mate leão
After taking Maia to the airport near the end of last month I noticed she had left a drink in the back seat of my car. Upon closer examination it turned out to be a bottle of Snapple's asian pear flavoured green tea. Nothing too remarkable about that, right? However, the label states:
« Snapple Green Tea isn't like any other tea on the planet. It's loaded with a natural antioxidant and boosts your metabolism. Scientists call it EGCG, tea farmers call it 茶, you'll just call it another reason to pop open a bottle of Snapple Green Tea. »
Reading that had me both amused and bemused for several minutes. Snapple's decision to use Chinese characters must have been based on some marketing exec's decision to lend some 'Oriental mystery' and 'ancient tradition' to the contents of their product. Why else would they use a character that, when translated, results in the statement "tea farmers call it ... tea". Seems like an extreme case of stating the obvious to me, but there's probably a good chance that people capable of reading Chinese are not their target audience. While it was great to see a character I understood, it would have been even better had they chosen one with, well, actual substance.
And for anyone wondering, the text in my icon reads "zāogāo" in Hanyu Pīnyīn and can mean both "What a mess" and "Holy crap". Either is probably appropriate, given the subject matter of this entry. Maybe I should start throwing around Chinese characters to describe my actions from now on? You know, some time later tonight I plan to 睡覺 (go to sleep). How fancy.