Bobba

I picked this one up at the same time I did the Watermelon – also not realizing, at the time, that it was alcoholic. I did know that by the time I gave it a try, though!

I also really enjoyed this one – again, more than the non alcoholic Bobba formulation. It is a little boozy tasting, but to be expected and the flavour of the raspberry still comes off as pretty fresh and jammy. A little bit tart from the lime, but mostly a nice wild raspberry note that makes me think of picking raspberries right off the bush with my grandma and then making them into homemade jams and syrups. Despite that jammier notes, it wasn’t super sweet – at least compared to the regular Bobba formulations, anyway.

I would probably reach for the watermelon over this one but it was good!

Gonna be completely honest and admit that when I saw these Bobba drinks while grocery shopping I 100% missed the fact they were alcoholic. I really just thought that Bobba had made the move as a brand to switch to cans instead of glass bottles. They weren’t even merched in the alcohol dedicated aisle of the grocery store – it was just a random end cap near the summery food/bev products. I’m pretty sure the same end cap also had, like, Tropicana in it…

So, when I did take my first sip of this upon getting home my reaction was “whoa, that tastes really boozy/fermented”. I then read the can more thoroughly and realized it was in fact an alcoholic drink. Good thing I’m not sober or anything like that. And, honestly, it’s not that boozy – it’s just that when you’re expecting ZERO alcohol any taste of it can come as a bit of a shock.

I will say, though, this was probably the best Bobba drink I’ve had yet. The popping pearls actually floated at the top of the can and had a slight carbonation/fizz to them, so it was a much better drinking experience than them all sinking at the bottom of the glass bottle and only really getting enjoyed at the very end in the last few gulps. Plus, the watermelon flavour was mellow and refreshing (more like a watermelon juice – not super candy like) and less sweet than I typical Bobba formulation.

One of the blessings and curses of being head of R&D for a tea company is that frequently when coworkers come across tea related products they haven’t seen before they will buy them for me and leave them on my desk. The only reason it’s a “curse” is because quite often they’re products I’ve seen/tried before, like in this case, but generally it’s still always a very sweet and thoughtful surprise.

Trying this the second time around, I like it just about the same as the first time. I thought it was maybe a little less lemony, but overall the sweetness level was still good and I still really like that it’s an interpretation of dragonfruit as a flavour that’s much less fruit punch-like than most commercial dragonfruit products.

Last time I tried one of these bubble tea RTDs I found it wayyyy too sweet tasting, but I saw that they’re recently put out some new flavous and this one sounded really, really good so I decided against my better judgement to try it anyway. Honestly, still very sweet but notably less so than past ones I’ve tried. I can’t help but wonder if that’s a reaction to people finding their initial line up too sweet or, maybe, it’s because this flavour is white tea based which is a more gentle/subtle tea base and commercially speaking bottled white teas RTDs tend to often be lighter in flavour/sweetness than other products in the same line…

Regardless, I thought the dragonfruit was really nice and it was just lemony enough to convey lemonade without needing to be super zingy and intense. Dragonfruit is often interpreted in the food/beverage space (with RTD, candy, etc) as a bit “fruit punch” like but I didn’t actually feel like this fell into that trap too much. Overall pretty refreshing, and I think well matched with my expectations for this flavour profle.

If I had to choose a favourite of the three RTD from Bobba that I tried, it would be this one – but by a slim margin. All of them were bad and used a ridiculous and unrestrained amount of both Splenda and stevia as sweetener. However, this one at least seemed to have a little acidity to it to balance it slightly and the sugary watermelon at least reminded me of like a watermelon Jolly Rancher candy versus some kind of sweet/syrupy grocery aisle pantry item.

A gift left at my desk by a coworker who saw it in grocery and thought I’d want to try it. It was very thoughtful and technically they were spot on, except for the fact I’ve already tried it and I was not a fan. I did drink it this afternoon though because I was in a pinch between meetings and didn’t have time to brew up a cup of tea. I still didn’t like it. It’s too sweet – like a more artificial tasting peach juice. Quite syrupy.

Like the other drinks from this RTD brand, this was a simply ungodly level of sweetness. Way sweeter than should be allowed in a bottled drink. It tasted almost exactly like the cocktail syrup in a can of sweetened Dole peach slices. It was definitely weird and my least favourite of the three flavours we tried…

Another gifted RTD from a coworker. Like the other Bobba drinks they gave me, I have tried this one before and I wasn’t a super big fan – you can read my previous tasting note for more of a detailed breakdown, but basically this is just very jammy and cloying in a not super great way. I also noticed this time around that they’re advertising on the bottle that this drink contains matcha but if I hadn’t seen that call out on the packaging there’s no shot I would have known – nothing about the taste or visual of the drink resembles matcha in the slightest.

One of my favourite things about working with a bunch of tea nerds is that whenever one of us finds a new tea RTD we tend to buy it to bring into the office and share. In this case, it was a series of “bubble tea inspired” tea/fruit juice RTD with a bunch of popping boba in the bottom of the glass bottle…

First, let me just start by saying that I fucking love popping boba. I prefer them to tapioca when I’m ordering bubble tea, and I am hard pressed to find a usage of them that I dislike. However, These RTDs were a lot. Simple enough in concept; each has a popping boba that matches the flavour of the tea/fruit juice base. In this case, strawberry. They’re just an UNGODLY level of sweet though! In addition to other sweetening agents, the drinks all use splenda and stevia and it’s… wow.

This one was the thickest of the three, with a liquor that was almost like someone had just thinned out Smucker’s strawberry jam. That was maybe the most surprising thing other than the sweetness; how much this was a cooked strawberry note and not a fresh or even necessarily candy style strawberry. Just, so much like jam…