mine’s a tea, pint thereof
It’s not often I find an item I review on this website that I actually WANT to consume when I spot it in the supermarket. My reasons for buying this rubbish usually stem from a depressing mix of wanting to satisfy the readers of this website and a general disdain for what I put in my body, probably due to that incident in primary school when I played naked long-jump in the school cucumber patch.
Anyway most of the time I flit from aisle to aisle trying to find food items that fit one or more of a few simple criteria:
a) foods that have an Ark of The Covenant-esque level of of face-melting biblical disgustingness, which makes me instinctively say “ooh!” and grab one to put in my basket.
b) foods that have a cartoon character on the packaging that is something arbitrary like a shoe or a fork, complete with a happy smiling face. Not a very sensible criteria point to follow as it comfortably encapsulates all Japanese products, food or otherwise. Ever.
c) food products that fuse seafood and chocolate. I’m yet to find this elusive food but it has become my Holy Grail.
d) foods that rhyme with swear words, or outright have swear words in the title. A lesser Holy Grail would be finding something like “Raisin Bastard Cookies”.
Today’s item didn’t fit clearly with any of those criteria but instead genuinely piqued my curiosity for the first time in a while, screaming “DRINK ME DRINK ME” from it’s glass cabinet like some kind of fricked up Alice In Wonderland acid flashback. “Ok I’ll drink you, I’ll drink you” I reply to the inanimate bottle. “Who are you talking to?” a middle-aged woman next to me asks, at once puzzled and aroused, standing before a background of wild, psychedelic rotating shapes. I turn to her and my mind begins to panic - “why would the Queen of Hearts be here, in Sunny Basket supermarket, at the cooler section?” I ask to myself silently, a cold sweat spreading quickly across my brow. The lady starts to worry, “why…are you looking at me like that?” she asks, treading gingerly backwards. Don’t play coy with me, we both know you are the Queen of Hearts. We both know you must be killed. For the good of the kingdom! I grab the nearest blunt object - an extra-value tub of plain yoghurt. Gritting my teeth I bring it high above my head and thrust it down onto hers. PAFT! The yoghurt carton breaks on impact, sending the gleaming white substance flying as far as the delicatessen counter. My weapon destroyed, I scrabble desperately for anything else nearby to use. The Queen of Hearts begins to sob and cry out. No ma’am, “Frank” can’t help you now. Who is he!? One of your demented, symmetrical footsoldiers? My fingers find a cheese-filled baguette in the nearby discount basket (one end was slightly over-browned, but otherwise a good baguette). Grasping one end of the baguette tightly, I beat the Queen of Hearts until she stops moving, the cheese inside the baguette helping to maintain structural integrity. The Queen of Hearts, her face bloodied and lifeless, seems defiant and unaware of her crimes against the kingdom even in death.
WTFOMGAAFa’’s111!!!1. Anyway unlike such ill-conceived ideas as Carrot au lait which are clearly wrong and disgusting, this beverage teeters erratically on the thin border between being an example of space & time defying genius, and being the hackneyed wet-dream of a socially retarded crackpot. For this, readers of yongfook.com, is ALCOHOLIC TEA exclamation mark exclamation mark one one one. The top picture shows regular tea on the left and the alcoholic tea on the right.
There are two sides to this.
One side is, I like the idea. In fact, I think society should push for alcohol to become a mainstream condiment for tea and coffee, so when you go and order your Triple Almond Foam Deluxe 5% Super Tall Latte at Starbucks you can also give them a nod and they’ll pour in a few measures of tequila too, to enjoy with your freshly baked slice of Opium Gâteaux with LSD sprinkles. That’s what I’m fricking talking about. In fact, everywhere should just sell alcohol and drugs instead of food!! Yeah. I admit I haven’t thought this through much.
However, whilst I do like the idea in general, the whole notion of alcoholic tea is a little unnerving, ethically speaking. It’s an odd combination of two polar opposites that as a tea-loving Brit I know deep within my loins is morally wrong somehow - triggering the same kind of useless spidey-sense-like tingling and mild flop sweat that I get when I see things like a clip-on tie or a napkin that isn’t folded into a perfect Windermere fan. In part, alcoholic tea seems like an awkwardly forced mismatch, equivalent to perhaps Baked Bean-topped canapes or Foie Gras Lunchables.
“Hey mum, these Lunchables taste great!” “yes they are the new Fois Gras Lunchables” “What’s Fois Gras? Is it like taco?” “It’s pureed Goose COCK”
On with the taste test.
Appearance Packaged in a bottle with almost exactly the same colour scheme and branding as it’s non-alcoholic sister (shown in large photo at top) and with only a very small indication near the bottom of the bottle that this is in fact alcohol, this drink is a potential catasrophe waiting to happen, for hapless foreigners like myself and/or people who have an irrational fear of the desecration of beloved cultural institutions, like jazz on CD or someone rubbing their penis all over a crucifix. Imagine the situation where Goldman Sachs Japan’s new foreign hire Rowdy McHenderson MBA - still unable to read much Japanese - mistakenly has a couple of bottles with lunch and unwittingly plunges the nikkei into a crash when he passes out on his keyboard, accidentally sending this mail:
“Well considering the trends I’d recommend you buy up as much large cap stock in Omicron Global as you can when 332343294rewqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq”
to a handful of confused clients.
Other than that it looks like tea. Nice bottle too. 3/5
Taste/Smell Tastes very much like the kind of drink an excited teenager might make by mixing everything in their parent’s liquor cabinet together, taking one sip and then pretending to be “drunk” to make their friends think they are cool. Pre-bottled! So now you can be cooler, faster. I see what tried to happen here. The manufacturers obviously hit some snag early on and discovered that with regular plain tea, the flavour is almost completely destroyed by the alcohol, tea being a rather delicate-tasting liquid. So they bunged some kind of half-arsed fruit flavours in there too for good measure, with the hope of creating “une mariage entre le the fauchon et une eau de vie de fruit“, according to the front of the bottle, this particular bottle being the “apple brandy and herb” variety. Unfortunately the harsh taste of whatever cheap as frick alcohol they are using in this crap still manages to pierce through the taste of the tea and fruit combination, creating not so much a marriage between alcohol and tea, but more a drunken, roofie-induced GANGBANG. 2/5
Fear Factor It’s alcohol and in general, I’ll drink most things at least once. Maybe even two or three if it is free and doesn’t make me go blind. 1/5
Health Implications Not too shabby, apart from all the empty alcohol calories. 2/5
Final Rating Nice idea, executed with tragically low levels of finesse. 2/5
IN OTHER unrelated but still TANTALISINGLY PERTINENT to the MINIONS of yongfook.com NEWS:
I’ve moved to Tokyo. Tokyo is big and grey and there are too many fricking people. I should just go round punching every woman I see in the WOMB so that this place can’t get any more crowded. The trains at rush hours are insane, arriving at the platform with hundreds of people crushed up against the windows, their eyes bulging and blood pouring from their ears, suffocating in the sealed, train-shaped carbon dioxide gas chambers that masquerade as public transport in this soulless metropolis. I fricking LOVE it. I’m living near Kita-Senju (although I may move soon) and I’m working in Shibuya as a web design engineer. If any readers of Yongfook.com live in Tokyo and you aren’t some kind of mental case who has scrawled “YONGFOOK HEART PLEASE TO EAT” over and over again on your toilet walls in crayon and you don’t look like that crooked old lady from the Labyrinth who carried everything she owned on her back, let me know.
Welcome to Tokyo - guess you quit JET early - am wishing with every day that I had done the same…
omg, jon, you don’t know how much I was thrilled to find that alcoholic tea on your website! lol
Be forewarned, a passel of JETs are going to be in Tokyo from the 6th to the 8th for the Recontracting Seminar. In other words, easy lays at the Keio Plaza Hotel.
why don’t you review other japanese stuff like funny song lyrics, album covers, funny stores or anything else?
you should go on a quest for the best hat in japan
Slightly off topic, have they started to ship Starbuck’s coffee liquor to Japan yet? It’s bottled in partnership with Jim Bean (and has pissed off a bunch of “you can’t sell that if you sell coffee!” even though they never carry it in their stores… something about ‘Kids will think it’s OK to drink liquor b/c they already drink coffee with your name on it’ or some bunk.)
Pretty good stuff, tho. And enjoy the City :D
I’m going to Japan to teach English early next year and am trying to decide whether to go to Tokyo. Some people think it ‘needs to be done.’ I people think it will make me want to kill people in the face.
Jet chaps help me out: Tokyo, or not Tokyo?
Just out of curiousity, do they know of the alcoholic drink called the Long Island Iced Tea over there?
of course they do clever clogs, but Long Island Iced Tea doesn’t actually have any tea in it.
Love your new appartment! Yes, I stole your underwear. It killed my cat, bastard.
Love, stalker
Ooooh, come and booze with me in early July! It’s my birthday………
Welcome to Tokyo mate! So about that beer then.
thought you poms ALWAYS added alcohol to your tea…
i would have thought that as a brit you’d love the combo of alcohol n tea! after all they’re the two mainstays of the british beverage industry…
The English (as opposed to these generic “Brits” that I keep hearing about) do not like to mix things in general - this explains the lack of rich variety in English “cuisine”, only alleviated by the fruits of colonial expansion - and the sacred tea is certainly one of them. That is why alcohol in coffee is called Irish coffee, and frowned upon by decent people. As a Scotsman myself, however, I have of course tried a dram of whisky in my morning tea and discoverd the other reason that it has not become a popular cosmopolitan cocktail. It tastes absolutely foul. In the interests of fairness I tried it with English Breakfast, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Orange Pekoe, Jasmine Lotus Blossom etc etc. S’all the bloody same - pukesville. Maybe without milk…?
Have you tried apple brandy and herb though?
Intensecure, what kind of whisky did you use? I’ve found in general, that Scottish whisky (Cutty Sark, Gran Mariner) are extremely foul and leave you feeling on the brink of death the next day.
i once heard, that early asian cultures advantaged the european ones, because their method of making drinks free of evil bacteria and stuff was cooking water and add herbs wich may have - in most cases - resulted in something like tea. in europe the trick was to add alcohol in everything, wich kills germs (germans, haha) but neurons, too. so modern global society has made the final step: combining the basic recipes of survival to a dubius pop-style-leisure-time-fun-drink. congratulations, mankind.
It’s an evil ploy concocted by the Europeans to make Asians dumber!
@David - are you implying that there is any kind of whisky other than Scottish Whisky? ;) And wtf is Gran Mariner? Are you getting confused? ;) One simply uses Johnny Walker Blue Label, or Black (or Chivas) if one is impoverished. It would be a crime against nature to use a single malt. And never tell a Scotsman that Scottish Whisky “in general” is “extremely foul” unless you enjoy being force-fed haggis - which IS extremely foul. And it is precisely because you are feeling like death in the morning that you require the whisky in the tea ;) Hoots.
well i live in tokyo and only have youngfook related obscenities scrawled on my living room walls … does that discount me? mind you… the crayon’s clashing with the carpet .. i might change it…
i’m at school in shibuya. if you see a someone laying into hapless commuters with bread products, cheese filled or otherwise (although i do think the sealed peanut butter ones have a nice surprise effect) on the yamanote, that’d be me. feel free to join in.
Do you often jazz over your CDs?
Intensecure: Hahah, Gran Mariner (or something like that) is a whiskey that i found in the local booze shop (i live in montreal, canada). It said ’scotish whisky’ on the bottle, but who knows how true that is. Johnny Walker is just fucking amazing, straight or with a chaser. I usually get Red…Cutty sark turned me into mush… Damn ye scottish….i kid, of course. Keep churning out the killer booze!
…hhhehe. alcohole…rules…world…hehehehjee…hhehehe…whiskey…musharigadumdigumdaaaaaa….uhh….welll..whiskey…youknow.stufff…welll…you know… well … welll…..
heheeejee….me spoiles esign… me…happy… destructivism,,,, anarchic…me…….ehhhehhehheehhhehhhehhheh
Hope you find ur holy grail soon, or perhaps a review on raisin bastard cookies will be interesting, the name would be enough to make you eat it
I’m thinking “Joy Super-Cold Squid Stick-now with Lilac!” might be just the thing. Thanks for many laughs and loads of useful information.
Silly boy. We have Vodka + Green Tea koktails here in Singapore. It’s disgusting, but it’s vodka, taste like green tea.
Dear Intensecure
You nearly made me sick when you ask “Maybe without milk…?” when milk comes in contact with most alcohol it sours and curdles. it curdles fast when it is closer to a cream.
ever heard of and Irish Car Bomb?
it is the same idea the cream curdles and is gross i hope you didn’t get a belly ache doing that.
I should have read this review earlier. Alcohol and tea doesn’t sound bad theoretically, but personal experience has taught me otherwise. I am one of just a few people who have at least once purposely put alcohol in their tea. I carefully carted bottle of Chartreuse home in my luggage after a trip to France. When I actually tasted the stuff, my first reaction was to scream ‘WTF!’ and rip my tongue out. I did neither, instead I thought to myself that I was only happy that I hadn’t bought a larger bottle. I asked a French friend how anyone could possibly drink even a scant trace of chartreuse. He told me that some people (emphasis on SOME) in France drink it in their tea. I for one like my tea strong, a general rule for me is to let the tea steep for 15 minutes. Most people can’t understand this, but I do. I added an ounce of chartreuse to my tea one evening. The tea did nothing to mask the taste of chartreuse. I quickly abandoned the idea of doing how the French do, and quickly put the bottlte at the back of my liquor cabinet.
Welcome to Tokyo. As for a precedent to nasty alcohol-tea drinks, Japanese old men (and me when I wanna get drunk fast) have been drinking tea mixed with shochu, a starch liquor, for ages. It’s not half bad, considering shochu’s direct translation is ‘burning alcohol’
if u really want a food that combines seafood and chocolate, then u need 2 be in new zealand, not japan- there’s a deli down south that sells genuine chocolate fish, with salmon. btw, i think chocolate fish r a kinda nz thing… usually they’re marshmellow covered in chocolate.
my fave crazy japanese drink is pokari sweat. yum, sweat! tastes foul tho.
love your website and pics. Would you send me your dirty underwear and socks?