The Golden Star web site offers some background information on their White Jasmine sparkling tea – the only flavor they currently offer – including ingredients (jasmine silver needle tea, raw sugarcane juice and water) and pairing suggestions (gruyere and salmon are said to go well).  To give the product its best chance of success, I waited to break open my bottle until we had a suitable dinner – which ended up being a Thai salmon curry.

I’m not entirely sure what my expectations were when I took my first sip, but I have to admit it was a bit of a let-down.  At the very least I was expecting a nice, floral jasmine element – what I got instead was an almost fruity, apple-cider sort of flavor.  Not necessarily bad, but certainly not the jasmine experience I was hoping for.

That said – I think my initial negative reaction was more a matter of my brain simply trying to wrap itself around what it was, exactly, that I was drinking here.  Because after that first sip, the tea really started to stand on its own – I still never got to a point where I could detect and appreciate the jasmine element I was so hoping to find, but the drink overall began to come together and actually be quite enjoyable.  I ended up finishing the bottle over the next hour or so, and very much enjoyed the experience, which was more akin to drinking a fruity champagne than anything else.

The tea itself is non-alcoholic, though there does appear to be “trace” elements of alcohol in it, left-over from the fermentation process, according to the label.  As such, it struck me that this might be an excellent beverage to serve at parties for those who abstain from alcohol, or even for those not-quite-yet-adults at the kids table who want to drink the “fizzy-stuff” like the grownups do.

Altogether, I would definitely recommend this to tea and wine drinkers looking for a different sort of experience – though I do wish the jasmine element was more profound.  You can almost (almost) pluck it out on the tip of your tongue, and it’s there slightly more so in the aroma, but it’s not that walking-down-the-streets-of-Chiang-Mai jasmine experience I was expecting.