The cherry blossom season is in full swing as I write this, and possibly swinging toward its end by the time this gets published. My husband and I paid a visit to Shinjuku Gyoen (Park) early in the season to see what was up with the blossoms there. During that trip, we both got incredibly hungry and I opted to buy their "sakura sembei" and to wash it down with an expensive bottle of Tea's Tea from a vending machine.
The sakura sembei was pretty interesting in that it had some intensive soy sauce flavoring coated with a sweet frosted shell. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't pay 150 yen ($1.76) for a single cracker of it again. I've had better sembei and had it cheaper. Still, it looked pretty, and it fit the season.
As for the tea, Tea's Tea seems to be what I buy when I'm out sightseeing in Japan. Readers with a good memory may recall that I picked up a bottle of their milk tea when I climbed Mt. Takao, and I loved it. I was hoping that history would repeat itself, but even the beauty of a well-manicured park and cherry blossoms couldn't influence my opinion of this drink such that I'd see it favorably. This was vile.
The main problem with this was that it tasted like orange Kool-aid with fake bergamot essence. Bergamot is what gives Earl Grey tea its luster, and this in no way reminded me of that particular tea. I'm sure part of the problem was that it was too sweet, but really it was bad because the orange part was just nasty and the "tea" part was almost absent. I drank about 1/3 of the bottle and poured out the rest. That's how bad it was.
3 comments:
That's pretty unfortunate, I hope this bad food didnt ruin your fun / eventful time.
there really should be a refund policy for vending machines.
Bradley: It didn't impact our fun at all, though it did make me feel that I'd wasted my money. ;-)
p00lriah: I agree, especially for the over-priced machines at tourist areas!
Thanks to both of you for commenting!
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