Pampa Tamarind

I had no idea what a tamarind was, so I did a little bit of research (I looked it up on wikipedia) and here’s what I came up with:

The tamarind, sometimes called the ‘Indian date’ is indigenous to tropical Africa, in particular Sudan, and also grows along the mountains facing the Arabian Peninsula as well as in Northern Australia, South East Asia, Taiwan, and China. It was introduced to Mexico and South America in the 16th century. The tree itself grows to between 12 and 18 metres high, with bright green leaves all year round. The flowers are small, and the five petals are yellow with either orange or red streaks. The fruit of the tamarind tree (a legume) is between 12 and 15 cm long and has a hard, brown shell. Inside this hard shell is typically 1 to 12 seeds (varying plant to plant as well as country to country) and a juicy flesh that is reddish-brown when mature. Tamarind is an ingredient of Worcestershire and HP sauce.

Considering this was my first encounter with tamarind flavour I’m in no position to describe how accurate Pampa Tamarind is, sufficed to say if tamarinds taste like a fairly bland combination of caramel and weak, flat cola then hats off to Pampa for capturing this in liquid form. I guess this soda does taste kind of like a date, just nowhere near as delicious. The aftertaste is pleasant in that it doesn’t stick around too long or suddenly go nasty, however the whole soda is thick and fairly unpleasant.

The bottle shape is nice and relatively unique, the Pampa logo is cool and the purple, red and white of the bottle work well with the black of its contents.

Overall this soda isn’t too bad, it’s just not amazing and the bland flavour coupled with the thickness of the soda means I probably won’t ever drink this again, although I would be pretty keen to try a real tamarind.

52/100

-LC

Available at Amir Bakery Brunswick and other Lebanese grocers/restaurants.