I’ve come to develop a few theories while in Japan. One such is that the people of Japan love questions. Today, I discovered that the Japanese division of Pepsi wanted to raise the question “What would Pepsi taste like when infused with baobab?” And this led me to questions of my own, namely “What the hell is a baobab?”
Being the suave internet user that I am, I hit up Wikipedia and found this. I’d like to treat you to a particular quote.
The fruit is nutritious possibly having more vitamin C than oranges and exceeding the calcium content of cow’s milk.[5] Also known as “sour gourd” or “monkey’s bread”, the dry fruit pulp separated from seeds and fibers is eaten directly or mixed into porridge or milk.
Besides an excuse to use the outstanding blockquote HTML tag, this quote gives me the chance to ask you a question. Did you read it as “monkey’s beard” at first? Because it took me two tries to get “bread”. Never mind that “sour gourd” isn’t exactly sending me packing to Baobab Flavor Resort, Inc.
Taking a gander at the bottle, you may notice it has the color of a dehydrated vagabond’s urine. Now, I realize we live in a day and age where we are trying to cut down on the unnecessary items such as food coloring. And that’s fine. But I’m pretty sure food coloring was invented so that we don’t accidentally confuse our beverages with bodily waste. I’m just saying.
As for the taste? Well, I’d like to say that it is the ruiner of worlds for dramatic effect, but it isn’t that bad. Mostly. When it goes down it tastes of Pepsi with a hint of something completely unfamiliar to my boring white man palate. Not entirely unpleasant but I’m not going to go jerk off the family dog out of joy. Now, the aftertaste, that’s a completely different story. What lingers is “Wow, I wish my taste buds didn’t recognize this.”
I got it out of a sale bin at a supermarket, so I don’t feel too shamed. Alas, I wouldn’t pay the approximately $1.63 it would normally take to get one of these bad boys from a vending machine. Pepsi Baobab is an easy pass unless you’ve a fetish for flavor and then, by all means.
