Don't know about you but my initial thought when I heard about this colourless tea was that it was just water with lots of artificial colouring. The fact that it looks like water but tastes like milk tea is quite mind boggling. Hence, it was really intriguing when I read the ingredients
list and it was stated in both English and Japanese as such:
- Natural mineral water
- sugar
- hi-fructose corn syrup
- maltooligosaccharide
- lactose
- tea
- salt
- mint extract
- flavouring
- magnesium chloride
- caffeine
- antioxidant (vitamin C)
- acidulate (containing milk component)
Suntory even came up with a video to explain how their colourless tea is made in order to dispel the idea that it is made with artificial flavourings.
Need some translation?
Tea
Water is first boiled and the water vapour passes through the black tea leaves, becoming infused with the flavour of the tea. The infused water vapour is then condensed, leaving behind a clear liquid that has the tea aroma and flavour.
Colourless milk
The next question people would ask would of course, then be about the milk becoming transparent. Suntory was also nice enough to post a diagram on their website to explain:
According to the diagram, milk is made of lactose, milk protein, fats and minerals. The lactose and minerals are transparent. What Suntory did was to extract the lactose and minerals, using these two ingredients to create the milk flavour in the drink while retaining the transparent liquid.
Thus, the drink is low in calories (about 21 calories per bottle) but it's still not suitable for those who are lactose intolerant.
Tastewise, it's really not that great. Tastes like diluted milk tea. I only liked the fact that it isn't very sweet despite having corn syrup inside. Sold at 7-11, Shokuhin Emporium and NTUC Fairprice, Suntory's Colourless teas are rather gimmicky at S$2.70-2.90/bottle. I'll stick to my regular milk tea, thank you very much.
Photo credits: Suntory
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