The last time I was so interested in a new product – juice, to be specific – was for Galla.
Here is that post! – Welcome to the market, Galla and LMN.
Galla soon died a natural death and was revived by Cafe Coffee Day. I wrote about the revival too – here!
And then, Galla vanished into the oblivion of the assorted mess on Cafe Coffee Day’s shelves. I do not find it anywhere else and I have stopped buying it.
In fact, I have lost hope on the thick mango drink category – Galla was the first and last of the best, thickest and yummiest mango drinks.
Till I tried Paper Boat, yesterday!
I can hear you go, ‘Paper what?’.
Paper Boat!
I stumbled on this Tzinga-style pack – very eye-catchy and interesting looking pack crowded in the freezer of a FoodDays store in HSR Layout, Bangalore. The font was unique and the white was an attractive matte finish. The styling was clean and understated.
I got curious and noticed that Paper Boat had 2 variants – aamras and jaljeera. Both are flavors I LOVE! Picked 3 each of the 2 variants, just on a whim.
Came home and tried both – couldn’t wait to try actually. Was curious to see if the finesse and classy packing extended to the product quality as well.
Yes, it does! The aamras can give Galla a run for the money – equally good, or a shade better, to be honest. It is incredibly thick and has a natural sweetness to it, far removed from the forced sweetness of commercialized mango drinks like Slice, Maaza or Frooti. This aamras is the real, real deal!
The jaljeera, on the other hand is bloody awesome – a wonderful khatta-meetha combo that would have you smacking your lips sip after sip!
The quality, in one word, is wonderful!
The packing is what led me to buy it and it is mighty unique for any other drink in this category… and if you ignore the Tzinga type energy drinks.
The cap is well sealed and takes some effort to open (solid tamper-proof). The material of the container – not sure what it is, but it feels good in the hand.
As with Galla, strangely, there is interesting and clever text in the back of the pack. The 2 paragraphs on the bottle of Galla is something I still fondly remember (read it in that earlier post).
Paper Boat has,
aamras: a basketful of mangoes. wrapped in old newspapers. the feast commenced. siblings, cousins locked in battle. the basket did not last long. we sat there, messy, sticky… in heaven.
jaljeera: a taste i remember. a taste i forgot. a taste somewhere in between. quite like the stories i was told. or that turn down the road. or, the neighbour who would never return the ball.
Who wrote these wonderful, evocative lines? I mean, which agency? Even the brand name is lovely – paper boat! Also notice, this text is written in all-small letters – no capital letters anywhere!
The standard text on preservatives is done with attitude too – it says,
No colours. No preservatives. No artificial flavours. Basically, none of that junk.
Yes, that’s precisely what it says! The same unconventional, irreverent writing style I found on Galla, another superior mango drink brand!
Then, I read up more from the pack’s back and notice a URL and an email ID. I tried the URL – http://www.paperboatdrinks.com and it goes to a Godaddy page asking to register the URL!! Did the brand manager in charge of making a web page abscond even before registering the URL? That IS odd!
Thankfully, the Facebook page exists and is teeming with limited and sporadic posts.
I check out the mail ID and try hectorbeverages.com and find that it is the same group that owns Tzinga too!! No wonder – they have used the same packing idea to come up with 2 more drinks – non-energy drink segment and have made a knock-out on both flavors!
From others’ posts on Facebook, I notice that availability is a major problem. That is really sad.
Quality-wise and aesthetics-wise, this is the kind of drink a large brand like Tata should be producing – not junk like Tion that they launched in 2009 and killed it eventually in 2011. It is so darn annoying to see really good drinks (with solid attitude to boot!) like Galla die… or, get literally diluted in the hands of brands like Cafe Coffee Day.
I really hope Hector has better success with Paper Boat. Everything about this new drinks brand spells class and quality, and it is not expensive either! Rs.25 for a 250ml pack is very affordable by current metro pricing models.
I have seen Tzinga in almost every departmental store in Bangalore. So, in terms of distribution, Paper Boat can at least piggy back on Tzinga and not be orphaned like Galla, a stand-alone brand left to find its own distribution network from scratch.
Summer’s already here in India – here’s wishing Paper Boat all the very best. If there’s one drink I wish would succeed and be available more easily, it is Paper Boat!
Try it, if it happens to be available near your place, in your city. Let me know how you like it!