Pepsi White Peach and Oolong Tea Flavour Soft Drink [@NLi10]

 Now that all English soft drinks are broken and wrong I am incentivised to purchase expensive imported ones which still contain sugar and flavour.  Here today we have a China made Pepsi - with peach Oolong tea added in!

The oddest part to this is the sparkly-ness - I'd not really make tea with sparkling water - but it adds a tingle to the peach flavour.

The tea flavour is weak and fairly invisible, but the peach and Pepsi does shine quite well.

And it's dark as normal, so no real point in finding a glass!  I chilled mine, but I suspect that over Ice on a hot day this would be at it's best.

It oddly reminded me of this old thing, that I happened to pick up to let someone else to try I used to call this Wo Long Kat when it came in steel cans in the 90s, but here it's called Wang Lao Ji - essentially it's medicinal sugar water - 10 more calories per 100ml than the Pepsi!

And it tastes as I remember - too sweet, too herby, and too morish.  The first sip is always baffling, but you'll finish it and you'll enjoy it too.

The tea here is nicer than the Pepsi, but I think the peach Pepsi just edges ahead in the taste test.  I'd more happily drink a litre of the herbal tea though.

Pepsi Cream Soda (Ocado) By @Cinabar

This is one of the new summer flavours from Pepsi, and as we're (hopefully) about to get a bit of a mini heatwave, I thought I’d treat myself to a eight-pack and see if it brings on the summer vibe. I chilled it in the fridge for full refreshment. I also wanted to wait for the weather to warm up, it’s been pleasant, though not exactly hot yet. I gave in and cracked open a can anyway.

I gave the drink a sip and really liked the taste. The Pepsi cola is all there, but the creamy vanilla flavour smooths it out and makes it taste sweeter and creamier. Generally, I think cola and citrus are the best combo, but this worked better for me than I was expecting it to. It’s a really smooth, creamy drink, the vanilla and cola pair well.

I have to say, I’m really pleased I bought a multipack of these Pepsi Cream Soda cans. With its vanilla tone, I think this drink is going to be perfect for a coke float. I haven’t had one of those in years, but I’m now picturing a tall glass with this poured over a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream. Roll on summer.

Pepsi Strawberry and Cream (Tesco) By @Cinabar

We have a small Tesco Express near us, which is perfect for picking up essentials, but it is not always the first to get new products. While popping in for the inevitable bread and eggs, something caught my eye near the till. Neatly stacked multipacks of Pepsi Strawberry and Cream in their pink packaging. It sounded like an adventurous new Pepsi flavour, so I made an impulsive buy.

Once home, I chilled a can in the fridge, ready to enjoy with our pizza night dinner. As I poured it into a glass, the sweet strawberry aroma was immediately noticeable. Taking a sip, I was impressed by the bold strawberry flavour, which reminded me of strawberry sweets. This was followed by a creamy finish before the familiar cola taste took centre stage.

The flavours are intense, seriously sweet and fruity. They might be a bit much for some, and I generally think acidic flavours like lemon or lime pair better with cola. However, this was a fun and different take that worked for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would buy it again.

Pepsi Electric Blue (Tesco) By @Cinabar

Everything in my instinct tells me not to drink blue things. I know there are plenty of safe food colourings in the industry, but it is one of those things that always gives me a little uncomfortable feeling. I love new stuff, though, and I love anything a bit different, so I picked up a bottle of this Pepsi Electric Blue drink.

Once I got home, I opened up the bottle and poured it into a glass, and I realised just how blue the drink is; even the foam from the fizz was blue. Oh my. 

I gave it a tentative sip. The drink tasted good; it was Pepsi with a super nice fruity twist. If I had to guess the flavour, I would say blueberry and lemon were involved. I think there was a nice, sharp citrus taste, but also something fruity and a bit more mellow. I might be influenced by the colour here with the blueberry element, but that is how it tasted. 

The drink is a fun colour; blue might not be my thing, but flavour-wise, this Pepsi Electric Blue worked. Have the drink chilled with a slice of lemon, and you have a perfect new summer flavour. It is one I’d buy again; just because the fruity citrus taste is just so nice. 

Pepsi with a splash of Mango juice?! By @NLi10

I like to buy a little something from the newsagent that looks after our parcels when I pick things up - so I’ve ended up with some interesting snacks and variants to try.  Today we are talking about Pepsi with mango Juice.

(With other natural flavours)

I think it’s American in origin - the way the nutrition focuses on Calories and not actual nutrition is a big hint.

And it looks a lot like Pepsi! 

And it tastes like you slipped. In Burger King and many other American style places we can make our own drinks by mixing things - Pepsi with say a random fruit juice.  This tastes like one of those mixes - and it’s really not great.

The Pepsi flavour is there but the initial smell is Mango and the aftertaste is Mango so it’s like having two drinks simultaneously and not being able to appreciate either fully.  I think that i might work with a dark rum as a mixer though - but for me thats a rarity.

I think I’d just rather have the two separately in future so this is a no from me.

Pepsi Blue ?! Possibly from Indonesia. (@NLi10)

Brands are funny.  You find one you like and then they use it to sell you something new.  I was never that into Pepsi (shocker) until Pepsi Max - and then it was a bizarre set of circumstances where I ended up buying a coat because I really liked it, but that oddly had the Pepsi max logo on the sleeve.  Now as an old person I prefer Pepsi to Coke (and Fentimans to either frankly) and so finding new versions is fun.

Here is Pepsi Blue.

I almost didn't buy this because it was a whole 35p more than the regular Pepsi - but I can't review that again so here we are.

I'm really not sure why Walsall UK had a bottle of Indonesian (it appeared) Pepsi, but it looked exciting and exotic.

And it is very blue - unlike the Elderflower Fanta (that I mistakenly thought was nice grapefruit) it's not just the bottle - it's actually Blue.

In fact - visiting my Granddad it looked like I'd got some odd kind of medical sample.  Not ideal.

And frankly - its got a berry flavour, and a cool colour, but it's not actually that interesting.  And it's certainly not Pepsi.  I mean - I'd happily drink it again, it needed to be colder and drunk more like a slush puppy on a hot day, but it's not a blue cola like I expected.  Tab Clear was a clear cola at least.

So this is more expensive than Pepsi, but tastes like cheap pop (Mick Foley special) so unless you have an instagram account (or someone to freak out with a blue drink)then it's probably not worth it.

Pepsi tastes different in the Canaries (@NLi10)

We went to Tenerife recently, and went for a wander along one of the many black inhospitable beaches.

We found a nice little cafe that served overpriced bottles of Pepsi with ice and lemon.

I got good value though because the tiny glass made me look like a giant! 

One thing I did notice though was that the Pepsi tasted different, and i just put this down to the ice and lemon.  My partner however noticed the nice little logo on the bottle - this is local Pepsi!

Now I'm sure the Pepsi concentrate is made in a top secret factory in America somewhere, but I'd not appreciated that a small set of islands like the Canaries would have their own regional variation too.

We can prove that it's not exact by looking at the calories.

It's more fattening than English Pepsi? No wonder I put on weight while we were away! (well maybe it was the all you can eat buffets in the hotel).

I wonder if these are just due to the necessities of local production (availability of sugars?) or tuning to local flavours?  When I'm in Spanish countries I live on Aguarius anyway (which is bade by the bad guys - Coke) so don't tend to see the bottles.  Maybe the Tenerife one is purely designed to be used as a mixer?

Something to add to the list of human geography tourism things to look out for in local supermarkets while away.

Pepsi MAX Ginger (Waitrose) By @SpectreUK

You may think this is weird, but I don't really like Pepsi and haven't had it for years. You possibly think from that I prefer Cola, but I don't really like that either (asides fizzy cola bottles). Don't get me wrong as I can drink either, but I'm just not fussed by them. There are so many other soft fizzy drinks out there that I just avoid them on the shelves in the supermarket. I don't dislike them as much as Dr. Pepper, as to me that just tastes like shampoo (not that I drink shampoo on a regular basis, but it probably tastes better). I prefer fruitier fizzy drinks, like tropical, limeade or orange. I'd prefer to drink Pepsi or Cola over cherryade (blurgh!), but that's just me. My favourite fizzy drink asides sweet lemonade shandy is ginger beer, as you may have noticed from previous blogs. This is where the Pepsi comes in with new Pepsi MAX Ginger…

There was a whiff of ginger on opening the bottle that was quickly followed by Pepsi. To Cinabar's Mom and I on closer smells of the bottle (yes, we do that as bloggers!), we could smell the almost syrupy sweetness of Pepsi MAX and ginger in equal parts. To Cinabar all she could smell was ginger. On taste all Cinabar could taste was ginger and forgot all about the Pepsi MAX side of the drink. Both Cinabar's Mom and I agreed that the Pepsi and ginger had mixed well together. To me there is an initial taste of ginger, not fiery like some ginger beverages, as the Pepsi MAX quickly mixes its syrupy sweetness in to the flavour cutting the fire from the ginger and cooling the drink down. Not a scary one for kids, but certainly good for a ginger starter before moving onto the real nose hair ticklers out there. One I'd surprisingly buy again, as I did enjoy this drink and wouldn't be amiss wondering about town with one for refreshment in my pocket.