Yogurt Review #1 - Tangy Sweet

In DC, no yogurt shop’s more recognizable than the ultra-modern Tangy Sweet in Dupont Circle. With distinctive decor, a central location, and quality ingredients they’ve established themselves as the best known yogurt shop inside DC, but does that mean they’re the best? 

Walk inside Tangy Sweet just once and you’ll likely never forget the space. The small rectangular shaped room is extremely modern and futuristic with a huge emphasis on environmental friendliness. The signature element of the décor is the five clear beams that run across the ceiling, down the wall and jut out at shoulder-height for a place to rest your yogurt. Those beams, made in part with recycled acrylic, have color-changing lights inside, altering the store’s lighting every few seconds - from shades of green to blue to purple and more. Otherwise, the store is rather stark and clean, almost sterile feeling at times.


The beams with blue lighting


The beams with green lighting

As for the products itself, they are always fresh and refreshing, yet sometimes boring too. The yogurts are mixed on site, made from a live active culture base, water, non-fat milk, sugar and fresh juice. The tart yogurt here stays fresh for four or five days, although Tangy Sweet goes through them much quicker: a batch every other day on slow days and as much as ten batches a day (of each flavor) on busy summer days. Those flavors include permanent mainstays plain tart, green tea and pomegranate, as well as one rotating flavor: pumpkin spice last fall, peppermint this past winter and currently blackberry (though they say they’ll be rotating them more often now). While this isn’t a huge or particularly imaginative selection, it’s similar to most other shops’ selections. 

As for their taste, Tangy Sweet is certainly refreshing but is also light on flavor. I know, tart yogurt simply won’t have the intensity of flavor ice cream does, and on the bright side, it’s lighter flavor lets the toppings shine. But still, Tangy Sweet’s flavors are too subtle, sometimes even making it difficult to differentiate between each flavor. I’ve had the most luck strength-of-flavor-wise with the rotating flavors, pumpkin spice and blackberry specifically. Although you better make sure you like the flavor first because at $3, $4 and $5.50 (w/o tax) for the three sizes, Tangy Sweet doesn’t leave much room to try flavors you don’t love, especially in these tough economic times. Between flavors? Green tea is a reliable choice as well.

A small blackberry yogurt with mango and mochi balls

Tangy Sweet’s topping selection is similar to their yogurts - high quality ingredients, fresh, presented beautifully, and (mostly) healthy, yet also basic and somewhat unimaginative. Their topping bar has 18 selections with some clear strengths and weaknesses. If you love chocolates or sweets on your yogurt, Tangy might not be your place. On my last trip they only had three types of chocolate available (Oreo’s and two types of chocolate chip morsels) and their other sweet options were Capt’n Crunch cereal, Fruity Pebbles cereal, waffle cone bits, jimmies and one or two other choices.


The topping bar with breakfast cereals and chocolate

On the other hand, Tangy really shines with their healthier add-ons. Not only do they have almond slices, granola bunches, coconut shavings, and mochi bits (the original topping for tart yogurt), but they have an incredibly fresh selection of fruits. Arriving at the perfect time one trip, I had mango that had just been sliced in the back and the difference was unmistakeable. Other fruits include blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberry slices, and pineapple slices. With fruits being replaced every other day the selection is reliably fresh and juicy, frankly it's often better looking than the selection at local supermarkets. My personal favorite is a combination of Oreo, pineapple and mango; when eaten together it’s sweet, sour, chocolatey and fruity all at once. Yet this bite will come at a steep price - toppings are 99 cents each and $2 for 3, bringing the yogurts to $5, $6 and $7.50 respectively. If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative, try one of the plain yogurts and add the free toppings (Chocolate sauce, caramel and honey).


The fruit toppings

Tangy Sweet also offers a few smoothie choices, hot chocolate, and the newest addition: cupcakes from Red Velvet Bakery. Tangy Sweet’s Chinatown location shares space with the Red Velvet Bakery and their owners are siblings so look for continued sharing in the future. That location, while not quite as chic and modern in design, is larger than Dupont's and includes a juice bar on site as well.

Seating at the Dupont Location

All in all, Tangy Sweet is a very welcome addition to the DC food scene. It’s environmentally friendly focus and futuristic design provide a unique experience for Washingtonians. While it’s far from perfect on all angles, it's quality of fruits and fresh and refreshing taste certainly make it worth the trip.