Thursday, August 30, 2018

Trader Joe's Thai Tea Mini Mochi


I'm not sure when I was first introduced to it, but I've been a fan of Thai iced tea for a long time now. If you're ever at a good Thai place, definitely try the Thai iced tea. Some restaurants make it better than others, but when it's good, it's absolutely delicious. I'm pretty sure it's a type of black tea, but with plenty of coconut milk and sugar up in the mix. When it's served, there's a cool layered effect with white at the top, black on the bottom, and a nice orange-brown in the middle—check out the photo in this article.

These mochi bites captured the flavor fairly well, but both Sonia and I thought it was a little less sweet than the Thai iced tea we're used to. Sonia was fine with that. Since they're definitely a dessert food, I wouldn't have minded them a little sweeter, but they're still pretty tasty the way they are.


I also thought they overdid it with the flour on the outside of the gelatinous shells. The mochis were absolutely covered in the stuff. At first, I thought it might have been powdered sugar, but it wasn't sweet. A couple times, I actually coughed from inhaling some of it. 

The pic above was taken immediately after our 25 minute drive home from TJ's. They melted a little in the sweltering heat and a tiny bit of ice cream jumped out of their shells—fortunate for the sake of the pic in that you can see the color and texture of the actual ice cream there in the top two corners of the tray.

Other mochis we've tried from TJ's are all significantly larger than these. I guess that's why these are called "mini mochi." You could theoretically pop the entire mochi ball into your mouth in one bite, but you might suffer some serious brain freeze. I preferred to eat them in two small bites. 

With a serving size of 6 pieces and 210 calories, this is one of the more satisfying dessert foods we've seen in a while. Also, they're dairy-free, using coconut milk instead of cow's milk, but they're still nice and creamy. The tapioca and rice-based shells are soft and thin, just like we've seen from other Trader Joe's mochi offerings.

Sonia gives these ice cream treats four and a half stars. I give them four. $3.49 for 15 mini mochi balls.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

6 comments:

  1. Ooh I want to try this! I bet it's less sweet because actual Thai iced tea is made with sweetened condensed milk rather than coconut milk.

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    1. Oh yeah. Sweetened condensed milk. I guess I did know that. I must have been thinking of Vegan Glory, where they would have used coconut milk, although theirs was ridiculously sweet as well—in a good way.

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    2. Mochi made with condensed milk sounds pretty damn yummy.

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  2. These sound delicious!! I love thai iced tea and yet don’t have it much because i have to make it myself (without dairy) so these are exciting! Hopefully the excessive flour was an odd occurrence, i’ll certainly look for these on my next trip to TJs
    Ttrockwood

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  3. Oh no. I just these and tried them. They are actually TOO delicious.

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  4. I tried these. I hated them. They have the texture of rubber and taste of solidified expired tea. No offense to the people who liked it but I definitely did not.

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