#ThirstyThursday: ‘BTS Coffee’ Review: Nutty, Fruity and Not Unpleasant

Beware of the army.

That’s what my boss told me as he threw gently placed these bottles on my desk. I didn’t know what he meant until I felt a random death stare from unknown persons in the office.

BTS Coffee. The name BTS now scares me.

Every point below 5/5 is one spider under your desk. Every negative word is a spoon of salt in my coffee flask.

Okay, those aren’t true, duh. It’s what I felt. Of course, army doesn’t refer to MINDEF sending random letters asking for me to be sent to DB. It refers to Adorable Representative MC for Youth or the BTS fans.

Each of these goes for S$3.95. Am I able to objectively review this despite not knowing what BTS is and being under the threat of death?

Either way, this review has an added dimension because I assume these are also collectables.

Cover Design

Naturally, as people don’t exactly buy this for the coffee, but because it’s BTS, the design comes into question. First off, how does the art compare to the actual members themselves?

We had the Jin and Jimin. Art-wise, I think was quite spot on. It captured the curvatures of his nose and the full perky lips. Though the eyes aren’t pure black on the coffee and I’m not sure if this is an artistic choice or there’s some other reason.

As for Jimin…

Spot on. It bears resemblance to the squishy cheeks and his sweet personality. (mochi is a nickname for Jimin)

But perhaps it is personal preference. Or maybe it’s because I’m male and a handsome male with a black background won’t appeal much to me. I find the design of the other Babinski more stylish and brings out more personality compared to the straight faces on the pure black designs.

Even haters would have to agree that whatever is shown there is technically good art.

Build

For something like a collectable, I would have liked the bottle to be less scratch-resistant, or at least better built to be kept as a display. The materials here doesn’t seem to hold, and we can already see signs of scratches.

The bottle itself doesn’t look to be reusable, being relatively soft and being made from Low-density polyethene. Flexible and relatively unbreakable, but it is the common plastic used in your normal plastic bottles.

For the ones who still want to buy it a collection, definitely, do buy the thing yourself or in a box to prevent mild scratches.

Coffee

As it turns out, actually not terrible. These are Americano, made in collaboration with Charles Babinski, an American barista who won the 2015 United States Barista Championship.

Americano is prepared by diluting espresso with hot water, so don’t expect this to be sweet or even milky. There are only 10 calories in this.

Very nutty from the smell, and on tasting is somewhat fruity, a little cherry-like.

Surprisingly not as bitter as I would have thought.

Despite the artificial coffee flavouring, there isn’t much of a terrible aftertaste and it’s mostly pleasant. The low amounts of ingredients, along with showing the roasting date shows that overall this is still a coffee for people looking for more than caffeine.

I’m not just saying this because I’m under possible death threat but this is the first drink review I didn’t mind bringing home the leftovers.

Overall, I would have expected the coffee to be cheaper and the bottle to be more of a collectable, but as someone who came in asking what the hell is BTS, I left pleasantly surprised.

The score probably depends on what you were buying this for in the first place, but a random person who buys this wouldn’t feel scammed. A fan who buys this because BTS might walk away liking coffee a little more. 3.5/5

If you are looking for this as a collectable, I’d have to give it a lower score because of build quality.

Some say the writer is never seen again, having died from salt poisoning the next day for not giving a 5/5.