Today we deal with an almost drink request, gentle reader. I went a bit out of the way to another Starbucks this morning to get the Matcha Green Tea Latte, and it was not at all what I was expecting. It was actually incredibly sweet—probably as sweet as any of the half-sweet versions of the holiday drinks, although I admit that the underlying Matcha flavour was not bad. I nevertheless couldn’t get into this drink due to the incongruity between my expectations and reality.
I really wanted an “East meets West” experience, and this drink was just way too west. And maybe that’s fair. Perhaps with globalization and everything else that exists today there is now minimal distinction between East and West. But in the `80s, when I was a kid, it was different.
Back then pretty much every night there was a TV show or movie about a vaguely mystical Asian man who would deliver wisdom to a young white boy in cryptic form and the result would be a bond that transcended the very confines of age and race. Even though this mystical old Asian man was a gentle man---who could be moved by a particularly striking sunset---occasionally he would flip out and kick a bunch of dudes in the face for some reason. But that was just to keep the story moving---most of the time the kid would talk to the guy and say things like, "Biff from the football team keeps beating me up! What should I do?" and the Asian man, speaking with a thick, heavily stereotypical accent, would be like, "Squirrel with most acorns is strongest, but mighty squid has no need for acorns."
Then the kid would know that he was supposed to confront the bully and that the bully would ultimately back down.
In the movies, everything would somehow work out all right for the kid.
In real life, however, these mystical elderly Asian men don't actually exist. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure something like the incident described above has happened at some point, but then the white kid probably followed the guy's advice and got his ass kicked. Then he was probably like, "Hey! Why the hell did you tell me to confront Biff? Now I'm essentially in a full body cast."
Then the Asian guy was probably like, "I never told you that!" and then when the white guy reminded him about the whole squirrel/squid story, the Asian dude was probably like, "That story? I was high on COCAINE, Son! I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.”
And so to return to today's drink, I suppose I had a vision of how this drink should taste based on images of older Japanese men sipping green tea from 1980s movies, and that’s clearly not the right mindset to go into this experience with.
Verdict: Probably OK if it no sugar is added, but the sugar is unnecessary in this one.
Score: 3 Stars and 2 Bucks out of 10.
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