Drinks

Many strange soft drinks are available in Germany.

This is very interesting as a new immigrant.

Most come in tall glass bottles that can be recycled in exchange for

a few cents.

Mate drinks

Club Mate

Club is popular is available widely, especially in Berlin. It's

derived from the yerba mate plant, which gives it a high caffeine

content, making it popular with ravers and hackers. The yerba mate

flavor gives it a fairly intense flavour, some people would say

somewhere between iced tea and cigarettes.

Other flavours of Club commonly available are pomegranate (bright red),

and iced tea (darker instead of golden yellow of the original flavour).

A cinnamon variety is supposedly only available in the winter, but my

local drinks store sells it year-round. This is the only flavour

that tastes remotely different to me.

Mate Mate

Available in specialist drinks stores. Much more caffeine than

Club (probably somewhere slightly below the legal limit), slightly

less sugary. Has a very bright label that looks like a South American

tapestry (probably reflects the origins of yerba mate). Very dark brown

in color. My preferred type - less sweet is good.

Other flavours include: hemp (delicious), lemongrass (delicious).

Mio Mate

Commonly available in supermarkets. Has a sweeter taste than Club,

more similar to apple juice. Other flavours include: banana (extremely

sweet artificial banana taste), lapache and lemongrass (delicious), ginger.

Comes in shorter, fatter glass bottles than Club.

Flora Power

Often does special promotions with the Chaos Computer Club.

Much more like herbal tea than the other varieties, and less sweet in turn,

but it's still "fizzy pop" (or whatever you call it).

Lamate

Mint flavoured. Sounds disgusting, but it's actually deliciously herbal.

A supermarket own brand variety, only available in cans with a llama on them.

Panda Mate

No comment on this one, seems fairly generic.

Only sold in organic ("bio") stores.

Fassbrause

Literally "brewed drink"? If you're American, you've probably had root

beer. If you're British, you might have had "dandelion and burdock".

This is somewhat approximate to those two. It looks like beer, but

tastes very different.

Kreuzbär is one variety I've obtained from drinks stores in the Kreuzberg

district of Berlin.

I honestly have no idea what to think of it.

Orange Colas

These are literally everywhere, the most popular brands are Spezi and

Mezzo Mix. I don't have much to say, you can basically replicate them

by mixing Fanta with Coke.

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