Summary
Sam talk to Richard to learn about Lemon and Te Aroha, the refreshing drink that’s making a comeback. Find out what makes this drink special compared to others.
Links
https://www.tearohamineralwater.co.nz/
Photos
Show Transcript
This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you have questions about any of the information found here, please reach out to us.
Sam [00:00:21]:
Hey, guys, Sam here from the Field Days 2023 and back in episode 386 of the podcast. You would have remembered, I’m sure you would have. We spoke about Lemon and Tiatoha. Well, guess what? They here. And I’m talking with Richard, the man behind it.
Richard [00:00:36]:
How are you going, guys?
Sam [00:00:38]:
Doing good. Tell me all about Lemon and Te Aroha, the original better drink I’m thinking.
Richard [00:00:44]:
Lemon and Te Aroha was the original lemon drink. It came out 19 years before our neighbors, Lemon and Paeroa, Coke bought both them in the 60’s closed our one day down because of the access to get the water. So our water comes out of the ground full of minerals, naturally carbonated, and it’s fully organic and most probably the only organic soft drink in New Zealand today because the other organic certified drinks, they use town water where we don’t. We just use our natural water and no preservatives added in any of the processes.
Sam [00:01:12]:
That’s amazing. And that’s what blew me away, hearing about this just before. It’s good to get a proper drink now. How did you bring this back? Did you just wake up one day and go, you know what, I’m going to start this up?
Richard [00:01:25]:
No, it was actually someone offered me the property where the water was and I said no for the first two years and then thought about it for a while. We used to drink another drink called Te Aroha and Lemon, which was similar, was out of the domain back in the early seventy s. And it was a great drink and everyone locally loved it. So I thought, oh, let’s just do something and bring it back and see what it tastes like. And the reception to it’s been overwhelming. I was a little bit worried initially because I thought people’s memories would be make it think it was better than actually was. But people sam no, this is actually better tasting. And I think the reason behind it is because we do take the iron and the manganese out. And again, that happens through a natural process and that’s what just makes that flavor that’s so much better.
Sam [00:02:06]:
Sounds amazing. So if someone wanted to get hold of some of this, how would they go about doing that? What’s the best option?
Richard [00:02:14]:
Obviously come to Te Aroha and we’ve got about 25 to 30 outlets, but we’re also selling online under www.tamineralwater.conz. But how about I give you guys a taste?
Sam [00:02:25]:
Yeah, we’re going to have a taste test right here, right now. Chris, his eyes are lighting up. He’s old enough to remember when it first came out.
Chris [00:02:34]:
I lived in Wellington, so I didn’t.
Sam [00:02:35]:
See that’s not an excuse. You should have had it. You know who I blame? Your mum.
Chris [00:02:40]:
Yeah, so do I.
Sam [00:02:41]:
That’s going to go down well when she hears us. Sorry.
Richard [00:02:44]:
And funny enough, lemon and terrahill was actually wider distributed back in the 50s than lemon and poro, so people would buy Lemon and Chris as a treat up in Auckland, it was owned by Innocent Tartar and that’s the reason for the distribution.
Chris [00:02:58]:
Damn, that’s nice.
Sam [00:03:00]:
This is a very refreshing drop. Yeah. It’s hard to express it through a podcast, so he’s going to have to trust me on this one. Go and track down some lemon and.
Chris [00:03:09]:
Tioja so that’s naturally occurring carbonation comes.
Richard [00:03:15]:
Out of the ground, naturally carbonated. And back in the day, the soda water that used to be available in mineral water that’s exactly the same as this out of the domain, was believed to cure hangovers as well. And we’re getting a lot of response from local people. A, drinking it with your spirits, you don’t seem to get the hangover in the morning because there are no preservatives in it. And if you are a bit queasy because you’re drinking something else, they go straight for this, mate, and they feel in 100%.
Sam [00:03:40]:
Chris is getting super excited because he is feeling a bit I had a.
Chris [00:03:44]:
Few whiskeys last night, right after a phone call, I needed some and, yeah, I had a bit of a hangover this morning, so if we got something.
Sam [00:03:52]:
For you look at that.
Chris [00:03:54]:
But honestly, the carbonation of that tastes different. It feels different on your tongue than like, carbonated soft drink.
Sam [00:04:03]:
The fake stuff.
Chris [00:04:04]:
Yeah, exactly.
Richard [00:04:06]:
The main reason is that is because of the high mineral, natural, high mineral content in the water and it actually smooths it over. I gave it some to my grandkids and usually the soft drink, they go, it’s spicy, but they don’t notice that with this drink, which I don’t know if it’s good or bad, because the drink too much of it, but it rounds off that bitter note. And that’s how it works with the alcohol too, just quietly nice.
Sam [00:04:29]:
From a Bottling point of view, was it hard to set up to start doing this at such a large scale?
Richard [00:04:37]:
It took us a couple of years and the biggest problem we had was trying to do everything naturally. Everybody that you go to, to try and get filtration from an iron and manganese point of view, just want to throw chemicals at you. And we were just going, no, we don’t want why would we put chemicals in such a natural, beautiful water? It just doesn’t make sense.
Sam [00:04:57]:
No, it doesn’t. And why would you, when it tastes so good naturally? And I was just thinking, just thought come to my mind, the problem that people were having with CO2 and getting that, that must not affect you guys.
Richard [00:05:08]:
No, definitely not. I mean, we’ve got it coming out naturally. So, like I say, the only problem we have, we’ve also got a tara mineral water still product, so we’ve got to push the CO2 out of the water to make a still where it’s round the other way for everybody else.
Chris [00:05:21]:
So is there a limited resource, this CO2 water?
Richard [00:05:27]:
Well, we could take up to 50,000 liters a day, which is not a lot. I mean, and average household is allowed to without a consent to take 30,000. But we’re not going to muck around with this. We’re not going to take too much out. It’s from where I’m from, it’s from our local community, and we’re definitely not going to ruin it.
Chris [00:05:45]:
Yeah, no, that’s good, but I don’t know the process of how it gets carbonated underground or whatever. But is that a limited thing, like, one day? Will it run out?
Richard [00:05:56]:
I wouldn’t think so. It was going pre European days and they were bottling it in 1887 and it’s still here today. The Tiara hot mineral pools. They use the only hot water soda geyser in the world and they’re still going.
Sam [00:06:11]:
Sounds very good. Yeah. Try this. Hope to see it spread around the country even more. Thanks so much, Richard. Great talking to you.
Richard [00:06:20]:
Cheers, guys.
Sam [00:06:21]:
Thanks, Richard.
Richard [00:06:22]:
Thanks.
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