This Japanese 'water' is actually milk tea

From non-melting ice cream to a black cheeseburger, Japan's the place for weirdly odd but tasty snacks, and the creation of milk tea that looks like plain bottled water has got to take the cake.

Japanese beverage maker, Suntory, announced a new product from its Suntory Tennensui range back in September. The transparent milk tea is a follow up from its lemon tea-flavored water released earlier in April. And despite looking very much like water, it claims to have the aroma of Assam tea leaves as well as the taste of milk.

It sounds too good to be true, so I wanted to put this to the taste test. Luckily, a friend of mine was visiting Japan for a holiday, and he was able to snag me a bottle. 

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So does the Suntory Premium Morning Tea Milk live up to the hype?

Well, yes. The aroma of fragrant tea hits you as soon as you open the bottle. The taste is sugary. It does have a slight taste of tea and milk, but it's really hard to tell because it's super sweet. Amazingly, the clear tea looks just like water. There's a slight but subtle color difference if you look closely enough, though. Especially when it's next to the real thing. Try to guess which of these cups contains water and which is milk tea:

If you're wondering whether they used chemicals to achieve this, the ingredients label states that the drink is made from tea leaves and milk components, according to a friend who can read Japanese.

So if you're heading over to Japan anytime soon and want to be amazed, be sure to pop into a convenience store to pick up your own bottle.

By the way, the cup on the right was the milk tea. Did you get it right?

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