#ThirstyThursday: DairyGo Teh Tarik Review: It Has A Long Shelf-Life, I Guess

It’s pretty rare to see the Teh Tarik Man in action in S’pore. Most of the time we’re just concerned with drinking the tea and moving on.

Which is a shame, cause look at these movements:

Can-Can I have my tea now?

Teh Tarik Man: No, let me play with it a little longer.

Well, actually, the pulling isn’t just for giggles. Doing that gives it a frothy top and also cools the tea to optimal drinking temperature. If you wanna be a snob, compare this to decanting of coffee to improve flavours.

But what if we eliminate the Teh Tarik man totally from the equation? What if we put Teh Tarik in a packet?

We get this:

DairyGo Teh Tarik

S$2 a pack.

Nobody drinks Teh Tarik to be a health nut, but have a look at their energy information and the labels stating no preservatives and colouring:

The back of the packet says this can be drunk hot or cold, but drinking a hot packet drink sounds a little crazy, so I’m sticking with cold.

Taste Test

The first half-second of when the tea hit my tongue was pleasant. It’s a creamy, smooth touch that I would expect from a sweet, milky tea.

But just for half a second.

The next half of the first second is a hit of an artificial sour taste.

Nani?! How can tea taste sour?

As a colleague describes, it tastes like a food item forgotten in the cupboard, and when you finally taste it, you’re not really sure if it’s expired or that’s just really how it is.

(For those concerned about the colleague, we did question how does she know how expired forgotten food tastes like and if she needs help with life. But we concluded she’s just a weirdo.)

We did buy two packets of this thing, so unless we happened to strike the jackpot with slightly bad Teh Tarik, it seems likely that this is just how it tastes like.

It didn’t taste off, but the artificial sour-ish taste is unmistakable.

And for the explanation of the sour taste, it’s probably one of those things that’s supposed to make tea more shelf-stable or an emulsifier. Kinda ironic, considering that the package says no preservatives or colouring.

After all, this thing expires in 2021, which is a whole one and a half years after production date.

Yes, it would appear that we’re sacrificing flavour for shelf life here. DairyGo’s doing a great job for the incoming zombie apocalypse.

Okay, that sentence started off as a joke, but with things happening around the world like climate change and protests, I realise that it may be a sad truth instead.

As with any kind of food of this kind of category, this might just be good if say, you’re out in the fields for two weeks. It may just make you go “eh, this ain’t no Teh Tarik, but I guess it’s good enough until this shit is all over.”

But other than that and the shelf-life, there’s really not much going for this drink.

Rating: 1/5