Ito En Tea's Tea Manhatten Milk Tea

Usually I don't take pictures of my garbage to illustrate a review. Generally, I take a picture of a full bottle of a beverage if it is a transparent container, and a picture of the drink poured into a glass if it is opaque. So, one may ponder why I'm using a picture of an empty bottle this time.

Actually, I'm guessing that if I hadn't mentioned it, very few of my readers would even have noticed that the bottle was empty, but there is a point to be made. Of course, I take the scenic route to any point because otherwise my reviews would be little more than short descriptions about taste, texture and smell, and there's really no fun in that. Let's just start by saying this bottle didn't actually come from anywhere that even resembled Manhatten despite the product's name.

I should mention that I had no intention of purchasing any of the Tea's Tea line of products nor reviewing them. There were two reasons for this decision and neither relates to the quality of Ito En's beverages. The primary reason is that I can make damn fine tea with a teabag, milk, and some sweetener for a fraction of the price and far less waste than buying bottled tea. The secondary reason is that my husband told me that Tea's Tea is a brand that is sold back home and I try not to knowingly review products that are essentially sold in the same form in the U.S.

It turned out that this type of milk tea, which is made with a combination of cow's milk and soy milk and is calorie-reduced, isn't marketed back home. However, that wasn't enough to get me to try it. The thing that convinced me to try it was the fact that you can't brew a cup of tea while you climb a mountain, and hot tea from a vending machine (which you can find on mountains in Japan, of course) makes a great hand warmer on a chilly day.

On December 28, my husband and I climbed Mt. Takao (aka, the mountain for sissies who can't climb) and that is where I secured this 275 ml. bottle (9.3 oz.) for the inflated price of 150 yen ($1.80). Note that the vending machine prices incrementally increase the higher you go up the mountain. They start around 150 yen for 500 ml. bottles at the bottom then climb to 170 ($2.03) then finally are 200 yen ($2.40) at the top. This makes no sense at all because it's not like a sherpa is hauling cases of drinks up the mountain and charges more to go all the way to the top. The same trucks are hauling them to each progressive spot. I know because they kept driving past us while we struggled up the steepest path to the top of the mountain.

The vending machine I got this from was about 2/3 of the way to the top and near an area studded with shrines. It could also be called "the part where you stop climbing super steep inclines and start climbing about 1000 steps to get to the top". This caught my eye mainly because it has a big "zero" on the front and that generally means no sugar. Indeed, this is made with the sweeteners Sucralose and Acesulfame K. The entire bottle is 49.5 calories, but that comes entirely from the milk and soy milk.

In addition to being pleasantly warm on chilly hands, this is also very tasty tea. It is well-balanced in terms of its sweeteness and milkiness with pleasantly floral tasting black tea. In fact, I was so impressed that I have considered buying it again despite my cheapness and desire not to drink PET bottles of beverages that can be made at home. This is damn fine tea, especially if you're stupid enough to pick the hardest trail the first time you climb a mountain at 46 years of age with a bum knee and want something hot, slightly creamy, and rich in quality tea flavors. And, yes, this was the very bottle I brought back down the mountain. I hung onto it for a few weeks just for this review. ;-)

Aloha Maid Pink Guava Soda

Despite my bad experience with the only drink I've ever purchased from Ito En, I decided to give the company's pink guava a shot. This is part of their "Aloha Maid" series which features tropical fruit flavors sodas in a low calorie soft drink. Besides this pink guava, there is also a lemon ice tea and a fruit mix that includes pineapple, orange, mango and lychee.


Though this is made with both aspartame and sucralose, it has 60 calories per bottle because of the guava juice that has been added to it. This makes for a somewhat mixed taste experience. There is a light guava flavor and this is generally quite refreshing, but there is also a clearly detectable taste of artificial sweetener. Since this is more of a flavored water than a strong soft drink, the sweetener taste is not masked as well as it might be in a drink like Coca-Cola. One interesting point about this is that it has been naturally colored with purple potato rather than artificial coloring.

This was okay. If I wanted a lightly flavored carbonated water, I might even consider buying this again, but ultimately it's just not that impressive. Considering the experience I had with their salty lemon, this is actually a step up in my experience with Ito En's beverages.

Ito En Salty Lemon

When it's really hot and the sun is beating down on your, there are certain things that sound really good. One is the notion of ice cold lemonade. Another is something salty in order to replenish what you've been sweating out. Of course, I don't actually sweat much so I'm guessing I don't lose much salt. Nonetheless, as I trudged around in the blazing sun feeling dehydrated and overheated, I was thinking this salty lemon beverage would really hit the spot.

This drink was made by a company called Ito En which makes a variety of other beverages including tea drinks, fruit and vegetable juices, and sports drinks. They're also controlling Tully's coffee brand in Japan and Evian water. The company was established in 1966, which makes it a relatively young business by Japanese standards. They're best known for their bottled teas, especially green tea and barley tea.


The Salty Lemon is touted as being "calorie off". This is Japanese English for reduced calorie. The entire 500 ml. bottle has 81 calories and is sweetened with Sucralose artificial sweetener. It also has 1000 mg of Vitamin C and, of course, added vitamins and lemon are ingredients.

This smells ever so vaguely lemony with a tiny hint of something which is slightly medicinal. The first thing that surprised me when I poured it was that it wasn't carbonated. For some reason, I expected it to be fizzy, but there was really no reason for me to expect that to be so. The best way I can sum up the flavor is that it tastes like a Vitamin C supplement dissolved in water. The lemon flavor is very subdued. It has no acidity or bite and mainly seems like a weak lemon isotonic drink. It's not exactly repugnant, but it's not really pleasant either. Mainly, it's weakly lemon and weakly salty and lightly sweet. It really does remind me of what you'd get if you dissolved some sort of powdered medicine or supplement in a glass of water and drank it for your health.

If I were parched and had no water at hand, I'd drink this. However, there is no joy in it and I threw away the rest of the bottle. Certainly, I wouldn't buy it again, nor would I recommend it to any but someone who was sick and wanted to drink down a bunch of Vitamin C.