08.06.06
Dekavita
It’s nice to see that other nations have gotten in on the Mountain Dew love, although Dekavita is not as bright! electric! yellow! as the Dew. Still, it’s a mighty vivid yellowy yellow which is no less disturbing in a yellow drink kind of way. Also, you attentive (or obsessed) JSFR junkies might recall a little hard candy from the Lotte company packaged as Lotte Inryo Mix 5 Candy in which “Dekavita” was one of the five flavors. Color me surprised (but not quite Dekavita yellow surprised) to find that the candy was based off of a drink. I love it when that happens in the JSFR.
The Dekavita drink is pretty much what the Dekavita candy was but a little less with the sweety sweet. Both are lemony with an underflavor of orange and both are pleasantly fizzy. I think the liquid Dekavita is a tad more orangey than the candy because I was definitely smelling and tasting the orange moreso with the liquid. The candy, if I recall correctly, was mostly lemon with a hint of orange. My favorite Guinea Pig will tell you that the drink smells reminiscent of cough syrup and tastes faintly of children’s chewable aspirin but don’t let that dissuade you. Children’s chewable aspirin is quite tasty considering all the other medicines that Dekavita could have tasted like. Besides, I like the orange flavor of chewable aspirin; makes me wish they flavored adult pills similarly. I guess this is the long way of saying that there is a slight chemical flavor but not a completely bad chemical flavor.
My favorite Guinea Pig would also like you to know that Dekavita is no Ting or Orangina so don’t be looking for the godfather of orange in a Dekavita drink. Your Guinea Pig PSA for the day.
Anyhow! Fizzy! That was the second quality of both Dekavita. The candy achieved fizzy by a super secret hard candy processing method passed down from generation to generation (maybe. Or it could be that I have no clue how to fizzyfy hard candy but the former sounds more mysterious and romantic doesn’t it?) while the drink is just plain old carbonated. Not that plain old carbonated is a bad thing when you are talking Japanese carbonated drinks since most of the time it’s hard to tell. Dekavita is the first Japanese carbonated drink I’ve run into that has gotten the carbonation right, at least to my western palate. There were multitudes of nice snappy bubbles fizzing away that just made me smile. Personally, I’d rate Dekavita pretty darned high on the pea scale, especially given the other “carbonated” drinks I’ve encountered so far but I didn’t have that much support from my favorite Guinea Pig. I’d have gone with a 4; he didn’t so much like the chemical orange flavoring. If you don’t mind the not quite nature’s orange flavor, then add a half pea point. Otherwise, Dekavita will get a
rating of 3.5 Wasabi Pea out of a possible 5.
