This is the Double Strawberry Green Tea ($7.40, +$1.00 for large; no ice, 50% sugar) from Gong Cha, featuring a green tea base with strawberry syrup and strawberry purée.
The beverage presented with a translucent vibrant red hue containing suspended strawberry seed fragments and crystal pearls partially obscured by the intensity of the colouring. The strawberry purée remained visually minimal within the body of the drink. Aroma opened with an immediate confectionery-like strawberry sweetness rather than fresh fruit character.
Initial contact delivered a strongly artificial strawberry profile dominated by syrup sweetness, lacking the natural sweet-tangy brightness associated with fresh strawberry flesh or cooked compote. The green tea base remained largely subdued beneath the syrup-forward opening. Texture initially felt thin despite the inclusion of strawberry purée, with the crystal pearls providing most of the structural interest and chew within the beverage.
Through the mid-palate, mild toasted astringency from the green tea gradually emerged and introduced some dryness that partially restrained the sweetness. However, the tea component remained too weak to meaningfully rebalance the artificial strawberry profile.Greater use of real strawberry flesh or a more concentrated compote-style preparation would likely have introduced both freshness and depth absent from the current formulation.
Towards the finish, the strawberry syrup lingered heavily while the green tea receded into mild residual dryness and restrained astringency. Aftertaste carried a saccharine artificial strawberry sweetness that persisted longer than the tea character itself.
Overall, a fruit tea with a flat flavour trajectory and weak texture integration, resulting in an overly syrup-driven beverage lacking the freshness and structural cohesion expected from a strawberry-forward profile.
This Double Strawberry Green Tea was purchased from Gong Cha in Sydney, Australia in May 2026.