Table of Contents
Overview
Calpico White Peach is a Japanese cultured milk drink under the Calpis brand. Calpico makes a number of drinks under its brand and white peach is one of their many fun fruity drinks. It has a bright white milky color and is sweet and refreshing with a fluid, watery texture. Flavor profile is a combination of sweet peach, yogurt, and sour milk.
Flavor Profile
Milky Drinks rating: 3.0/5
I used to love Calpico drinks – they have a sweet, semi-sour flavoring that has a lot of complexity and depth with a lingering aftertaste. However over the years I’ve started to look for slightly creamier and less sweet drinks. Calpico White Peach is no exception – I find its sugar content a bit high and the peach flavor very strong and synthetic.
The bright white cloudy color makes the drink tempting to buy and implies refreshing, clean, and creamy. The drink itself is non-carbonated, very sweet and watery. The texture is light and with high viscosity, pouring like water and swishing around with almost no resistance.
The first thing you notice when you open the bottle is sweet, floral peach small. The first thing you taste when you drink the beverage is the cultivated milk flavor. It’s a bit sour and a bit sweet, and has the distinctive Calpico watery yogurt-like taste.
The second thing you taste is the peach flavor – it has a very strong sweet profile and lingers on your palate for many minutes after sipping. As I sip and drink this beverage the sweetness of the peach builds and tastes increasingly like synthetic additives, making Calpico White Peach increasingly more difficult to drink (personally) the more you drink. It definitely runs on the sweeter side of Japanese milky drinks and I cannot drink more than one of these per day.
Chilled, Calpico White peach is delicious. However, because I take too long to finish it, sometimes the drink does dull out at room temp before I finish the drink. This is definitely a delicious dessert drink, when you’re looking for a sweets alternative or want a sweet non-alcoholic nightcap after dinner.
Of note, Calpico White Peach contains lactic acid bacteria, which is used in the creation of the majority of Calpico products. Calpico as a drink uses lactic acid fermentation on non-fat cow milk to achieve its yogurt and cultured milk undertones, where you may attribute the slightly sour smell and taste of the drink similar to Yakult and Kefir. Added sugar and peach concentrate give it its distinctive fruity taste. Lactic acid drinks are probiotic in nature, may help in digestion and have various cited health benefits such as improving gut digestion and overall gut health.
Calorific content is 8.3 calories per fl oz, a fairly light ratio. However, the drink feels heavy due to the high concentration of sugars at 30g per serving. Despite Calpico White Peach having a low calorie for volume ratio, its saccharine taste results in this being a sipping vs chugging drink.
Make sure to keep the unopened drink refrigerated or in a cool location as it contains milk.
Ingredients & Nutritional Information:
Water, sugar, nonfat dry milk, natural and artificial flavors, lactic acid, maltitol syrup, peach juice concentrate, soy fiber, citric acid, pectin, sodium citrate, cultured nonfat dry milk, sucralose; Does not contain gluten. Contains 1% juice.
| Nutrition Facts | ||
| Serving Size: 16.9 FL OZ (500 ml) | Servings: 1 (1 bottle) | |
| Calories: 140 | Fat Calories: 0 | |
| Value | Percentage (based on 2,000 calorie diet) | |
| Total fat | 0 g | 0% |
| Trans fat | Not a significant source | – |
| Cholesterol | Not a significant source | – |
| Sodium | 90 mg | 4% |
| Total Carbohydrates | 34 g | 12% |
| Fiber | <1 g | 2% |
| Sugars | 30 g | |
| Protein | 1 g | |
| Vitamin D – Not a significant source | Iron – Not a significant source | |
| Calcium: 47 mg – 4% | Potassium: 74 mg – 0% | |
Packaging
Packaging rating: 4/5
The bottle is square shaped with rigid plastic and Asahi clearly marked on its bottle cap. Packaging is clean and modern, while still retaining a bit of a vintage Japanese feel. The vintage undertones may come from the original design of the Calpico brand which included blue dots over a white label – intended to represent the milky way. The Calpico white peach product label swaps out the blue as the primary color for a pop of pink and an illustration of two rosy peaches, giving the drink some lighthearted femininity and fun. Additionally, instead of blue dots, Calpico White Peach has lime green dots scattered throughout the label.
If you purchase the drink within the US, the bottle generally only has an English label with minimal Japanese text. The label is clearly marked Calpico and simply designed with pink font noting White Peach. The Japanese text on the label translates to Peach and Calpico (in katakana). Nutritional information is in english and fully translated.
The Calpico drink bottles are all highly uniform in structure – all measuring around 8.2 inches height x 2.25 inches width/depth. Calpico White Peach from the top down or from a distance is somewhat indistinguishable from Calpico Original and especially Calpico Lychee given all three drinks are a cloudy white color with identical shapes. The consistency of these designs are what make them easy to pick out on an asian grocery store shelf – their pleasant pastel shades in a row on a shelf almost scream out BUY ME!
Interestingly, Calpico chose to clearly market the peach flavor as “White Peach”. Normally you’d see peaches represented in a pastel orange color or perhaps even pink. They give no reason for why it is white peach, but I suspect that the bright cloudy white color makes the drink more appealing or marketing another color may confuse the drink with other available flavors under the brand (Calpico Strawberry for instance).
Calpico drinks of all flavors are fairly common in large metropolitan areas with the prevalence of the brand event spreading to most local asian grocery stores. Calpico White Peach is less popular than Calpico Original or Calpico Strawberry but I see this flavor commonly enough at most physical stores, sometimes even non-asian boutique delis and grocery stores. These drinks are a delicious milky drink with universal appeal.
Product Summary
Overall this is a good drink choice if you like sweet and yogurt flavored cultured drinks. Personally, it’s a bit sweet for me and the peach flavor tastes very synthetic half way through the drink. I find myself enjoying this drink over a long afternoon and over multiple sittings to balance out the sugar level. Calpico White Peach is easy to find though so a good choice for those interested in trying out one of their first milky drinks.
| Category | Description |
| Milky Drinks Rating | 3 / 5 |
| Packaging Rating | 4 / 5 |
| Country | Japan |
| Milk Type | Cow milk, soymilk |
| Lactose | Contains lactose |
| Sugar %* | Brix meter: 7.0% sucrose (23.0℃)This surprised me! Must have a high fructose content since the drink is very sweet |
| Dietary Restrictions | Vegetarian (product contains cow milk), gluten-free |
| Purchase Difficulty | Common |
*Sugar content is measured by a brix meter (amazon link to popular one). Brix meters are refractometers that use light to measure the level of sucrose in a particular solution. You can learn more about them here.
Similar Products
There are many sister products of Calpico White Peach. Calpico makes many flavors!
- Calpico Original
- Calpico White Peach
- Calpico Lychee
- Calpico Strawberry
- Calpico Melon
- Calpico Mango
There are also other formats of Calpico sold in stores:
- Calpico Soda
- Calpico Original (in a can)
- Calpico Concentrate Original
- Calpico Concentrate Strawberry
- Calpico Concentrate Pineapple
- Calpico Mini
About the Manufacturer
Calpico is the non-Japanese brand name of the Calpis brand. You might see Calpis outside of Japan as well, but it is typically in concentrate form whereas Calpico is its pre-packed ready to drink beverage. Calpico drinks have a variety of flavors such as Calpico Original, Calpico Mango, Calpico Lychee, Calpico Strawberry, and Calpico Melon. These are all non-carbonated and in similar packaging, though Calpico makes a Calpico soda and also a Calpico mini pack packaged similar to Yakult.
Calpico is currently owned by the Asahi Group, a Japanese beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business group that makes popular drinks such as Asahi beer. The Calpis brand was originally founded by Kaiun Mishima in 1919 after he was inspired by his trip to inner Mongolia, where he encountered Kumis made from fermented horse milk by nomads.
The drink increased in popularity over the years and was eventually acquired by the Asahi Group in 2012 for approximately $1.5 billion USD. Asahi Group operates globally across multiple continents, and sells their products to a large audience. You can learn more about Asahi Group here: https://www.asahigroup-holdings.com/en/..
Where to buy
I typically buy from the following locations:
- Dainobu (New York City)
- Sunrise Mart (New York City)
- Pearl River Foods (New York City)
- Amazon (Online marketplace)
- Walmart (Online)
