Suntory’s Premium Morning Tea series has been messing with our minds since it first launched in Singapore last year — how could a crystal clear drink taste so much like fully flavored milk tea or lemon tea? Yeah, science!
But its highly suspicious nature proved to be too dubious for some. While doubters are claiming that it’s just water with artificial flavoring, others are taking issue with the fact that it’s made by a Japanese beverage company more known for its beer, whiskey, and other liquor. While most folks wouldn’t really be troubled by what goes into Suntory Morning Tea, a Muslim mum who didn’t want to take any chances with the drink’s halal/haram status did a little digging of her own.
What she claimed to have found out was that Suntory Beverage and Food Asia confirmed the existence of “alcohol content” in the Suntory Premium Morning Milk Tea. And so, she sounded the haram siren on the Instagram account of her Islamic bookshop, Buat Si Manja. The post itself has since been taken down, but the screengrab of an email exchange between her and the company is available elsewhere.
The word spread wide on to the realm of Twitter as well.
Attention to all, do take note of this! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/pvAJaf9Pex
— ادرينا (@nxadrianaaa) January 29, 2018
But is it really haram?
Now, of course, we wouldn’t outrightly say that the popular transparent beverages are unmistakably alcoholic — it wouldn’t be sold to minors if it was. The purported email sent by a customer service representative of Suntory Beverage & Food Asia may have stated that the Morning Milk Tea contains “alcohol content from flavor” — whatever that means — but that’s clearly not enough to appear on its ingredient list.
Knowing how much of a stickler the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) is with its labeling guidelines for food importers and manufacturers, the exclusion of alcohol in the drink’s statement of ingredients could have been tiny enough not to make an appearance.
But no matter the trace levels of alcohol, it still means that some alcohol exists, if the claims turn out to be true. Then it becomes a matter of religious debate for Muslims, whose dietary laws forbid intoxicant and alcoholic beverages. Don’t quote us on this, but there are interpretations that note that if the amount of alcohol is highly minuscule and does not produce intoxicating effects, it’s considered halal. However, we’re definitely not an authority on Islamic jurisprudence, so you probably shouldn’t take our word for it.
What we can definitely say is that Suntory Premium Morning Tea is not an alcoholic drink in any traditional sense of the word “alcoholic” — heck knows if there are dozens of other halal food and beverage products with trace, insignificant amounts of alcohol.
Your brains will probably be a little boggled from the effect of drinking crystal clear milk tea, but you won’t be getting tipsy from it. Probably just a sugar high, at most. We’ve reached out to Suntory Beverage & Food Asia for clarification, and we’ll let you know what’s up when we hear back from them.
