Coco vs Cola
(Japanese juice drink and coca cola – with many thanks to Pete for the banana leaf placemat: Suzhou, China)
As usual, I am focused intently on food and drink. Yesterday I returned to the Japanese ten yuan shop to ferret out some more goodies – this drink cost the equivalent of about 20p. I thought I’d showcase this interesting tinned beverage in my Raffles Hotel Singapore Sling glass so you can see the juice properly. This one has little pale, translucent pieces in it. When I took my first gulp, I was initially appalled, but this subsided. Japanese goods seem to be de rigueur in China, probably because even here they are exotic, relatively cheap and usually smart.
I have arranged the Chinese cola can next to the ‘coco grape’ juice can so you have a sense of scale. The grape can has very pleasing proportions, rather short and tubby, containing just enough liquid to quench thirst on the run. Usually when Ying purchases a drink with ‘bits’ in, I don’t bother trying it anymore. I’m not keen on many gelatinous foods, I especially balk at discovering chewy blobs in my drinks. It probably stems back to an occasion when a friend offered me some grape juice and after a couple of sips I noticed furry spheres floating in it. It had evidently been in the fridge a while and it has affected my ability to drink anything with floating pieces in it. This drink does contain little cubes of nata de coco, which are naturally sweet and chewy in consistency – I think it’s their solid nature and defined shape that makes me able to face eating them.
Interestingly, Japanese Coca Cola is available in some upmarket shops here but costs about £1.40 a can, next to the 20-30p per Chinese Coke. Perhaps it has a different taste, or Japanese ex-pats here create enough of a market to justify stocking it. I heard a rumour that the more developed a country, the less sugar in their local Coca Cola, so the Chinese coke would be sweeter than the Japanese stuff. I’ve no idea if it’s true, but it’s an interesting conclusion. Perhaps a ‘china meets rosie’ taste test is in order, I could ask my mum to bring me a UK Coke can and we can set up an experiment.
In other news, this morning I went for my first ever lone massage. My usual masseur is ill today (as the lady at the front desk arduously explained) and I was initially disappointed and a little nervous. Fresh introductions might be misunderstood and another person might not be so patient or amused by my rambling, often lousy Chinese mispronunciation. However, even with very basic phrases, we managed to communicate to an extent – I found out which province he is from, that he is twenty three, born in the year of the rabbit, his parents live in the north with his younger sister and he understands some Suzhounese but absolutely no English. Now that I count up all these facts, it doesn’t seem like a terrible conversation. There was a lot he said and asked that I didn’t understand, but I made out enough to answer and ask questions. He found out where I live, when I arrived here, my age, if I liked pets, my nationality and that I can’t write Chinese characters. He even told me that rabbits are fast and tortoises are slow and I understood. In the end, it wasn’t the trial I had expected.
Cool idea with the Coke-Test! I can’t wait to read the result. I bet there are differences, because I tryed so many Cokes world wide and the tast is mostly a little bit different. Also here in Germany there a lot of different tasts between Coka Cola’s (Like Coca Cola from a Lidl or from a expensive super market). Looking forward for Rosi’s scientific paper about this topic.