I Like Drinks, Too

My absolute hands-down favorite thing to drink ever is a well made Thai ice tea. It’s the nectar of the gods. It’s like a caramel colored symphony in your mouth. It tastes magical, pure, restorative. It breaks my heart to see people order a Coke in a Thai restaurant. I just want to shake them! Don’t they understand what they’re missing? Nothing compliments good food like the appropriate beverage, and Thai ice tea is the perfect thing to refresh your palate after Thai food’s complex flavors. While best when made fresh, there are also canned varieties that can be purchased at Southeast Asian groceries. These don’t hold a candle to the real thing and mostly taste artificial and tinny. The best version I’ve found is Tisanes Thai Tea, which is convenient in a resealable bottle and has a smoother, richer taste than its canned brethren. It will do in a pinch.

Another favorite drink of mine is young coconut juice. This is not to be confused with coconut milk, which is the thick, pulpy stuff pressed from the meat of a fully matured coconut. Coconut juice is the water found in a young (not fully ripened) coconut and is often served with pieces of the soft young coconut meat floating in it. It has a very clean, delicate taste and is great on a hot day. Like Thai ice tea it can be found in any Asian grocery, and it’s hard to go wrong when it comes to brand. I prefer Foco Roasted Coconut Juice, which has a smoky, more complex flavor than the other varieties.

When I was in Japan last Summer some friends introduced me to Mugicha, Japanese barley tea. Summer in Japan is a hot, sticky affair, and while I was there the temperatures were in the mid nineties and the humidity was somewhere around 98%. Being a Pacific Northwest girl I am not accustomed to this kind of oppressive heat, but Mugicha, with its distinctive, almost gamey flavor, served cold, and conveniently (and bafflingly) found in vending machines on every street corner, was the best thirst quencher I could have asked for. I became addicted to the stuff and felt compelled to seek it out upon my return to the U.S. Happily, I found several varieties at Uwajimaya, Seattle’s sprawling Japanese supermarket.

I recently took a chance on a grass jelly drink from Taiwan. Expecting it to taste like the scent of freshly mowed lawn, my taste buds were shocked to discover it to have more of a sweet, root beer type of flavor. The closest comparison I can make is with those little A&W hard candies, the kind you like for about two seconds and then have to spit out. It was a little like medicine. The best part was the actual grass jelly floating in the drink, but it wasn’t enough to compel me to try this drink again.