As a connoisseur of energy drinks, Taiwan is pretty good to me. There’s a whole bunch of them here and they’re pretty cheap.

I’m not entirely sure when 7-11 started stocking it but I’ve had my eye on a little blue can I noticed popping up in the energy drink section of their refrigerators.

A few days ago I thought what the hell and decided to try Laohu Yatzi out.

What a mistake that was.

Manufactured by O²+ Life Co., they describe Laohu Yatzi as

the drink of the 21st century.

Laohu Yatzi is refreshing and aids the body in recovering from aerobic exercise, restore lost essential vitamins and promote a sense of general well-being.

It helps to boost the body’s ability to uptake Oxygen in the body, and helps metabolism too.

Translated literally as ‘Tiger’s tooth’, I suppose O²+ Life Co. are trying to cash in on the old Chinese association with eating tiger parts and good health. By calling your drink ‘Tiger tooth’, you probably hope people will drink it for the same reason they chow down on tiger penis soup in China.

What I didn’t realise till I got home though was, despite it being clearly grouped with 7-11′s energy drink offering, Laohu Yatzi is more a sports (“aerobic”) drink.

As such it’s not fizzy!

That and it’s got a pretty mellow orange Vitamin C type flavour to it. Essentially what you wind up with is a drink that tastes like someone mixed a berocca with water, regurgitated it into a can for you and then diluted it with some more water.

I did note on the can it mentioned ‘Light’ (I couldn’t see a full-strength version anywhere), so I’m not sure if that had something to do with the appalling taste.

That said, why the hell do you need to make a ‘light’ version of a sports drink anyway?!

Laohu Yatzi Aerobic Drink – Unless you like that non-fizzy watered down Vitamin C taste, this is one drink you’ll want to pass on.


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