Thailand Beverages

This is a post solely on the beverages that I found while on our trip to Thailand. This is rapidly becoming an endless fascination with me, and I am spending lots of time trying to stroll the aisles of the supermarkets or the convenience stores. So here are a few of the beverages that I had never seen before (with one exception).

The airport lounge at the Bangkok airport had a number of small cans with intriguing labels on them. Since we had so little time on the way to Phuket, I was only able to try one drink, and so I stashed another one in the backpack. The lucky can was was the ginger juice. I pulled the tab and put it in an ice filled glass. Sweet with the spicy tang of ginger, it was pretty tasty. I also mixed it with some soda water to see if it could stand being carbonated. Success!

The second pilfered drink was the lemongrass juice. Made by the same company and the ginger juice, it also proved to be fairly sweet. Not surprisingly, it tasted just like the lemon grass that you find in your Thai coconut and chicken soup. Really refreshing, but not something that you might consume by the gallon. Probably also quite refreshing and tasty with the soda water. The mystery fruit in the photo is unknown to me; it was in our fruit basket and I managed to taste some at breakfast in the fruit salad. It has the consistency of an asian pear (without the grit) and the crispness of an apple- no real taste or smell accompanied the fruit.

There was a third can from the same company that I tried. This one was called Longan nut juice. I really enjoy fresh longan and really anticipated liking this drinking. Unfortunately, after opening the can and taking the initial taste, I found it to taste just like sweet syrup. I looked on the back of the can and it said to shake before consuming. So thinking that maybe I was missing the best part by failing to follow the instructions, I shook it. Bad mistake- it turns out that the can was filled with dried longan nuts, and so there were little brown bits everywhere in the drink after that. Threw it out. Bleh.

The other can in the photo above is distributed by the Schwepps company. It was a carbonated lime juice and was really good. Unfortunately, I left it to the last minute to have this drink. I literally had to drink as much as I could (which was not even half the can) before we went through security check point at the Phuket airport, on our way back home. Disappointed, since it was really good. Sadly, I have not seen this in Shanghai- it might make a good Friday night drink with the aid of a little vodka.

On one of our nightly treks into the small city near the beach, we found a vendor of cold drinks. From this place, I picked up a bottle of Lychee juice. Not only was it one of my favorite colors (pink), but it was truly tasty as well- probably one of the truest to the fruit- juice. I think that it would have also made a truly tasty mixed drink.

I tried a mango juice from the same company as the longan, ginger, and lemon grass juices. Very tasty. The mango juice was thinned out, yet contained some pulp, and unlike the other can contents, was not as sweet. The mango juices were completely refreshing. Of course, that might have more to do with their temperature, after being in the refrigerator all day, and mine (after being in the sun all day).

Last but not least is the drink that mentioned as being not new to me. I actually found, on more than one occasion, containers of Ovaltine in the refrigerators at the 7/11. How great is the country that premixes and has Ovaltine ready for you whenever you want it. It tasted exactly as it does when you mix the powder at home. They clearly make theirs with whole milk, while I make mine with some water and skim milk. Yummy.

I won't even go there with the beer- you already know about Singha beer from my last visit to Thailand.