Cold Drink: Lucky-Harmonious Peach Froyo Smoothie Saves Education

Harmony Frozen Yogurt in San Carlos, CA. I was interested in the giant ORGANIC lettering on the awning and my otherwise complete inability to figure out what they were actually selling

Thanks to the fact that everyone else who posts on this blog lives in a pretty warm country, I got to seek out a cold drink in February. Even more lucky for me that I live in Northern California where winter in January is around 60F/16C and really sunny! (Wait a sec, 16C in Hong Kong was cold when I lived there!) Anyhow, I couldn't turn down trying to figure out what organic product this ORGANIC ORGANIC ORGANIC place was actually selling when I walked past it the other day while shopping on my lunch break. And hey, I hadn't eaten lunch yet! Lucky for me it was an overpriced smoothie and froyo bar. I decided to grab a peach smoothie with the smallest size being priced at $4.75. I think that is more expensive than Jamba Juice, and there was no protein or energy boost in this frozen peach, 1% milk, and froyo concoction!

Harmony Frozen Yogurt
Peach Smoothie
4.75 USD
My peach smoothie seemed rather small for that price!

My luck persisted and I was happy to note that not only was I forking over almost 5 bucks for 500 calories of not-so-delicious-organice-sludge, I was helping fund suburban schools in one of the nicest neighborhoods along the CalTrain. Good job Harmony, I am sure all the soccer moms buy organic and, thanks to you, you will never mess up the dietary needs of their children when they stop by for an after school snack. Ok ok I am sounding a little mean here, I guess I just would have been happy to pay $3.75 for my smoothie instead.

Apparently what the San Carlos neighborhood property taxes for education don't cover, Harmony makes up for?

Yogurttime in America

For those of you who do not know, my name is Jason and I have known Dave since kindergarten. Anyway, after reading Dave's yogurt entry I shared some thoughts about the Asian inspired yogurt craze in America and Dave wanted me to guest blog.

Basically I have been a frozen yogurt fan ever since I was a young and frozen yogurt in America consisted of sandy and chemical tasting yogurt such as TCBY and the original Columbo's recipes. Back then frozen yogurt makers attempted for yogurt to resemble its higher calorie cousin, ice cream. Usually they failed at that quest. Supposedly when I was even younger, frozen yogurt resembled regular yogurt in America (i.e. it was tart), just colder. However, it was not as smooth as the yogurt of today. I do not remember this. By about the late 1990s, American frozen yogurt makers improved the quality of frozen yogurt, but in doing so added a great deal of sugar and/or fake sugars to create flavors that did not resemble yogurt at all (or even conventional ice cream at times).

All the sudden in the last couple years Asian inspired tart-tasting frozen yogurt has become a huge fad in America. In the beginning, Pinkberry was only available in Los Angeles, CA. Los Angelenos would crash their cars to get a parking spot near Pinkberry. Then with great fanfare Pinkberry arrived in New York City. After that many supposed copycats opened up. One of those supposed copy cats, Red Mango, is supposedly one of the most popular brands in Asia which the founder of Pinkberry (a Korean-American) copied. Another popular New York City brand, Yolato, promises yogurt-flavored gelato (a combination of Italian Ice Cream and Asian-style yogurt). Over the last year tart yogurt has become so popular that you do not need to go to New York City or Los Angeles to find it. In the winter, I found a great place called Ellie's Yoberri Park, in of all places Santa Fe, New Mexico which sold tart Asian-style yogurt. Ellie's even offered to sweeten the yogurt with agave, a popular Native American sweetener.

Still even before this tart craze, Bloomingdales had quietly been offering great tart yogurt for years. For those of you who do not know Bloomingdales is a department store known for its high end clothes and not its yogurt. Still its 40 carrots cafe (found in New York City as well as many suburban malls) offers some of the best yogurt available anywhere. Few people will go to an upscale store just for frozen yogurt, but it is worth it, even though it is $4.50 for a small.

The funny thing about Pinkberry is that it contains so few yogurt cultures (the bacteria which makes it yogurt) that Pinkberry is legally unable to even call itself yogurt in America. Instead it must call itself a "frozen dessert."

For more go to

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-et-pinkberryaug04,0,7985455.story

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=5294057

Jason