The twelfth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Orange and Mandarin Orange Juice

Ok, this is an easy one, right? Two types of orange juice, one a little sweeter than the other, to balance out.

But then you pour it, and it is filled with pulp that looks like little seeds of wheat floating on top, like dead fish floating in a tank of water. And then you smell it. And realize something is off......It has a strange smell of red beans in it, and I have no idea why. The flavor is a little red-beany, too, but still mostly orange. But strangely, red bean is not listed as an ingredient. Not awful - it is drinkable - but not what I expected, in a bad way. Meh!

The consumer experience

1) How do I get to pack so lightly on my trips back to the US? Because I use said trips as an excuse to go load up at the Gap for clothes in my size. People in the US may find it hard to believe, but clothes in the US are incredibly cheap for the most part, if you buy new. (Overseas, if you want, you can stop at street stalls and dig through bin after bin of usually used clothes, though rarely to they have anything in larger sizes.)

Well, the Gap finally reopened here in HK, in a prime downtown location. (Rumor had Gap having a small shop here that closed nearly a decade ago). They have some jeans, a few men's shirts, but not a ton like in the US, but at least I can get stuff with a 36 waist now. Still, they are more expensive than the US, but not as bad as the mainland store, where a pair of regular jeans goes for about $100 US: Yes, Gap is a luxury brand there, it seems.

It does continue the trend of some US stores expanding their footprint here; for years, Starbucks (which is operated by a conglomerate here under a franchise agreement) is ever-growing here. (It always is fun hearing the baristas yell out an order for a "laaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh-tay!"). Burger King is growing. And more random US products are showing up in stores. I can now get Anchor Steam beer at a gweilo store.

Clothes, though still vex. An ex-coworker just took a job with us; he is moving from Abu Dhabi, where he worked. There are lots of US stores there - department stores, Banana Republics, Gaps - but good luck finding clothes in US sizes there. The universal complaint of us Westerners: Shoes. It is hard to find any shoe overseas in a size over a US 10.

Oh, but the friend is looking forward to living in a place where you can buy pork openly. You can buy it in Abu Dhabi, he says, but in two shops, and it is like porn in the US: available, but kept out of sight, in a hush-hush sort of way.

2) Construction continues behind my house. They are now knocking down the residential building behind me. This cannot be good.

3) In Hong Kong, you can tell the quality of store by the quality of Christmas music: the better malls have free-form jazz christmas tunes, or old-school swing versions, while cheaper stores have the god-awful kids-singing-Frosty-The-Snowman songs playing. It got so bad with the latter at work - where they have two songs playing over and over all day in the hallways - that a coworker burned a CD to give to building management to mix it up with, which they did for a day to appease him.

4) After six years here, I still do not excited about a trip until the morning of. As I type this, I am three hours from a flight to Hawaii, and it only is hitting me now: I am meeting family in Maui, and not cold Wisconsin, for Christmas. Woot!

5) Three weeks after running a 10k in Cambodia, my knee is finally settling down. I realize now two things: a) I need to drop 20 pounds for the good of the knee and b) I will never run again on a regular basis. I will miss it tons, as I loved the dozen or so years I did run, but I'll still do the occasional 5 or 10k. Looking forward to the 10k in Cambodia again next year!

The eleventh day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Nacchan Peach and Blueberry

Yeah, it pretty much tastes like you expect it would, despite it coming in a weird beige-peach color. Mostly peach in the smell, but like a ripe peach, not the artificial peach flavor, strangely enough: now they are perfecting artificial smells not to smell artificial! Very similar to peach juice that Japan does better than anyone, but thinned down with a little bit of a milk flavor too; imagine taking peach juice, adding water and about 10 percent blueberry ice cream, and this is what you get. Awesome!

The tenth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Pokka Pudding Shake Drink

Well, a new one for this series: the first drink I had to eat with a spoon. That is how much poured out of the can after a half-minute of pouring. I thought it just might be cold, but after warming up for 10 minutes, I got another half teaspoonful to pour out.

Most beverages have water near the main list of ingredients. Not this: Milk, sugar, skimmed milk powder, whole milk powder, dextrine, caramel syrup, egg yolk, salt, thickener and flavor.

Despite all this, there is very little flavor. Just a little bit of vanilla, a little bit of egg, but not much of either. The texture looks like a pudding that has not cooked fully; it is not fully blended, but a beige-pink cream that has oily globules streaked throughout. It's not horrible - imagine 25 percent putting mixed with 70 percent milk, with 5 percent bad, fake industrial caramel. A little vanilla, too. It's not inedible or atrocious. It's just that there is better pudding out there. Like cups where a) it tastes like real pudding and b) where you can scoop it all out easily, instead of only being able to eat 20 percent because it is all stuck in a can.

Pass.

The ninth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Tomina Calcium Palour

When I first picked this up, I thought it was a mixed fruit drink. the label is a mix of images of apples, pears, and a mystery round orange fruit that could be an apple or a lemon or something else.

Then I read the label and had no idea what it would be. But it smells great, like an orange creamsicle or some drink from Orange Julius in the 80s or 90s. And it tastes even better. There is the creamsicle flavor, just a little bit of yogurt, some apple sweetness, but the acidity of orange juice. Which makes sense, when the ingredients are apple, pear, lemon, sugar, fermented milk, apple vinegar, stabilizer, acid and flavor. Not a bad drink for an afternoon-pick me up, I think. Like running to an Orange Julius, without the time travel.

The eighth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Pomelo Juice

Ah, Koichi Ice company. You just made my holiday season. I have always liked pomelos, and feel sad for my friends in the US who cannot get said fruit. Imagine a mixture between grapefruits and bubble wrap in texture - like a big, oversized grapefruit, where eating it is like popping bubble wrap - and a flavor between grapes and grapefruit: a little tart, a little sweet, but not too much on either end.

And bonus: it comes with its own straw!

This is proof that simplicity is best. This beverage is just pomelo juice and beet sugar. Imagine a sweet grapefruit juice thinned out to have its normal level, with no pulp and a velvety consistency. It's got a little bit of white grape juice mixed in, too. Easily my favorite of the year so far, maybe one of the best ever. It even has a little hint of Aquarius, the sports drink in Japan that I love so much.

Perfect for a fruit salad, or ice cream, I would say.

The seventh day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Mild Coffee.

Despite being mild coffee, it has a whole heckuva lot more ingredients than UCC coffee, the first beverage this year, which had two. This has milk, sugar, coffee, skimmed milk, powdered whole milk, flavor, flavoring emulsifiers and thickeners.

Sapporo Ueshima Coffee Co. Ltd needs to simplify a little bit. While the coffee smells like a pot of coffee that has been sitting on the burner for about an hour, the flavor isn't that. Instead, the flavor is mostly - surprise! - sweetened milk. Really, really sweet milk, like the local milk here in hong kong, which lacks a real milk flavor in favor of sweetness.

That said, there is a little more milk flavor in this than in local milk, but really no coffee, which is kinda what I am hoping for. The drink is not bad, if you are looking for sweetened milk with a very slight edge. But if you want coffee, look elsewhere.

What I would serve it with: about 2 shots of espresso, mixed in, to give it punch.

The sixth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Suntory Ginger Honey Lemon

I have to say, I'm not the world's biggest fan of ginger. Pickled ginger with sushi, I am a fan of. But as a straight up flavor, I can take it or leave it. I don't dislike it, but I don't go out of the way to put it in dishes. I expected this drink to be tealike, but instead it's a soda with just a bit too much ginger and some flat lemon-honey tea. It's a little too sweet, a little too spicy from the ginger to be enjoyable. Meh.

The fifth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Shizuoka cola

The most intriguing of the drinks so far. It almost pours with a head, like beer, that still lingers after 10 minutes. A strange mix of olive and lime green, and a flavor that mixes lime soda, green apples, and Mr. Clean or some other cleaning agent. Essentially, it's a lime soda with green tea extract. Very crisp, enough sweetness, but not too much; it doesn't stick to the teeth like coke does. Carbonated lime/tea soda. Whoda thunk it would work?

The fourth day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

White Nata de Coco (White yogurt drink)

Really, it's more of a cream soda than a yogurt drink. A cream soda loaded up with vanilla flavor, and little chunks of gelatin at the bottom. Maybe 10 percent thin yogurt at most, I would say. Nothing freaky, beyond the usual jokes you could make with it. And while it is one of the "pocket juicer stand" drinks, I fail to see any juice in here, unless there is some coconut. Nice, inoffensive, and screaming for some rum to be thrown in.

The third day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Kamen Cyder

I may have done something like this before. I think HK does not mandate you put water as an ingredient in drinks, as its makeup is listed as high fructose corn syrup, flavor and acidity regulator. The Osaka-based company that makes this is not really forthcoming, though if I read Japanese, I might know more. It's another can dressed up like Ultraman or another Japanese robot fighter, and the taste is pretty smooth, like a 7-Up with apple and a little bit of lime in the back. Not really carbonated much, but boy, does that corn syrup stick to your teeth. Very refreshing, mixes the light/heavy mouthfeel just right. It's the perfect mix between a soda and a cider.

The second day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

Asahi 0061 Oshiruku

I've learned to like some things while overseas. I now like cucumbers, even in sandwiches. I can do chicken cartilage when in the mood. Heck, I am enjoying some fish while in the right mood. And I am even eating tomatoes every so often. Oh, and beans; I am starting to enjoy white beans in dishes.

Red beans, though, still are not for me. Kidney beans taste awful, and the texture is worse. And considering that the red bean is used in a lot of sweets and baked goods and desserts over here, I am limited sometimes on dessert. Better to go without than to eat red beans in gelatin.

But I need to try some offbeat stuff with the beverages of christmas, so I picked up this red bean drink. Here's the top ingredinets: Sugar, vine red beans, haricot beans, red beans, salt, stabilizer, emulsifier, cellulose and stabilizer again.

It smells like a weird mix of beans, chocolate and a little bit of vomit, which then turns into the dank smell of an unfinished basement. The texture? Well, check out the two pictures above: I made the mistake of not shaking it up, so the first liquid half poured out, then all the solid chunks got caught up there.

The smell, though, turns out to be the worst part. The drink looks like an oily hot chocolate, with a think layer of clear liquid on top, and tiny particles of bean matter floating in it. The drink is not as bad as I thought; imagine a watery chocolate milk mixed with about 20 percent bean flavor mixed in. The beans are supplementary, not dominant. You could drink it if you had to - it's sweet enough to let you - but uggh.

A can of pureed beans and sugar. Not for me.

The first day of the 12 Japanese (department store) beverages of Chrsitmas, 2011

I was oh-so-close this year to forgetting all about the annual tradition, but remembered with just a day to spare. (Or two; I bought the beverages last night, and the last one should auto-post on Christmas Eve Day while I am sunning myself in Maui. Wheeeee!)

A slight change in name this year: While I think all of the beverages are Japanese, I realized that some I bought in the past were made in Taiwan by Japanese companies. But all this year were bought at Sogo (Which, truth be told, is a licensed version of the venerable department store chain and not part of it per se. Think McDonald's, how the company owns some, but franchises most.)

Also, I searched, but really could not find any really weird beverages that I did not try already. No use duplicating corn potash beverage made by a different company!

The initial 6.

Day 1: Blue Mountain blended coffee by UCC.

The Japanese love coffee. Loooooooove coffee. Not necessarily fancy concoctions made with 4 flavored syrups and 3 versions of milk and or foam, but simple coffee, brewed in the finest way possible. They are the world's biggest market for high end - really high end - beans, and most vending machines have coffee-related drinks as at least 20 percent of their options.

And sometimes, simplicity is good. The drink by Kobe-based UCC has two ingredients: Water and coffee. That's it. So I guess it's blended with water. But oh, this is good. Put cold, on ice, there really is no lingering bitterness with the coffee, just pure jolty goodness. The aroma is of moist coffee grounds, like when you pull out a filter. Maybe just a little bit of red beans in the flavor?

What I'd use this for: Easy; first thing in the morning, or in the middle of the afternoon. I wouldn't spoil this with rum or Bailey's or anything like that.