There was the legendary Cucumber Pepsi, and a soda that tasted like Menthol. There are yogurt drinks and sodas with slimy chunks of aloe. Late-night carousers can snag a turmeric-flavored energy drink, while tee-totalers can take some nicotine juice along on that smoke-free train ride.

There are sodas, milk drinks, experimental beers, canned coffees, canned teas, canned tea-coffees, soda-beers, milk-sodas, coffee-milks and coffee-milk-sodas (but as of yet, no coffee-milk-beers).

Most drinks come and go with the seasons. Companies can (and do) throw anything they’ve got onto the shelves when product runs are limited to a few weeks. Whenever the temperature drifts up or down a few degrees, food fans scour konbini shelves for new formulas or pop-up brands before they disappear.

Summer is prime time for scoring a can of Japan’s weirder drinks: Sales of cold drinks rise, and companies race to find the most “refreshing” formula to beat the summer sweats. I popped down to my local konbini to sort out this summer’s batch.

Salty Watermelon Pepsi

I’m a totally voracious consumer of Kit-Kat and soft drink news. When I first heard rumors about this drink on the Internet, I was skeptical but intrigued.

I’ve got a peculiar fondness for flavors that sound kind of revolting. Delicious soft drinks are easy, but it takes an especially whimsical product manager to whip up something truly risky. Take the brilliant tobacco company employee who thought carbonated menthol – a terrible drink, but a beautifully ambitious one.

Salt, watermelon, and Pepsi? Yes, please. Every day I’d scour the konbini shelves. I was distracted by the gruesomely named (and somewhat flavorless) alternative, the low-calorie &lduqo;Pepsi Black Lemon.” Finally, on an ill-timed jaunt to Thailand, a friend Instagrammed a photo of my great white whale.

Unfortunately, Salty Watermelon Pepsi is not a mixture of salt, watermelon and Pepsi. In fact, it’s not Pepsi at all. Much like this winter’s variety, “Pepsi Pink” – a strawberry-milk flavor – the only thing “Pepsi-ish” about it was the carbonation.

Really, it’s a liquified watermelon Jolly Rancher with seltzer. Green melon soda is a fixture of fast-food chains here, so watermelon soda was a pretty tame offering.

The flavor wasn’t even salty. In Japan, and across Asia in general, people salt fruit to bring the sweetness out. It’s also suggested to help if you’re sweating a lot (and we are) – the idea is that you lose salt when you sweat. Traditionally, people here eat salty plums (ume boshi) that are sour and salty. This summer, salt is everywhere – we even have “salty chocolate” Kit-Kats.

Verdict: Too sweet. Would not drink again.

Asahi Red Eye – Tomato Beer

If you love gazpacho but hate that it’s not beer, you’d have been delighted for the six or seven days that Asahi Red Eye was available. It’s literally tomato juice and beer. It’s red. Bits of tomato float around. The slogan may as well be, “We dare you.”

This isn’t the first beer that’s taunted me into drinking it. Last February, “Red Romance” hit the market, a seductive blend of red wine and beer that sold for 100 yen per can. No Valentine’s Day is complete without a cheap, experimental mix of undrinkable wine-beer.

Red Eye is a confusing name. A Red Eye is a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso, or the last overnight flight. It seems like tomato beer is recommended for breakfast, like a Bloody Mary with beer instead of Vodka, or a tomato omelette with beer instead of eggs.

But I was shocked by how much I liked Red Eye. It was sweet and vinegary, a very Japanese flavor combo (I don’t see Japan’s carbonated-apple-vinegar shops taking off in America). The flavor was more tomato than beer, but the tomato had a sharp taste that cut into the beer flavor and made this beer almost dangerously easy to drink.

Tomatoes are valued for their sweetness in Japan, particularly cherry tomatoes, and have a strong summer connotation. A shop in my town was selling cherry tomatoes wrapped in chewy mochi and served cold, which were delicious.

If you come to Japan, you might be able to find a few discount cans of Asahi Red Eye around, but tomato season is waning. Even the mochi shop is switching cherry tomatoes out for grapes. Let’s hope Asahi doesn’t take that as a hint.

Verdict: Pleasantly surprised. Would drink again, if free.

Suntory Espressoda

The pun-derful “Espressoda” is, as the label says, “A twist of bold coffee and refreshing soda.” The cap twisted, excited bubbles rise to the surface, delivering the scent of fresh coffee grounds before mellowing into a light fizz.

Canned coffee is a Japanese vending machine mainstay. The coffee is universally unappealing – I can never escape the (probably imaginary) aftertaste of aluminium, and the scent of coffee residue lingers on your breath for hours.

I expected Espressoda to be canned coffee with bubbles. Shockingly, the coffee base for Espressoda is actually better than the coffee inside most canned coffees, probably because it’s “Espresso.” It’s in a plastic bottle, so there’s no tin-can placebo effect on my taste buds.

The result is a kind of a totally unsweetened root beer. You know how root beer tastes a bit like sarsaparilla with vanilla? Imagine sarsaparilla with coffee, and you’d have Espressoda nailed.

I got through the entire bottle, but not without second-guessing my commitment.

Verdict: Not awful, but unpleasantly confusing. Would not drink again.

Lazy Afternoon Root Beer

Root beer is an endangered animal in Japan. You can find some A&W in import stores, but I have never met a born-and-raised Japanese person (outside of Okinawa, where it’s basically everywhere) who enjoyed the taste of root beer. I’ve even heard it described as “America’s Natto.”

For what it’s worth, only North Americans and Okinawans seem to like Root Beer. It disgusts Europeans as much as it disgusts Asians. No one seems to know why, but most people think it tastes like medicine – which was precisely why I hated Menthol Soda. It was like drinking Vap-O-Rub. I couldn’t get past it.

So it was surprising to find that there’s a company making micro-batches of root beer in Kyushu. Lazy Afternoon is only lightly carbonated, but it’s a creamy brew with what I’d call “deep textures,” if I knew what that meant. And unlike the imported brands, Lazy Afternoon lacks the throat-burning sweetness of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

It also, notably, smells like a richer, deeper root beer than most canned root beers, which may be an attempt to shift it away from the medicine-ey flavors reviled by the Japanese.

Verdict: Will drink again.

For more, check out This Japanese Life!

Header photo by uzaigaijin

Coffee And Japan

Japan only ranks as the 39th largest consumption per capita for coffee, tallying in at 3.2 kg per individual. However, they are the 3rd largest importer of coffee, sitting behind the United States (1st) with 4.23 kg per capita and Germany (2nd) with 6.93 kg per capita.^1,2 Working out the numbers, Japan imports over 440,000 tonnes of coffee annually.³ This means they import about 7% of the world’s annual coffee exports.⁴ So what is a country where tea is the more common mainstay brew doing with a product that is common in the West and Near East? Is it to fill all those coffee bean sniffing cups for all of their insane department stores’ fragrance floors? Nope. Like a KFC Christmas, it is the result of fifty years of clever marketing and Western influence that helped coffee become the go-to-brew for the Japanese.

Brief History of Coffee in Japan

Nothing like a refreshing, cold bottle of coffee before battle.

Like so many Asiatic nations, Japan’s first introduction to coffee occurred in the 1800s via Dutch trade ships. However, coffee didn’t start booming until the 1960s. Shortly after the import suspension ended in 1949, coffee started to trickle itself back into the Japanese market. As noted earlier, Japan imports more than 440,000 tonnes of coffee annually. Back in 1960, the yearly import was 15,000 tonnes.⁵ Quite a huge difference, wouldn’t you say? A 3,000% increase in only 50 years.

Interesting there wasn’t much of a drop after the 1990s bubble.⁶

What is responsible for the coffee boom? It’s a combination of many things, but it can be boiled down to Japanese interest in everything Western (especially after World War II), and large investments in marketing and R&D.

The first breakthrough for coffee came in 1965, when Japan released the world’s first かんコーヒー (canned coffee) called Mira Coffee. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a success as the hype cooled down(!) shortly after. Four years later, UCC Ueshima Coffee Co., who is often credited for pioneering canned coffee, released their product to the masses and the rest is history.

Although the concept of canned coffee was a success, it alone was not responsible for the bean’s early success. In 1973, the hot and cold beverage vending machine was introduced in Japan. Coupled with the 100 yen coin that began circulation in 1967, vending machines and subsequently canned coffee became a huge hit. Ready-to-drink (RTD) products were just part of the equation for the rise of coffee.

On a different part of the spectrum, Japanese coffee houses and chains also began to emerge in great numbers. Doutor Coffee chain opened their first store in 1980 and established the coffee culture in Japan. Recovering from World War II, the Japanese spent great lengths to recover their economy. With their perseverance and hard work attitude, grabbing a meal and drink on the go for the long commute to work or the late-night working sessions was becoming a more common sight. Doutor Coffee anticipated this. In response, they modeled their business for the on-the-go working Japanese. This has been a successful model that many associated with coffee until the mid 1990s, when Starbucks entered the marketplace with their friendly, casual “third place” model.

Coffee Products in Japan Today

Can you spot the famous Starbucks located in Shibuya?

The Japanese Coffee market is a very competitive, saturated market. A few of the popular Japanese canned coffee brands are Boss (produced by Suntory), Georgia (produced by Coca-Cola), Nescafe (produced by Nestlé), and Roots (produced by Japan Tobacco). Quite a diverse group of producers we have here, wouldn’t you say? Liquor, soft drink, food, and cigarette companies all making canned coffee. Some of the aforementioned popular coffee shops are Doutor and Starbucks. Starbucks entered the Japanese canned coffee market in 2005, partnering up with Boss’ producer, Suntory. Fast food joints are also joining the fray. McDonalds, not wanting to be left out, launched their own chain of coffee store fronts, McCafés, across Japan a few years back.

As with anything Japanese, coffee isn’t exempt from their weirdly fascinating marketing. Take for example Boss coffee. In 2006, the company hired Tommy Lee Jones to be their spokesman. Since then, he has appeared in many commercials as character “Alien Jones” who was sent to Earth to examine the human society. Roots Coffee also has their own celebrity spokespersons (Ewan MacGregor and Brad Pitt), however they aren’t on the same level as Tommy Lee Jones. Here are a couple commercials for your viewing pleasure:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWYtrF1z5mc']

Who watched all seven and a half minutes of these BOSS commercials? *Raises hand*

So, what Japanese coffee brands do you prefer? I don’t think I really have a preference, but I think the BOSS ads have affected me. Tommy Lee Jones coffee all the way, baby.

P.S. Want your daily dose of caffeine tweeted at you? You should follow us on Twitter.
P.P.S. More of a tea person? Perhaps Facebook or Google+ will meet your fancy.

¹ Takada, Aya (February 4 2003). “Japan brews record coffee demand, more growth seen”. Reuter News.
² ”Resource Consumption: Coffee consumption per capita“. World Resource Institute. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
³ ”Imports By Selected Importing Countries From All Sources: August 2011“. International Coffee Organization. Retrieved November 31, 2011.
⁴ ”Medium-term prospects for agricultural commodities: Coffee“. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
⁵ Lewis, Leo (November 23 2010). “Coffee at heart of a new cultural revolution”. The Times. London.
⁶ ”Resource Consumption: Coffee consumption per capita“. World Resource Institute. Retrieved November 30, 2011.

[Header Image]