4 interesting soft drinks

Over the past 3 months, I’ve tried 4 different soft drinks that I thought were a bit unusual.  Actually, the first 2 didn’t seem so unusual, as there are soft drinks with those fruit flavours, but to be combined with cola is unusual.  From Sapporo, I tried The Melon Cola and The Budou Cola.  From Okinawa Bottlers, I had Shikwasa Soda.  And finally, from Pepsi is Pepsi Pink.  First, let’s take a look at them.

Sapporo's The Melon Cola

Sapporo's The Budou Cola

Okinawa Bottlers' Shikwasa Soda

Pepsi Pink

You’re probably wondering what they’re like, especially Pepsi Pink.  Well, here’s what I think of them.

The Melon Cola looks like melon soda.  It’s bright green.  It does have a melon flavour, but it also tastes like cola.  Melon soda is quite sweet.  However, this drink isn’t so sweet.  It has the bite of cola and an added flavour of melon soda.  It gets a passing mark from me, though I still prefer melon soda.

The Budou Cola is purple, so that must mean it’s grape.  Budou is Japanese for grape.  Grape cola doesn’t sound so bad, does it?  Like The Melon Soda, it tastes like cola and grape soda combined.  It’s not very sweet at all, and it has cola’s bite.  I like it, but as with The Melon Cola, I prefer grape soda.

Shikwasa Soda is the one I was looking forward to the most.  I like lemon and lime sodas, so I thought this might be good.  Shikwasa is a citrus fruit that is also known by the names Taiwan tangerine, flat lemon, hirami lemon, or thin-skinned flat lemon in English.  It’s native to Okinawa and Taiwan.  It’s a very sour fruit and the flavour of this drink is somewhere between lemon and lime.  I quite like it, but can only find it in one store.  If you like 7-up or Sprite, give this a try.  It’s a bit different, but pretty good.

Pepsi Pink is one strange drink.  As you can see in the picture, it’s strawberry and milk flavoured.  When I saw that, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like.  Strawberry soda, which I’ve tried before from Sapporo, is quite good.  Maybe this would be like a strawberry flavoured Pepsi.  However, the milk thing made me hesitate.  I bought this drink 4 days ago and finally tried it tonight.  So, what does it taste like?  Carbonated bubblegum, and it’s very sweet..  Weird.  It’s not terrible, just a strange taste.  I don’t think I’ll buy it again, though.

NaNoWriMo

I am attempting to complete this year’s NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  I have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel, and I really don’t have that much time to do it.  As of this moment, I’ve written 200 words.  Even though I have just started, I’ve realised that writing a novel is much, much harder work than writing a blog post.  I thought writing a blog that has well over 100,000 words is pretty good practice.  It’s not.  The style of writing is completely different.  I wouldn’t say I have writer’s block.  I’m writing right now, aren’t I?  Actually, I’m writing this quite quickly.  I wrote 200 words of my novel in about 45 minutes.  Maybe just starting the novel is hard work.  It is a prologue I’m working on right now, after all.  That’s mainly background information, no story.

Anyway, is anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo?  If you are, then go ahead and add me as a writing buddy.  My page is right here.