drink the whole thing because no one wants to drink anything titled "decomposition tea."

I pose to you a question: When Kurt Russell was escaping from New York, and later L.A. would he have had an easier time if this drink were on hand? Would it have given him the refreshment he needed in such dire situations? Would he have just been able to trade a bottle of this for the president? I can only imagine that pineapples and guavas would be like gold on a prison island. If you lived in an area that was cut off from the world for years and suddenly someone dangled those fruits in front of you, I think you would be surprised as to what you would do to procure it. The joke would be on you though if you traded something as precious at the president for a bottle of this. You see there are four main ingredients in this bottle: aloe vera, pineapple and guava (which are all incredibly delicious), but then you also have sea buckthorn berry. I've never actually had one before, or heard of it until now, but a quick internet search tells me they are extremely healthy an also extremely tart. My question is if they are so tart why does this drink taste like someone took a delicious tropical aloe drink and mixed in a little bit of vegetable soup? There is just this little flavor of soup that makes this whole thing really, really weird. It counters the tropical flavor, and once you realize what the taste reminds you of it's hard to concentrate on any of the other flavors. It's still enjoyable, but it's just a weird drink. Snake Plissken sure pulled a fast one on those cons. Now he just needs to get the president back to his glider.

Oh yeah, in case you didn't already realize it this drink also has chunks of aloe in it. I normally love them, but they kind of add to the vegetable soup scenario in here.

Peter loved peanut butter, or as his mom liked to call it “Peter Butter.” It started with PB&J sandwiches. Then he switched to straight peanut butted on bread, and lots of it. Before he knew it he was hooked on the stuff. He was dipping veggies on it. Eating it with dessert. He even became a regular at a local Thai restaurant because he could get peanut satay there. He consumed more peanut butter than any other substance and it was evident in his physical presence. His mother told him he had to cut down, or else he would turn out to be one of those people that you hear about on the news that is so obese that they can't even leave their bed, and weeks pass before anyone even realizes they are dead. Peter did not want that to be his future, so he started cutting down on his peanut butter intake. It was hard because he loved the flavor so much. His mother worked out a recipe for a drink that would taste like peanut butter, but wouldn't be so terrible health wise. She took rice milk and blended in some peanut butter. Sure it wasn't exactly health food, but it filled the void that the lack of peanut butter had created in Peter's life, while keeping things a tad better for him. At first Peter thought it was strange. He felt like he was drinking a can of the sauce that was on his peanut satay. The more he thought about it, the more it grossed him out. He didn't want to drink sauce. Only degenerates and junkies did things like that. He thereby claimed that he was off the sauce. He didn't want to be a peanut butter junkie anymore. He took the rest of his drink and gave it to the cat, which surprisingly loved it. It's now been ten years and Peter has taken to lying to people about having a peanut allergy, just so he doesn't have people tempting him with his old love.

ps. My cat totally starting drinking this and I had to physically restrain her to get her to stop. Cats love peanuts.

When you were a child, you were adventurous. You were not smart but you were curious and wide-eyed. You thought that mixing stuff was a good idea. You would experiment down all the time with orange juice and milk or lemonade and iced tea or iced tea and milk or Pepsi and Coke or milk and mouthwash. Some of them would be good but most of them would be bad but you didn't stop. You would never stop. You are a kid. You just keep going. Youth is on your side and you will forever mix. You are an amateur mixologist. You are a professional mixologist in the making.

When you were a youth, you thought that it would be a good idea to make a drink out of cereal milk. You would drink it and on very rare occasions you would put it in the fridge and save it for later thinking that it will be just as good as if you drank it immediately preceding finishing a heaping bowl of cereal. One time you had a giant bowl of Honey Comb mixed with Honey Smacks and thought that it might be good to drink. You ate the cereal after letting it marinate in the milk and then thoughtfully and carefully strained some of the extra "bits" out and kept the leftover milk in a glass and threw it in the fridge. For dinner, you sat down with your family to eat a pork chop and drink your concoction. You took one sip and you knew you had something. It was intense in its honey quantity and still had some of that cereal-ness to it. You would make this every day for a week before you eventually moved on to something else Cocoa Puff based.