In a further attempt at understanding the travails of the digestively impaired, I tried a lactose-free, cocoa-flavored rendition of this popular beverage. Not for the first time, but definitely for the last.
Imagine (in order of appearance) corn oil + corn syrup + ‘vitamin taste’ + cocoa powder.
I know that this is a helpful little “chocolate shake”… but I’m sure that anyone who must drink the stuff for any duration becomes quickly oblivious to the vexing falsehood of Ensure’s slogan.
I would have been ecstatic over this really, really good cocoa cream soda two months ago. Obviously made by sodaphiles (pure cane sugar: 2nd ingredient) it’s got a very rich and sweet chocolate flavor (that’s what cocoa is, you see) and a respectable pedigree (first produced in 1929).
…But, that XTZ coffee-cola-cocoa soda that I had recently tastes just as good as this drink, and has the added benefit of being loaded with caffeine.
Now this one just seems like a decaf version. And plain.
The positive side is that the Whooppee will outlive the XTZ drink by decades, most certainly. Then I can enjoy this fine beverage without the complication of comparison.
Because this drink is still in the test market stage,
I can’t get a picture of the bottle online.
Not even at the manufacturer’s website!
That’s unfortunate for these purposes –
because the label is all you would really need
by way of description.
Other XTZ products are quite good –
and I highly recommend them ( http://www.xtz.com/ ).
This item outshines them all!
BECAUSE THIS IS COFFEE-COCOA-COLA.
XTZ KAFFÉ.
Allow me, please, to list some of the ingredients
(in order of appearance):
“CARBONATED WATER…BREWED COFFEE, CAFFEINE, COCOA,
HERBS (KOLA NUT, GINSENG, GUARANA, MATÉ, GINKGO BILOBA)”.
But never mind all of that. It really tastes really good.
Very smooth, with all of the important
constituent ingredients present in the overall flavor;
none drowning out the others.
Coffee is certainly most prominent,
cocoa second, cola third.
So, if you see it – buy it right away.
Don’t put it off.
The history of carbonated coffee drinks
is 100% obituaries.
Not from a factory!
The past couple of days have involved more experiments with grinding Samoan cacao beans into my espresso powder than anything else. Unroasted chocolate seeds have a different consistency than roasted coffee beans, and I think my espresso-maker’s response to the change is unfavorable.
I think the machine is going to blow up.
Also, you might be surprised at this – but the results so far are not tasty.
This cocoa admixture requires me to put sugar in my coffee, since cacao beans are so inherently bitter. I don’t normally put sugar in my coffee at all – and the only sweetener I’ve got around my house is this “molasses brown sugar” which is really just a solid form of molasses. I mean it is molasses, but solid. So now imagine the drink: Extremely dark-roasted espresso, with varying proportions of unroasted cacao beans added, sweetened with molasses. It’s a “man’s drink”.
I might as well throw in beef bouillon.
Also, I drank (nearly!) all of a two-litre bottle of Brazilia brand
“Natural Fruit Guaraná – The Best From Brazil”.
Actually, I’m fairly certain that Brazil can do better than this.
It is one of the cheap ones, which are usually very ‘fruity’, with a high sugar content,
and a distinct taste of “caramel coloring”. What is caramel coloring made from? Anyhow – it has a greatest packaging!
How many drinks have you had with a map on the label?
Also, I had some of my Azeri pomegranate juice – which is excellent!
You can tell how good it by all the sediment on the bottom. Primary indicator.
Also, someone just gave me some expensive loose tea to try, which he said is
called “ting ____something…”.
Like any good tea, it seems to taste like subtly-flavored hot water.
Now, at least I know better than to use tea bags when it can be avoided – but my problem is that, being a tea novice, I usually try hard to make my tea taste as much like four shots of espresso as possible. That is to say, not subtle. I also do not fully appreciate the aesthetic of Persian rugs.
I am ashamed of my crudity and lack of class.
(Speaking of class…)
Also, last night, the people at the Taco Bell drive-thru thought it would be funny – when I asked for “the smallest Mountain Dew Code Red you can give me” – to give me that drink in a little, plastic, clear container intended for dipping sauce. It was that small. This was a gag that the bored employees at the Taco Bell third shift will probably remember for the rest of their lives. And I have to admit that it seemed nothing short of PURE GENIUS, after having listened to David Sedaris read his stories for an hour-and-a-half just prior. Thanks, Taco Bell #136!
“But what did it taste like!” you ask?
Who cares about carbonated fruit punch?
After dinner the objective was to go shop for clothes – a commodity that I rarely invest in.
Trying on pair of pants after pair of pants after pair of pants is no fun at all.
It makes you tired, and you don’t often discover valuables in the pockets of
your new finds; you may find a chicken bone instead!
Thankfully, I was in a part of town where I was easily distracted by “ethnic groceries”.
There was the Samoan shop that had cacao (that’s chocolate) beans, which you are supposed to roast, and sugar, and make a drink out of. The Samoan ladies were very instructive on the finer points of the process, but I wonder if they eat them raw instead, too? I do.
Then there was the Russian grocery where I bought several different bottles of juice from several different countries: cherry juice (Georgia)
blueberry juice (Belarus)
and pomegranate juice (Azerbaijan).
I also got candy.
Another non-textile high point was a typical drive-thru coffee shop which had an atypical item on their menu: caffeine-added coffee. (Some of us may remember, during the “hi-tech” 1990s, when A/V stores were selling, not only hardware, but consumables to wanna-be techies. I mean food products at the Best Buy. The most practical item was Shock Coffee. Caffeine-enriched coffee beans. It tasted okay. They’re still in business?!Shock!).
The drive-thru’s brand of 50%-more-caffeine coffee is called “EAGLE VISION”
which would be nonsensical if you didn’t notice that this coffee drive-thru’s logo
is an eagle and an American flag, which seems nonsensical in any case.
I ordered my usual of two shots of espresso with ice.
The coffee is what I would call a “goal oriented” drink.
My friend said that hers tasted like cigarettes.
