ICHITAN YEN YEN LIANG TEH DRINK - EVENT COVERAGE AND REVIEW

Was invited to the press launching of Ichi Tan Yen Yen last week and here I am sharing my experience for you as well as sharing my review and thoughts of this new RTD Liang Teh drink brought by Ichi Tan Indonesia! The event took place at Bebek Bengil Menteng (which by the way is one of my family's favorite duck specialist restaurants in town) along with special appearances by... keep scrolling :)).

OK before we actually talk about the product, let me briefly tell you a little background of Ichi Tan, the company, formally known as Ichitan Group Public Company Limited is a Thai-based company established in 2010 by Mr. Tan Passakornnatee, call him a legend because he's a very successful businessman who managed to change Thai's perspective towards Japanese products, and (yet again) successfully increase the green tea market revenue to 100% in around 3 years, talk about amount it's 16 BILLION THB to be exact, and it's no surprise that his company is the largest RTD producer in Thailand.

Realizing that there is good potential in Indonesia (with potential growth of 7% per year), the company then coordinates with PT. Atri Pasifik to build PT. Ichi Tan Indonesia (with initial capital of $18 million) and together they have released three RTD products so far, the first two was Ichitan Lemon Madu & Ichitan Lychee, and followed just recently by the newly released Ichitan Yen Yen which I am going to talk about more here!

Ok revealing the first guest star: RICKY HARUN, a famous Indonesian actor best known for his performance at the highly successful Ganteng-Ganteng Serigala soap opera

Along with their tagline "bikin pedes jadi nyes", the company's aim for Ichitan Yen Yen is to become the 'it' drink to fight the tounge-biting spicy sensation that we all encountered when having spicy to super spicy food, not to mention each and everyone has different take on spicy food, I have a friend who's super sensitive to spicy food that even the slightest hint could hurt him, prolly that's when he needs Ichitan Yen Yen and I might introduce this to him. Aside from being relevant when having spicy food, Ichitan Yen Yen can actually be enjoyed daily, anytime you want. I honestly have three bottles on my fridge right now and swear on everything I just had that last night, you know one of those random moments when you're craving for something cold and sweet in the same time.

Anyway in case you're wondering what "Yen Yen" means, it's a Thai word meaning "cold cold" or "very cold", somehow connected to what this drink do best: reduce the fire hot spicy sensation on our palate. From the press conference, the naming was inspired from the Thai and Indonesian F&B culture which is pretty similar and both known for their good range of spicy cuisine, whether it's street food or fancy restaurant meals, as an Indonesian myself, I can agree on that!

Wondering what are the special formulas to create Ichitan Yen Yen? They obviously have the company's special formula that can be shared for the public, but four of the most essentials are Chrysanthemum Flower which is very good for fever or throat sore, Grass Jelly that's beneficial for diarrhea and fever, Green Tea (very good antioxidant) and Mulberry Leaf that's good for headache, cough, fever and throat sore. The ingredients then processed using Aseptic & Cold Filling method in order to keep the freshness of the ingredient, the fragrance and the smooth aftertaste!

On that first sip, I noticed that the flavor note was certainly dominated by Chrysanthemum flower character with a hint of grass jelly flavor to it, good start because that's how Liang Teh should taste like. Overall, I really like the fact that this drink was not overly sweet, in fact with a little hint of sour in it that prolly came from the mix of green tea & mulberry leaf.

What a better way to test out the beneficial keys of Ichitan Yen Yen rather than to test it ourselves? Bebek Bengil's known for their pretty spicy sambals that's served with their delicious crispy ducks, and below was the executive chef of Bebek Bengil Jakarta who cooked some delicious ducks for guests to try, including Ricky Harun and this one special guest, or should I say celebrity guest? Keep scrolling...

Who'd that be???

NONE OTHER THAN MR. TAN PASSAKORNNATEE!!! The company's founder, CEO as well as the star of their commercial ads, so funny I think it should be available on YouTube!

He's seriously one of the most humble bosses that I've ever met with very good sense of humor too!

The Q&A session with the journalists and bloggers went smoothly and they were very entertained by Mr. Tan's personality, the event then followed by fun games spontaneously created by Mr. Tan and the questions were pretty random starting from guessing Mr. Tan's precise age to the total amount of social media followers Ichitan's having at the moment! The prize was the cherry on top, Mr. Tan literally took every money left on his pocket to be given away #majorLOL

Mr. Tan Passakornnatee and Ricky Harun posed together for pictures!

So overall do I love this drink? Absolutely, mentioned that before when I was covering the live event. It did had an unique character with benefits to it and without tasting overly sweet! What not to love?

Ichitan Yen Yen's available in 400ml plastic bottle serving and can be found at Alfamart, Alfamidi and Lawsons around you.