00:00:12 John Daub: We've got two drinks in front of us. One is clear, one is real. On the left, Asahi Clear Latte. This is a new drink. It's clear matcha latte. It says so on the bottle. They wouldn't lie about that. It really is clear. You can't see anything inside except for maybe what looks like water. But it says latte. It's very confusing.

00:00:35 John Daub: And the challenger on the right is a convenience store drink made by a company many of us know, Lipton. It's a creamy matcha latte. It's real, it says. It's creamy. It's supposed to look green, but we really don't know because the packaging doesn't show what's inside. Clear versus real. It's going to be a battle. An epic battle because outside in Tokyo we have a thunderstorm and I can't go outside and do anything except for something like this.

00:01:07 John Daub: Without further ado, let's shut off the music and introduce the contestant, which would be me. I'm sitting down right now in my home getting ready to pit these two against one another. This is getting too weird. All right, now that the music's off, we can get back to normal. Hey everybody, we're live in my home. I can't go outside. There's a thunderstorm here in Tokyo. I had some plans today canceled. But hey, guess what? We're going to bring you this drink off, one versus the other one.

00:01:42 John Daub: Once again, we're featuring another one of these Asahi drinks. We did one before. You can look up here. I'll put a link in the video so you can go and check out another clear latte, one which was coffee. This one, you can see the matcha powder on it. It's Kyoto Uji matcha. And you know, I really don't know if I'm going to taste much of a difference, but it's going to be cool to compare it with real matcha latte.

00:02:11 John Daub: Okay, this one I've never seen before. It's by Lipton. It says it has raw cream or nama cream (生クリーム). I guess it's real cream. So we're going to look at the coloring of this one. So we get to see two products, but we can guess what the coloring of this one's going to be like. So let's get to it. Thanks for joining me on this adventure. We have some lighting. It's dark outside. It is actually 3 p.m. and it's really dark. You can see outside these windows. Not a lot of light is coming in, which is why I have this professional light. So let's unbox, unfottle, uncork. So let's get started.

00:03:25 John Daub: Clear—the glass might be a little dirty. It's clear as it can be. Now let's go to the creamy latte. How do you— I guess you're supposed to put a straw in there. Well, we're gonna go commando here, we're going old-school, strawless. Look at the packaging numbers here. All right, I smell—oh, it's kind of a very similar smell, so we know that these two products are what they say they are. Matcha—oh wow, you can already see the green, the matcha greenest.

00:04:05 John Daub: Here we go. Whoa, these things are totally different and yet they're the same. They're totally different and yet completely the same. They're just made by different companies and different processes. This is crazy. All right, let's look at the two challengers. Oh wait, there's too much in the left one. It's alright. On the left you have the clear, on the right you have the creamy, and they're supposed to taste the exact same. What do you think? Is it gonna be completely different that it just blows my mind, or will it be so much the same that that will also blow my mind? Either way I'm mind blown.

00:04:52 John Daub: Alright, let's get to this because I don't want to get like 20 minutes in and I didn't even drink anything because sometimes I just love talking to you guys so much. All right, here we go. First we're gonna go with the Asahi clear latte.

00:05:34 John Daub: There's a reason why you might want to drink this, okay, and there's a reason why you might want to drink this. The reason why you drink this one—Japan Kofun has it right, the real one, the real one wins. Now the reason that you'd want to drink this one is because it's light. It actually says here on it, that's their excuse—it's light. This has the essence of matcha tea latte, matcha latte, but it doesn't really have much of an impact. And we've done stuff like this before comparing it. It's almost the same as the espresso one that they brought out.

00:06:41 John Daub: Okay, these are switched here. Just this one that's real—it's just so much creamier, and I think when you have a latte you want to have that creaminess. You just don't have it with the Asahi clear latte. Light—this is really good actually, but the downside to this I can tell you right now is it is cold. You can see there's some condensation. It is cold. They're both cold, they're both slightly chilled. This one is just creamier and it brings out some of the matcha in it. I can tell that you're going to be more satisfied with this.

00:07:21 John Daub: The downside, and there is a downside everybody at Conamoon, Conamoon's get kind of like hitting it here—there is a downside everybody. The downside to this one here is that it's loaded with sugar. I can taste the sweetness and I don't want that much sweetness. I just cannot control it. I don't like it when they put sugar in it automatically. It's too sweet. And the thing with this is if you did—it's light and there's not much sugar. This is more authentic in a way, which is weird because it's probably all chemicals, although even on the back it doesn't say there's that many chemicals.

00:08:01 John Daub: But I think that you can control the sweetness and if you don't like sweet drinks, then this is going to win. This is going to win. This is just enough matcha to make you happy. If you just want the essence of matcha, you just want enough to get through the day or just—and there's no caffeine by the way. You're going to go with this one. And if you want something that's sweet and creamy, you're going to go with this one. And I think that you can't really compare the two. They're both completely different in their own ways.

00:08:29 John Daub: But yeah, it's like—well, Gavin writes in it's sugar water. This isn't water though. This is milk. It's sugar milk. And the calories—it's much higher. This has zero. This has 152 calories and that's for 240 milliliters. This is 500 milliliters and has zero calories. So you're getting about 300 calories for this if you were to drink the same thing, which means you got to work out for like 30 minutes or something for that one drink. But it's really interesting. Yeah. If you're not a fan of sweet stuff, then you're probably not going to like this one. I don't like this one too much.

00:09:20 John Daub: Maybe this is—they should call this instead of clear latte, it just should be matcha water. But if you put matcha water, it doesn't have the impact to sell it. It's just got a little bit of essence of milk but you really don't get any creaminess. So I think that it's something sort of disingenuous to say it's a latte. It's not. It's not a latte. Latte requires milk and it doesn't really have a milky taste. Slight. I don't know if it passes the test and this could be—I wouldn't be surprised if they call this like fake advertising in a way because you just don't have that milkiness to it. I don't taste it. Let me give it another go. See, it's so slight. It's so slight it can go either way.

00:10:12 John Daub: Now, actually we have here. Quote, Travels writes in: "As a mixer, you could mix alcohol in these if you were going to go that route I'm sure, but I don't think that you need to do that in the summer." You absolutely could. I do think that if you're going to pick these up, it's interesting to try all different kinds of things when you're in Japan and one of the reasons why these products exist is because of the like-what factor. Like it's—you're sort of shocked when you see it. You see it in the store and you want to try it so you pick it up and you give it a try and it tastes really good and you feel satisfied. But if you compare this to this, you're going to be disappointed. They don't really—they taste alike and they don't taste alike at all. It's really weird.

00:11:02 John Daub: This is just too light and too smooth and too watery. This is too creamy and too sweet. Should I say too creamy? This is creamy and too sweet and if you got kids, I would give them this. Actually, I wouldn't give them either of them. I would probably give them just a glass of water because kids would drink more normal water but yeah, there you go. So as I do with all of these unboxings, I'm going to give you guys a chance to ask me some follow-up questions. What did you think about this creamy versus clear? What are your takes on this? I want to hear from you right now. How does it taste if you combine both drinks? How did you—you guys—William knows me because I did this with the clear green tea. All right, I'm going to totally do this. Let me get a second glass. Don't go anywhere. Stay right there. I'm coming right back.

00:12:34 John Daub: I told you I was coming right back. All right. Everyone leaves. Don, how? Why? What? So here, this is—I was looking also for this. This is the clear Coca-Cola. I do have a couple of bottles. I keep an archive of weird drinks. They don't look good after a couple of years. I can tell you that. And my wife restricted the use in the kitchen and she made me put it into the basement. We have a basement storage area. So this is the clear Coca-Cola. It really is clear. And if you want to see me unboxing this, check out here. I'll put a link right here. You guys can click and go watch that. Two hundred thousand people watched it. It was pretty surprising.

00:13:11 John Daub: So what is it like to mix it? I love these weird challenges and the weirder you guys get, the better that this gets. But don't get too weird. It's weird because we have our moderator, Jim, who will totally ban you in a good way because this is a family show. It's families. Family first. All right. Here we go, everybody. All you kids, don't play with your food. If mom's watching, I apologize in advance. This is for science. This is scientific experiment. If you like scientific experiments, click the like button right now. We have 72 likes. It's kind of weak. I do appreciate the likes. Oh, wow. I like losing likes. All right. Here we go. If you like this, if we get to 100 likes, I will mix this. You have 10 seconds to get to 100 likes. Eight, six, four, three, two. Oh, wait. That was fast. All right. Thanks, guys.

00:14:09 John Daub: Here we go. We're going to start off with the clear. It's going to be half and half. Totally. All right. Now this is where things get interesting. How washed out does this come? Lipton meets Asahi. All right. Here we go. Whoa. It looks the same as the mother and the son looks the same as the mother. I don't see much of a difference. Do you? Now, is it going to taste half as good? Okay. Let's give this a try now. I have no idea. My expectations are really low. Here we go. To the people of the world, whoever you are, kanpai (乾杯). Here we go. Not bad. Surprisingly, that's not bad.

00:15:17 John Daub: I'm searching my feelings like Luke does. Search your feelings, Obi-Wan said. Search your feelings. I know it to be true. It is twice as good. There is an improvement. Matt Vibes writes in, there is an improvement. Less sweet Lipton. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Psybeam1 is writing in here. Use the force, mindless Marty. I love your character. Abel Castro, you should collaborate with Ozzy. Hey, guys, come on. Stay on the focus. I searched my feelings and actually by mixing it, it makes this less sweet and this more creamy. So by mixing them together, it is a winning formula. That was a really amazing experiment. Thanks for suggesting it.

00:16:07 John Daub: I forget who suggested it, but yeah, it's still artificially flavored. I don't know too much about this. It's not matcha artificially flavored. But of course, Caroline, who is a big matcha aficionado would say that if it doesn't look green, you can't say that there's any matcha in it. It's like an extract. So Japan, even though they have some of the healthiest food in the world, they also have some of the most enhanced foods. Not GMO, but I'm saying like by adding in flavoring to make things taste better. There was a lot of flavoring. They're always finding ways to enhance the flavor. So if something tastes too good to be true, it might be too good to be true. Just like anything else. There's no free lunch in the world for those kids watching out there. You have to work really, really hard to get to the stage where you're making YouTube videos mixing green tea concoctions to try for the rest of the world to watch.

00:17:11 John Daub: Caroline, you have to watch the replay. Leopold writes in, America loves GMO. I'm not sure. I guess so. If people eat it, then they love it. Here in Japan, we have some products that are genetically modified organisms, which is what GMO stands for. Even in Europe, I think there's some exists. I don't know. It depends on the product. Adney writes in, good evening. Not that many questions. So we're going to sign off here. Sorry to spam this again, but can only Japan have a quick read on the ingredients list, the clear matcha latte? I can give it my best shot.

00:17:39 John Daub: This is some pretty complicated stuff here, but it says here, the first and main ingredient is natural mineral water. The next one is sugar, which seems to be coming from grapes. I'm not sure on this one. Next is milk minerals, then green tea extract. This is interesting. And then table salt. And then there's some smell additive and then something else, another additive. There it is in reverse. If you do take a screenshot, you're going to see it. I'm going to have to reverse it because the front camera, the YouTube app doesn't work well with the iPhone. Yeah. So, yeah, it is. It's an extract. It is chemically enhanced, but it's not bad. I mean, not natural. It's not exactly natural at all, but neither is this.

00:18:38 John Daub: Okay. Here's this. And in Japan, it's mostly about the gimmick of it. And a lot of these drinks, like the clear Coca-Cola. And one reason why this works in Japan is because people love to try things for about two weeks. Hey, Ren3, thank you. I'm going next week when I arrive. Please try it when you come here. Clear Coca-Cola is in the vending machine, so you should be able to find it when you get here. But I don't think they're going to last for very long. These drinks, and this is the point of all of this, everybody, and this is what I'm going to end with.

00:19:08 John Daub: Add carbonation. Kona Moon. You know, maybe I'm going to do that. All right. Let me just say my piece here. There's not that many people watching. Just 350 people, which is actually a lot. I don't think you guys could even fit in this room. In Japan, everything is sort of a marketing gimmick, meaning they'll have a flavor here for two weeks, and then it's gone. And then a company has to continuously innovate. That means Coca-Cola has to innovate. Now Asahi has innovated. Asahi has taken matcha tea latte to another level. It might not be a good level. It might not be the best level. It's kind of a refreshing level. If this is cold, I would say that it's a pretty refreshing drink. Is it good for you? I don't know. I'll tell you tomorrow if I turn into a goblin or a kappa (河童) or something really hideous, but I think I'm going to be okay.

00:20:02 John Daub: The creamy matcha tea latte is not bad. It's too sweet for Japanese tastes. I'm going to say a lot of Japanese are not going to like this. It's too sweet. Coca-Cola's biggest problem is that it's too sweet in Japan, and that's why this wins. It's not as sweet. It's not as heavy. And this Japanese market, they like a little bit of sweetness. That's why if you go into vending machines in Japan, they'll have cans of Coke this big. It's the same price as a can of Coke this big. Because in Japan, people drink Coca-Cola as like they want a little bit of sweetness and they want a little bit of dessert. And they can't drink the whole can and they don't want to waste it. So they'll pay a little bit less for a lot less. And that makes sense. Because you open the can, you can't save it, right? And that's the reality of it.

00:20:52 John Daub: Lipton, I think, is an American company, so they make things in American taste. And that's why American companies will fail because they don't... And actually, this company is... It's brought here by Unilever, which is another... It's a big international company. But in order to make things popular in Japan, you have to find what the people in Japan like. These are too sweet, I think. Although Japanese sweetness is going up with the younger generation because of Starbucks and Coca-Cola and a lot of fast food stuff. But in general, Japanese don't like really sweet things. You can see with the birthday cakes that I get for my birthday, they're awful. I like buttercream sweet cakes. And I always get like a nama cream (生クリーム), just like a light whipped cream cake with no sugar. It's too healthy. If I eat a birthday cake, I want it to be my last meal. All right? I want it to be so sweet that I go like this and then I run around the house and then fall over and throw up.

00:22:03 John Daub: But I digress. This is a pretty interesting thing. Should I add carbonation? I don't think I'm going to do that. I think that that's for you. Yeah, the sugar rush. It sort of just happens. You feel it. You feel it with too much sugar, but feels good for like that five minutes. I love sugar. I have to admit it. Go back and check out yesterday. Linda writes in with a green face. Dawn's writing. Dawn's laughing out loud. And it's pretty funny. To the moderators, read what Cesar said. Yeah, I'm going to let the moderators moderate. They do what they do and I do what I do. And it's a pretty good thing.

00:22:43 John Daub: Throwing up is a pleasant memory. You know, Jim... Look, I kind of look at memories as things that I... If you don't remember it, it's not a memory, right? And some of the bad things that happened to me end up being the things that I remember the most. And I can't say it's a good memory or a bad memory, but it's a memory of my childhood. And I had a good childhood, so I can't say that it was a bad memory because afterwards, that stain didn't last for very long. We kind of, yeah, cleaned that up. I had to clean that up. I was forced to clean that up. Thanks, Mom. So, with that out of the way, there you go.

00:23:21 John Daub: The green tea latte, matcha latte challenge has been done. I highly recommend just trying it. If you come to Japan, just give these two a try. You never know if you're going to like it or not like it. It's interesting to try. You can tell your friends you did. It makes a really good Instagram or even a pretty neat YouTube video. Keep it real. Yesterday, I met up with Randy Santel. I don't know if you guys know Randy Santel. Highly recommend you go take a look at the video that I made yesterday, and you can see a competitive eater, a professional competitive eater. He goes out and competes professionally to win. He doesn't win all the time, but he's a very, very strong competitor and one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Just the tone of his voice and the way he treats his fans I thought was just really, really nice.

00:24:08 John Daub: And, yeah, when you meet a stand-up guy like that who comes to Japan to eat, competitive eating tourism is on the rise. Yeah. I'm going to say thank you to Randy for contacting me and including me in his eating contest and his eating tour. That was pretty fun. I didn't eat, but I was able to cover it and see him do it, and that was impressive to see him eat like he ate. So, with that said, I'm going to do some more live streaming tomorrow. Hopefully, this thunderstorm leaves. Looks like it's on its way. Our other moderator, Nosh Abroad, has a couple more days in Japan. I'm going to see if I can meet up with him, and I have something to give to Nosh. Nosh, stay right there. Nosh, I got to give you this, buddy, because I literally, literally, Nosh, I can't keep this in my house anymore. I did a video on this, unboxing it, to show that this was a therapy. It's time for it to go. Nosh, this is yours. And I believe, Debra, the hugging pillow is yours, I believe, so we'll find a way to get that to you one way or another. Yeah, the pillows, it's time for them to go.

00:25:17 John Daub: So, I'm going to go. Oh, yeah, people are calling. Are you serious? So, people are calling for goodbye music. I don't know. But we should end this with the way that we started this, with class, because that's how we start with every single live stream. You do it to win it, and I believe I won this challenge. I don't think I could have lost, but I believe I won this challenge. So, the question is, when you come to Japan, are you going to take the money? Bye-bye. See you later. Bye-bye. See you later. Bye. Oh, no! I'm going to go give the Aus. Oh, no. It's okay.