The Many Flavours of Tang in the Philippines

On a recent trip to the Philippines, I discovered what might be the greatest collection of Tang flavours offered anywhere in the world. I’ve tasted some pretty fun flavours of Tang in my life, but most places that sell a lot of Tang tend to offer 2 or 3 standard flavours, and maybe one or two unique flavours. In the Philippines however, they sell no less than 10 or 15 flavours, and it seems like they sell them at all times.

Best of all, they offer these flavours in small single serving packages. One of the biggest problems I have in sampling new flavours of Tang is that I often have to buy a giant bag of the stuff, and if I don’t like this new flavour I’m stuck with a lot of leftovers.

I decided on my recent trip to try and pick up a whole bunch of different flavours and taste test each and every one of them. The original idea was to try them on the trip, but I quickly realised there are just too many flavours, and not enough time on my vacation. So I decided to drink as many flavours as I could there, but would allow myself to take a few home.

I didn’t get to taste each and every flavour offered in the Philippines, but I did taste a lot. I also avoided what I deemed as common flavours that I think I’ve seen in other countries. I’ll be honest, I’ve never drank so much Tang in my life in such a short time, but I’ve also never had some much fun drinking Tang in my life either.

Four Seasons (pineapple, orange, mango, guava)

Colour - An ungodly orange.

Flavour - Imagine a fruit punch, only without any fruit that would give it a red colour. We always associate fruit punch with red, but logically many tropical fruits aren’t actually red, so this makes more sense. The problem with this mix is that the guava flavour dominates, with the other fruits being almost indistinguishable.

Honey Lemon

Colour - A cloudy yellow.

Flavour - It kind of works. I say kind of because honey is a really hard flavour to get right in powdered drink form. Tang is already very sweet, and while the sweet of this is a little different than classic Tang, I’m not sure I’d call it honey. The lemon is your classic Tang lemon flavour, and it dominates. This basically tastes like a super sweet lemon drink, with an odd flavour I just can’t place, but I guess we can call it honey.

Melon

Colour - A murky orange.

Flavour - I’m not a big fan of melon flavoured candies and treats, with the biggest problem being that they don’t offer the refreshment that real melon provides. I thought that maybe in drink form it might work, but alas there’s one giant problem, it’s too sweet. This is coming from a guy who runs a fairly prolific candy review website too.

Guyabano 

Colour - A murky green/yellow white.

Flavour - I should start by saying that I have no recollection of ever eating or drinking anything called guyabano before tasting this. I have sampled many tropical fruits and juices in many parts of the world, so maybe I’ve tried it under a different name. However, based on the flavour of this Tang, I would say that a guyabano tastes kind of like an apple and pear combination. As Tangs go, this one’s not that bad.

Apple Iced Tea

Colour - An appropriately reddish brown.

Flavour - I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a real apple iced tea in my life, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. What I can say is that this starts off with a hint of fake apple, but suddenly it’s stopped with something I can only describe and tea like. Neither flavour really dominates, but they also don’t really blend together very well. I’m thankful that it’s not just fake apple, but I'm not sure about the iced tea. It’s also very sweet for iced tea.

Mixed Berries Lemonade

Colour - A murky purple.

Flavour - I don’t think this really tastes like lemonade, but it does have a hint of berry. It also doesn’t just taste like a berry flavour drink either though. The best way I would describe it is that it tastes like a random berry lollipop made up of that compressed sugar candy. It’s very tasty, but I’m not sure I’d call it refreshing, mostly because it’s super sweet. I actually had to double check the directions to make sure I made it properly, because I was convinced I must have made it with too little water. It’s good, but it’s also a little odd.

Lychee

Colour - A murky white with a hint of pink.

Flavour - Before this day I had never even thought of Tang making a lychee flavoured drink before. Lychee (to someone who was brought up in North America) seemed like a flavour that was too exotic/fancy to make into a flavour of Tang. The thing is, it’s perfect. I’ve had lychee juice in the past, and flavour wise this is super close. The texture of the drink is a little different than lychee juice, but flavour wise it’s really close. It’s probably because lychee are super sweet already, so since Tang is a super sweet drink it just makes sense.

Apple

Colour - Surprisingly similar to real apple juice.

Flavour - In science fiction, food replicators are often described as making food that tastes similar to the real thing only just a little off, and not in the good way. That’s probably how I would describe this apple Tang. Your taste buds just keep hoping that it will taste like apple juice, but it just doesn’t get there.

Grape

Colour - Very, very purple… almost too purple.

Flavour - In the past I would describe the flavour of most Tang flavours to be sweet, maybe even too sweet. While this is a very sweet drink, it also has a slight (very slight) sourness to it as well. It’s very subtle, but it adds a nice counterbalance to the intense sweet flavour. The grape flavour itself tastes nothing like real grapes, but it has that fake grape flavour that I’m so used to by now that it doesn’t bother me that it’s fake.

Strawberry Lemonade

Colour - A murky pink colour, which is fine because it’s lemonade.

Flavour - Just before I took my first sip of this Tang, I wondered if this was going to taste more of lemonade or strawberry. As it turns out, kind of neither. I guess if I had a gun to my head I would say more lemonade, but lemonade with a really strong fruit like flavour that I wouldn’t really describe and strawberry. This is a tough flavour to get right since I’m a big fan of frozen strawberries in my lemonade, so I have some reference for what it should taste like.

Calamansi

Colour - A murky yellow.

Flavour - I have a bit of a beef with Tang, and it’s all about when they choose to make a flavour that’s orange adjacent. I’ve had a few flavours of Tang that are based on fruit that are very close to orange, but slightly different. For the most part I find that the flavour of these Tangs is very similar to their regular orange, only they’re dyed a different colour. This Calaminsi falls right into that category. I find it hard to believe that this is that much different than their regular orange flavour, except for the fact that it’s yellow instead of orange coloured.

Strawberry

Colour - A very bright pink.

Flavour - I’d probably say that this flavour is the least surprising of all the flavours I’ve tasted so far. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not a great thing either. It’s a perfectly fine fake strawberry flavour that works fairly well when it’s a really sweet drink. There’s nothing subtle about the flavour, even opening the package has a strong fake strawberry smell. It’s perfectly fine, but nothing unique about it at all.

Pomelo

Colour - A murky pink with a hint of orange (pretty close to the fruit to be honest).

Flavour - As with the colour, the flavour of this pomelo drink is pretty close to the original. The main difference is the sour/bitter flavour that sometimes happens with some pomelos is totally gone. They got the sweet flavour right, and the basic flavour is there, but I always feel like if I eat too many wedges of pomelo that my tongue might go numb, but I doubt that would happen with this drink. Having said that, this might be the winner for flavour I’d most like to try again in the future.

Orange and Carrot

Colour - Really bright orange.

Flavour - This Tang flavour unfortunately falls into the same category as many other orange based flavours of Tang, in that it generally just tastes like regular orange tang. There might be a slight difference, but I wouldn’t call that difference carrot flavoured. It could be that they’ve added real carrots to this drink, but I doubt it. I’ve only recently discovered carrot juice as a mixer with vegetable juice and one thing carrot juice gives fruit juice is a balance. The balance comes from the fact that carrot juice is not sweet. This Tang as usual is super sweet, so there really isn’t that balance.

Quick List - The Worst Candies For Each Letter of the Alphabet - A-F

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Check out all my review for every letter of the alphabet right now at www.candycritic.org/alphareview.htm

Those Beasts and Their Treats

 Did you know that some beasts really love to snack on some treats (not in real life, please don't actually feed beasts any treats).

Check out my fun alphabet book called Treats And Beasts right now at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/ or on Amazon.

So Many Wafers

 

I think wafers might be the most popular cookie that's put into candy bars. There are just so many of them out there, with some doing really well, and others... well. It's weird because some of my least favourite candy bars use wafers and some of my favourite bars also use wafers. It seems like such a simple ingredient to use, so it makes me wonder what makes for a good wafer based candy bar and what makes for a horrible wafer based bar. My guess is it's not just one thing, it's probably a lot of factors that go into making a great wafer bar.

Check out my latest review that features one of those great wafer based bars.

Junk Fud in London

 In this episode Allison and Chris talk about a recent trip to London (and only London) where they bought some special tea and ate a lot of sandwiches.

Pick Up Some Snack Facts

It’s about time that you brushed up on your snack facts. The best way to do that is to pick up my comic series all about that very subject (and even the name is the same).

Pick up Snack Facts right now at candycritic.org/snackfacts/ or on Amazon.

This Post Isn't So Much About Candy

I'm sick, and it's food poisoning. In the candy world it's very rare to get food poisoning, but I often travel/live in places where food hygiene isn't the best. That means that I suffer from fairly regular bouts of food poisoning. The reason I mention this here is that I wanted to point out that I'm still posting a new review, even though I'm not really eating solid foods. I can do this because the truth is I have a pretty big collection of pre-written reviews. There are many advantages to having this list of reviews, one of them being that I can still post a new review when I'm not even eating solid foods.  I'm at the point where things are getting better, but I think it's going to be a while till I write a new review.

Check out this new review, from my archives?

What is a Big Mac?

There’s a global trend that’s changing the landscape of fast food, and it’s chicken. Sure chicken’s been a part of fast food for ages, probably for as long as fast food has existed. However, when most people think of fast food, they think of hamburgers or pizza. This is changing though, and more and more fast food restaurants are becoming chicken experts. There are many competing theories about why this is happening. Some people suggest that global food prices are making beef too expensive, others suggest that it’s a choice people are making for health, some even suggest that it’s just a trend that people prefer eating.

What that’s lead to is many fast food chains adding more chicken to their menu, and McDonald’s is no exception. They’ve not only added many new chicken options to their menu, they’ve started to offer chicken variations of their classic burgers. One such item is the Chicken Mac. I decided to give one of these a try and it really made me think about how one defines “what is a Big Mac”.

The problem I ran into is that McDonald’s made more than one change to this classic sandwich. The most obvious change is that they went with two deep fried chicken patties instead of the beef. However, the other change they made is that the Big Mac sauce was changed to just regular mayonnaise. The rest of the sandwich was pretty much the same, lettuce, cheese, re-hydrated onion, pickles and the three layer bun. I didn’t actually research any of this before getting the Chicken Mac, and was kind of shocked by the lack of the Big Mac sauce.

It made me wonder, is it still a Big Mac (or any kind of “Mac” sandwich at all)? I suggested to Allison that I don’t think that this could be considered in the same family of sandwiches, and she argued that it could because it still had that unique bun and the same toppings. She also suggested that the rest of the burger still seemed Mac like. I’m not sure if I agree, but this is actually something that comes up a lot in fast food and candy.

When a candy company makes a different variation of a candy bar, can it still be in the same family. A great example is if we compare the Kit Kat bar with the Kit Kat Chunky (or Big as some call it). While a Kit Kat Chunky kind of looks like a finger of a Kit Kat bar, it’s really only one finger. The ratio of chocolate to wafers is different, and the size of the wafers is different as well. When you think about it, most chocolate bars are really just one finger as well. So does that mean a Kit Kat chunky really isn’t a Kit Kat bar? How far can you stray and how many ingredients can you change while still keeping a snack or junk food item in the same family?

Are all fast food sandwiches that have Big Mac sauce on them, a Big Mac? Can you put Big Mac sauce on a Quarter Pounder and call it a Quarter Pounder Mac? Or do you need that unique bun too? In the last 10 or 20 years it’s become really popular to make variations on popular snack and fast food items, but how far is too far? I argue that the Chicken Mac is not a Big Mac anymore.

The Super In Super Sour Means Business

 For the longest time I've believed that the Super Sour from Japan was the most sour candy I'd ever reviewed. I finally go my hand on another bag of them and after many years it's time to find out if the sour still holds up.

See what I'm up to right now on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

You can also read my fun book about candy and animals right now by picking up Treats and Beasts.

CC

That Blue Orchid Is Amazing!

 She’s going to kick some ass.

Make sure to pick up all the Blue Orchid comics and mech right now at bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/.

A Lot Of Kit Kat Bars

One of the things I've started to do on candycritic.org is collect Kit Kat bars. In particular I've started to collect reviews of milk chocolate Kit Kat bars from different parts of the world. It's been long thought that the British, Canadian and American Kit Kat bars while being similar, have some slight differences. I've also noticed that a few other countries around the world make their own version, and in some cases they to are different. Sometimes it's really hard to pinpoint the exact differences, but sometimes (like with this new review) it's really easy.

Check out this fairly unique milk chocolate Kit Kat bar.

Korean Barbecue in 10 Seconds

 Watching the meat rotate is so hypnotic.

A Beastly and Treatly Book

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Pick up Treats and Beasts right now at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/ or on Amazon.

So Many Pocky

I think Pocky probably ranks as number 2 on my list of candies with the most varieties, number 1 being Kit Kat. You wouldn't imagine that there could be so many varieties of a cookie stick covered in chocolate, but here we are. As of this moment I've reviewed 19 different variety of Pocky, and there are still a few out there I haven't tried, as well as new versions coming out all the time. I can't say that I've loved each and every version, but they have yet to make a real gross out version (like wasabi Kit Kat).

Check out my latest Pock review.

That Jolly Bee

This isn’t my first Jollibee experience, but it’s my first at a Jollibee in the Philippines, and I think that can be important. My first Jollibee experience was in the Middle East, and it was okay, but not great. There were two problems with that visit that were completely eliminated this time around. The first issue was my own, I didn’t know what to order. It seems like a silly problem, you should be able to order anything on a menu at a fast food restaurant and enjoy it. The reality is that it’s not the case. Fast food restaurants offer different items for different tastes, and some items are more popular than others. The popular (or better) items may not be intuitive to people unfamiliar with the restaurant or the culture where that restaurant originated. In other words, I ordered a burger at Jollibee the first time I went and it wasn’t great.

The second problem when I visited Jollibee in the Middle East is an issue with importation. One of the balancing acts fast food places must do when expanding outside of their original country of origin is authenticity versus adaptation. Authenticity is the attempt to offer customers at their new restaurants the same thing that they had at their original restaurants. Adaptation is the barriers you have in this new country, which could include limited ingredients, staff that may not have experience cooking and serving that food and dinners who may not like all of the aspects of the food you're serving. It can be very complicated and can lead to the experience I had at the Middle Eastern Jollibee.

This time however I was not only prepared (I know the fried chicken is the thing to eat), but being in the Philippines I know I’m getting the real deal. My experience this time was totally better. First of all the chicken is amazing, juicy on the inside and a nice crunchy coating. We had 3 pieces of chicken between the two of us and there wasn’t a bad one.

The spaghetti is the one item I ordered from both the Middle East Jollibee and the one in the Philippines. The difference was pretty significant. I remember the spaghetti in the Middle East being sticky and over cooked. The cheese was also not as plentiful and I could be wrong but I don’t think it was the same kind of cheese. It could be the quality of the cooking, or just my imagination, but the sauce this time didn’t seem as sweet. Don’t get me wrong, Filipino spaghetti sauce is very sweet compared to western spaghetti sauce, but this didn’t feel like I was eating sugar glazed spaghetti.

We also decided to try out the desserts this time, since I heard the pies are amazing. We also got a cookie sundae as well. The sundae was good, but the pie was excellent. While Allison actually preferred the sundae, I thought the sundae was fairly average with the two improvements being the quality of the cookie bits and the fact that they used a hard shell chocolate sauce. The pie on the other hand was perfect. The filling tasted a bit more like peach than mango, but frankly I really enjoyed that. The crust was crunchy and deep fried (seriously why did McDonald's start baking their pies in some countries), delicious!

It was a fine meal, and as of writing this we still have a few days left here in the Philippines and another stop at Jollibee is completely possible. I’m not sure how I feel about attempting another Jollibee outside of the Philippines, because of my previous experience. This did however make me think about a few of the other fast food and restaurant chains I’ve tried outside of their country of origin, particularly the ones that I didn’t really like that much… I’m looking at you Hardee’s.

Quick List - The Best Candies For Each Letter of the Alphabet - V-Z plus Numbers

 A quick list of the best candies from each letter of the alphabet. This time we're going to be checking out V through Z as well as numbers.

Snack On Some Facts

 

If you’ve ever wondered where potato chips were invented or how Haribo got its name, make sure to check out Snack Facts.

Get your copy of this fun comic series right now at candycritic.org/snackfacts/buy.htm or on Amazon.

It Looks Cool I Guess

One of the problems I have with candy is also one of the things I love about candy. In many cases how a candy or snack looks is as (or more) important than how it tastes. We can all agree that the visual esthetics of candy is important, but should it really be as or more important than taste. I feel like there's always a chance to make a candy taste great, but I also feel like tasting great isn't as important to many candy makers. I would even argue that some candy fans might choose a candy that looks great over tasting great. Just look at Instagram famous foods, so many are just not that tasty to eat.

Check out this latest candy review that really tasted okay, but it looks fantastic.

A Little Dark

 So let me get this straight. The little rice crisps spend time constructing a bar and will eventually be trapped on that bar, only to be consumed by you.

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Blue Orchid Is Fun!

If you haven't picked up the latest issue of Blue Orchid, then you're missing out!

Pick up your copy and any other merch right now at bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/

Bar Form Is Not An Improvement

I have yet to taste an M&Ms (or any candy coated chocolate treat) bar that's actually an improvement. It seems like an odd thing to do if you think about it. You take a colourful candy and hide it in brown. It's like building a giant colourful sign for your business, then building a building right in front of it. It even ruins the eating experience as well. For some reason when you put candies like this in a chocolate bar, the candy coating turns into a gritty texture after a few bites. I'm glad they're trying new things, but I'm not sure this is really working.

Check out my latest M&Ms bar review to see why it doesn't work.

Love At First Breath

 I always love how in candy commercials, fresh breath can lead to love.

Traveling With Toblerone

 I have a simple goal, to travel around on my current vacation to the Philippines while eating a Toblerone bar. The inspiration is simple, Toblerone is the candy bar that’s available in almost every single airport gift shop and duty free. In some ways it seems like the official chocolate of air travel. While getting ready for this trip I started to wonder why. One idea was that maybe it’s a bar that’s easy to eat while travelling on airplanes.

So I’ve decided to take a Toblerone (dark chocolate) and eat a triangle at various stages of my current travels. I’m travelling to the Philippines with two legs on my flight and a couple of layovers too. My layover is very tight as well. The temperature is warm at all stops, so it’ll be interesting to see how the bar holds up.

To start I’m sitting at the terminal waiting for my flight. Opening a Toblerone is actually fairly easy, so even with a few bags I managed. There was also very little garbage, it was a small enough amount that I could have stashed it in a pocket if needed. I should also mention that the bar went through customs and airport security with no problems. While it’s kind of early to be eating chocolate for me (7am), it was a nice sweet snack. Closing the bar went well, since it’s a cardboard tube(?) with a flappy lid, it slid back into my bag with no problems.

Eating a Toblerone on an airplane is a little complicated, but I feel like it’s more the fault of the airline and not the candy bar. I decided to enjoy my treat when they delivered the snack for our first flight. I also left the Toblerone in my bag that was stowed at my feet for what I thought was easy access. It was slightly challenging to get the bar from my bag with the tray down. Having said that, any treat would have been equally or even harder to retrieve. The advantages of a Toblerone in this instance was that the package is durable, but more importantly it has a distinct shape. While rooting through my bag it was easy to identify the bar because of the triangular shape.

This particular Toblerone (dark chocolate) held up very well flavour wise. They say that when flying you lose some of your sense of taste, but this bar was bold enough to satisfy. It was also easier to eat compared to my snack (chocolate cake) that required a fork and the use of my tray, which ironically made getting the Toblerone more difficult. The cake tasted pretty good, but I feel like the Toblerone was better. Allison mentioned that she preferred the cake because it didn’t have any bits that stick to her teeth. So far the Toblerone has held up well, but let’s see how it does during our tight connection, will I even be able to get a single bite on the move?

The answer about whether or not you can eat a Toblerone bar while running to your next short connection flight is not really. I did manage to get a bite in just as we arrived at the gate right before they started boarding. This was the first time that the tinfoil became a problem. I hurriedly peeled it back, and missed a piece that had broken off. Chewing on tinfoil is not fun. This might be the first issue I’ve had with the Toblerone packaging since starting this experiment.

After boarding the plane I decided to have another bite of my Toblerone bar. It was a leisurely bite after putting all my luggage away and having the tray table down. Within a few minutes of biting this our dinner arrived. It was a chicken curry with a salad, I did not enjoy either and wished I had eaten the Toblerone after to cleanse the palette.

I decided to challenge myself for this bite and had a triangle just as we were pulling up to the gate. As you might know, pulling up to the gate on an airplane is a very stressful time. At this point you’re collecting your belongings, and thinking about getting up. Since this bite was rushed, I ended up eating another piece of foil. I also damaged the package a little. I seem to have twisted the end cap a bit. The strength of this triangular, cardboard tube is starting to give.

For my last bite of this particular leg of my trip, I had a bite after eating at a Wendy’s in the airport. This was another leisurely bite, but I did do a bit more damage to the top of the package. I did also take some time to peel away the excess foil and throw it away.

After a quick break, we went onto our second leg of the journey. This leg is a little less traditional, yet I feel like it’s a place where one might still find a Toblerone bar. To start this leg of the journey I find myself in another airport waiting for a plane. This other airport also sells Toblerone bars, so I know the concept of this article still stands.

The reason this airport is different than the first airports is that this is a domestic airport (in the Philippines) with smaller planes and much less grandeur than some airports (but still nice). It also means that in our case we would not be boarding our flight with a jet way, but instead we had to get on a bus. Allison was slightly annoyed with my effort to take a bite of a Toblerone on a busy bus, and I think I ate some foil again. The top of the package is also getting worse and the chocolate was very melty (the bus was hot).

We finally made it onto our small propeller plane and were on our way. My seat mate (which due to booking issues wasn’t Allison) was a little perplexed at me taking a selfie while eating a single bite of a Toblerone. It was fairly easy and since we had a really short flight, was a nice accompaniment to the small bag of cookies we got as a snack. 

At this point I feel like I should have stopped this adventure as Toblerone bars are really sold primarily in airports and the flying portion of my trip was over. However, I still had a couple of triangles and a small boat trip. By this point the chocolate was very melted, and the bouncing of the boat made it very challenging to get the foil off (I may have eaten more foil). I don’t think Toblerone bars are really made for tropical, small boat rides.

To end this adventure I find myself at my resort enjoying the end of my Toblerone bar. In general I would say that this bar actually makes some sense as a bar to travel with. The only stipulation is that it must be the Toblerone in the cardboard tube. The tube is really the key to making this bar travel friendly. It allows you to take a bite and tuck it away easily. It also protects it fairly well from getting crushed.

The flaws are that since it’s fairly high quality chocolate, if you find yourself in warmer temperatures, it’s very melty. I would also say that the top of the tube isn’t really providing much protection. By the end of my journey it was barely holding on. 

Beasts and Treats!

 If you love treats, beasts and the alphabet, you should pick up my fun book called Treats and Beasts.

You can get your copy at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/ or on Amazon.