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Coffee in a Can
- mattl 3y agohttps://youtu.be/3acm7j9k_1w https://youtu.be/3acm7j9k_1w — Twin Peaks cast did a Georgia coffee commercial
- earthboundkid 3y agoI still can’t get the Boss jingle out of my head 20 years since I heard it on TV.
- RegularOpossum 3y agoMore classic Cooper I was unaware of!
- radicaldreamer 3y agoExcellent (and mediocre) canned coffee is a Japanese institution
- ggm 3y agoBuilding a vending machine to do hot and cold was a master stroke. There's also a niche for vending machines with a small microwave to heat noodles.
- nine_k 3y agoWe should check if these already exist in Japan and / or Korea. They are big on street vending.
- ta988 3y agoThey exist for pizzas in Europe.
- dzhiurgis 3y agoWe have ones selling live worms (fishing bait) in Lithuania
- Nursie 3y agoI had a “pizza” out of one of these things in the UK. Very, very bland. Sorta like a really cheap pitta bread with cheese on top. I was pretty drunk so it didn’t matter, and it was fun to watch it mix flour and water to a dough, top it with sauce, cheese and pepperoni, then cook it in a matter of seconds. But in the end there’s a reason we don’t usually go from flour-> eating in under 5 minutes!
- eloisant 3y agoIf you want easy pizza, don't care too much about the taste and don't want to pay for delivery (or it's not available in your area), just buy a few frozen pizza. You can keep them for months in your freezer. It's not great but still way better than vending machine pizza.
- ido 3y agoIf the problem was that it’s bland wouldn’t simply seasoning better solve it?
- Nursie 3y agoMy freezer and oven weren’t on the way back between the pub and my house :) We always keep a couple in the freezer for especially lazy days, but this was a one-off drunken “ooh, shiny? Also melted cheese...” moment.
- b112 3y agoI tried a whole bunch from the grocery store, and focused on finding one with the best crust. I then: * only buy 3 or 4 meat pizzas * add some cayene and mustard seasoning * add my own fresh veggies This fixes the bland, and meat seems to freeze well, veggies not so much. And it takes 5 or 10 for the oven to warm, so cutting up some onion, maybe a green pepper passes the time. Anyhow, I find this method very palatable. -- As a side note, any kind of meat, especily pork, is really improved with mustard powder when cooking.
- numpad0 3y agoThat always existed at small scales but there is now an SV startup is doing that(in Japan too!)[2] 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGPXXk8VE&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGPXXk8VE&t=105s 2: https://www.yokaiexpress.com/location https://www.yokaiexpress.com/location
- hokumguru 3y agoPerhaps my favorite small channel on YouTube is an indie musician who travels through rural Japan to visit noodle vending machines, accompanied by his own smooth elevator jazz. The vibes are out of this world. https://youtube.com/@onsenjazz?si=IgB0LTclAFeVY4TN https://youtube.com/@onsenjazz?si=IgB0LTclAFeVY4TN
- ricardobayes 3y agoOnly Japan can pull it off. In Europe I pretty much never used vending machines as they are so gross and dirty. Even in "clean" countries like Austria or Germany they are like that.
- blowski 3y agoYes, when I think of how dirty the microwaves are in shared houses, the idea of a public microwave doesn’t appeal.
- astrange 3y agoIs this why Sweden has those giant microwave banks? https://x.com/yannseznec/status/1492105643649601552 https://x.com/yannseznec/status/1492105643649601552 (I don't even want to tell you about the tvattstuga. It's better you don't know.)
- Too 3y agoNothing to do with cleanliness, on the contrary they can be quite gross also. It’s because eating lunch out is relatively expensive, especially for students. Close to 13€ now after last years inflation craze, whereas cooking at home is more like 2€. It’s not uncommon to see even well paid white collar workers bring food boxes regularly.
- ghaff 3y agoBringing lunches to work used to be a much more common meme in the US. (But maybe it still is among blue collar workers.) Does seem to have faded out a lot though.
- nikau 3y agoEven better it just uses the waste heat from the cooling heat pump so it doesn't cost any extra to run
- arrow7000 3y agoOh that's genius
- ballenf 3y agoTotal tangent, but why don't homes use these ideas broadly? We have refrigerators, A/C and hot water heaters all in close proximity. Not to mention cool water. Would it really be so hard to get some of the waste heat or cool from those processes into the others?
- ghaff 3y ago>We have refrigerators, A/C and hot water heaters all in close proximity. Maybe yes maybe no. My water heater is in the basement and I don't have AC. It would all have to be very house-specific and customized. And it would tie together what would otherwise be independent systems. A lot of complexity which is usually a bad thing especially at small scale.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hoseja 3y agoFridges use minuscule amounts of energy. The added complexity of integration would overwhelm any savings.
- ljm 3y agoOne specific childhood memory in the UK is going to a public swimming pool and getting hot chicken soup from a vending machine as if it was a drink just like anything else. I miss swimming pool chicken soup.
- b112 3y agoFun fact! The entire experience was a trial in sustainability, the water for the soup came, filtered, from the pool, and of course the pool contained a lot of soup, filtered, by human kidneys. A closed loop of beauty and perfection.
- ehnto 3y agoThere's a channel on YouTube that explores some of these, they are so cleverly simple in some respects. Conveyers, servos, more mechanical than digital. But while some machines do all the work, there are also machines that get stocked daily with freshly cooked food that gets kept warm. Just in general, keeping all the machines stocked is likely a massive effort. If I had to take a jab at the core difference between Japan and other countries, and why this stuff works there; Logistics prowess and manpower. Organised and affordable employees may be another way to word that.
- vjk800 3y agoWhy the hell isn't this used for more stuff. Like you could have a vending machine for hot pizza or lasagne or something.
- ghaff 3y agoFood safety would probably be a nightmare and sounds totally disgusting. Automats did used to be a thing in some US cities but they pretty much gave way to fast food restaurants/convenience stores as we know them today.
- williamdclt 3y agoPizza vending machine are a thing, there’s a few here and there in France
- twobitshifter 3y agoAre people aware of automats? They seem very cool nowadays but fell out of favor. Hot food from vending machines was a thing before it wasn’t a thing. https://allthatsinteresting.com/automat https://allthatsinteresting.com/automat
- johnwalkr 3y agoThe microwave vending machines are pretty uncommon. Slightly more common, found outside places like school/company cafeterias, is cup noodle vending machines. They simply dispense a cup of dry noodles and then have a hot water tap that you operate manually.
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoI like UCC black coffee enough that I ordered it off of Amazon when I moved to California for a while.
- supportengineer 3y agoIt’s available in any local California Japanese market also - Nijiya, Marukai, Mitsua.
- laundryfolding 3y ago> Tadao had somewhat of a reputation as a frugal man. He hated seeing things go to waste. And he couldn’t shake off the frustration of the coffee. “If only there was a way I could buy and carry my coffee with me…” he reasoned.¶ Fate couldn’t have chosen a better person for this encounter.¶ Tadao Ueshima was the CEO of UCC Coffee Does this still exist? It seems like most people I know who break into even slightly high earnings and attain some level of affluence are in it primarily for the appearances associated with affluence—signalling that they're above thinking about stuff like this.
- nrp 3y agoI suspect this is a reasonably common origin story. Plenty of people hate waste, and the ones who have some level of wealth or power just happen to be more readily positioned to act on solving it. For what it’s worth, I was able to start Framework to combat e-waste because I was financially in a position to do so.
- Guvante 3y agoThere are plenty of wealthy frugal people, they just don't get talked about much since they aren't as exciting. Also often people who have tons of wealth start divesting it once they realize they have too much. And again a "could have been a dozens of millionaire but just a millionaire" doesn't make engaging content.
- alasdair_ 3y agoWarren Buffet still lives in the same smallish house he bought in the 60s. The CEO of Ikea famously uses both sides of each sheet of paper on his desk.
- dukeyukey 3y ago"Smallish" his Omaha house is about triple the size of the average modern American home, and he bought it in 1958 when homes were much smaller than today!
- socrates137 3y agoI’d never heard this about Warren Buffet and so looked it up out of curiosity. I’m going to be honest, I hesitate to call it “smallish” for the average American (around 6500 sq ft). But I’ll admit it’s smaller and more modest than most homes owned by billionaires. At least according to my brief search, it’s the only house he owns, too.
- jmuguy 3y agoGetting hot coffee and tea out of a vending machine when it’s cold out is one of the best experiences of visiting Japan. Particularly since the machines are everywhere.
- quickthrower2 3y agoIn Australia they are making barista coffee machines that make reasonable good Lattes! (and definitely better than starbuccks). I think it was Coles “Urban Coffee”. Not as amazing as a light roast single O from a coffee obsessed cafe. But better than a lot of coffee shops!
- supportengineer 3y agoI saw a barista robot in SFO but didn’t have time to try it.
- quickthrower2 3y agoWould love to see that. In theory a robot could make perfect coffee, latte art, etc.
- esfandia 3y agoIn Thailand they have these Tao Bin barista coffee machines: https://www.tao-bin.com/en/en https://www.tao-bin.com/en/en Great UI: there's a countdown to when your order is going to be ready, and while you're waiting the next person can also enter their order.
- kleiba 3y agoI'm going against the grain here but I don't really subscribe to the starbucks bashing that seems to be a common sport. I don't go to Starbucks very often at all, mostly at airports, but in all honesty I find there's nothing wrong with it. As in: I've had hand-crafted coffees made by no-nonsense barristas with man buns in the most artisan brick-walled coffee shops that you can think of and I didn't think they were a lot better. Maybe I'm just not enough of a purist though. But then again, probably most people aren't. Let's not forget what you average cup of coffee was like in America before Starbucks came along.
- marklyon 3y agoI keep Kirkland canned Cold Brew stocked in my office. We have great hot options at work, but not iced ones. But we do have ice. It's bitter, it's unsweetened, but it packs a good amount of caffeine and is incredibly convenient. Even took a case with me on a cruise. I have enjoyed UCC in the past; It's good, but I prefer my coffee without sugar or cream. I didn't try any of the hot canned options while in Japan, but did absolutely love some of the choices for other products I found in various vending machines.
- CobaltFire 3y agoI’m not sure when you were last in Japan, but I know the BOSS machines at least have a couple of excellent black varieties now.
- etrautmann 3y agoI’m not sure I’d go as far as excellent but it can hit the spot under the right circumstances.
- supportengineer 3y agoI’ve consumed many cans of UCC and it always tastes like someone tapped a cigarette into it. Is it just me?
- hayst4ck 3y agoI definitely think that something is very whack about about the Japanese canned coffees. I assumed it was some chemical process to get more use out of already used grounds or some flavor additive. Finding good coffee in Japan, particularly cold brew/dutch coffee, was hard for me. Finding it at a cafe that doesn't also allow smoking was harder. I'm still not sure if it was my lack of skill in finding coffee/cafes that I liked or if the coffee/coffee culture was different and not as good. I found Taiwan and Korea both had high quality and familiar coffee, at least to the US perspective. They also had very nice cafes. Vietnam does great coffee too, but Vietnam is more innovative than refined with their drinks and has a very distinct and unique coffee culture. In Vietnam cold brew was harder to find, but I didn't miss it because the other options were novel and great.
- throw0101b 3y agoTommy Lee Jones has been doing commercials for Boss coffee for a while: > Since 2006, Tommy Lee Jones has appeared in a series of Boss coffee ads. Boss is a Suntory brand of hot coffee that is sold canned (hot or cold). In the commercials, Jones is an alien visiting Japan. He always has a different job—such as train station employee, taxi driver, or a tanned host—as he lives in his new surroundings. * https://kotaku.com/this-man-loves-japan-his-name-is-tommy-lee-jones-5936480 https://kotaku.com/this-man-loves-japan-his-name-is-tommy-le... * https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tommy+lee+jones+boss+coffee https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tommy+lee+jones...
- m3kw9 3y agoI must have watched 10 of them and there was still more
- kmoser 3y agoMore interesting to me is the logo's resemblance to William Faulkner https://unseen-japan.com/boss-coffee-japan-history/ https://unseen-japan.com/boss-coffee-japan-history/
- the-dude 3y agoSo I really tried : I googled and I watched the whole of 8mins of video. But what the hell is a tanned host?
- TheDong 3y agoIn the 8 minute video they link, you're looking for the commercial at t=179: https://youtu.be/Lv2l1JKuxxY?t=179 https://youtu.be/Lv2l1JKuxxY?t=179 "tanned" here is "skin-tanned", as in "tanning salon". "host" there is like "hostess club hostess", but male. You can read what "host" means on the wikipedia page about those: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_and_hostess_clubs#Host_clubs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_and_hostess_clubs#Host_cl... Host club's hosts are often tanned, it's part of the stereotype. The beginning of the commercial shows him as a "host" (as can be seen by him being a host inside a host club, entertaining a woman), and the end shows him as a "tanned host".
- Waterluvian 3y agoI dunno if this is just me but I find cold beverages just feel colder and nicer in cans than plastic or glass bottles.
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoIt’s probably the heat transfer from your mouth and the shape of the holding medium [1]. For me, can > glass > plastic. Apparently there’s a certain kind of art to choosing shapes for cold beverages. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCbYEyfhTQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCbYEyfhTQQ
- eloisant 3y agoWell that makes sense, metal have a higher heat capacity than plastic or glass so they stay cold longer
- Waterluvian 3y agoI think that might be moot. A can conducts so well that I imagine it pretty much shares the temperature of the beverage at all times. So how much is the heat capacity of the can vs. the liquid? I’m betting the liquid is like 99% of it.
- Ekaros 3y agoI would actually expect that thermal conductivity is so much better that they heat up faster. But at the same time sensation of holding one makes it feel cooler.
- m3kw9 3y agoIt tastes industrial, but in a good way. When you have nothing else and you need one now, it’s decent enough
- couchand 3y agoLa Colombe makes a hell of a canned latte if you're looking for something like this stateside.
- giantrobot 3y agoI discovered and fell in love with Japanese canned coffees when I moved to the Bay Area. There's lots of Asian markets there that carry them. They are not great coffee nor are they bad. They're mostly just good. Boss and UCC and other brands I can't remember have options with different roasts and brews. In a sufficiently stocked store you can probably find a coffee you like. Edit: accidentally a word I used to buy a bunch and put them in a paper bag in the shared office fridge. I stuffed the bag in the back so no one ever disturbed it. I still dream of being able to grab one from a vending machine to get the full effect.
- spike021 3y agoBoss Coffee, Rainbow Mountain blend is my favorite. Really hits the spot. I live in the Bay Area as well and I've found that both Mitsuwa and Nijiya markets haven't had them in stock nearly as much as pre-COVID; guessing some logistics/supply chain situation that still hasn't quite recovered. I'm going back to Japan next month though, so my cravings will finally be satisfied!
- astrange 3y agoMy favorite Japanese brand is Georgia Emerald Mountain coffee, by Coca-Cola Japan, because Georgia doesn't make coffee or have anywhere called Emerald Mountain. There's also a crepe stand in Akiba called "Atlanta Crazy Crepes" and I always wondered if it was somehow related.
- spike021 3y agoHeh there's also a crepe stand in Harajuku called Santa Monica Crepes, if I'm remembering correctly. I think I've had that Emerald Mountain one too.
- mraza007 3y agoThis reminds me of hotshot coffee from sharktank. I remember trying that coffee at NYU hackathon and actually meeting the guy who pitched that idea at sharktank
- okonomiyaki3000 3y agoThe Tommy Lee Jones campaign was wildly successful and extremely long-lived but the post makes it sound like it launched the brand. This is not true. Boss was around for some time before that campaign.
- kizunajp 3y agoAuthor here. Thank you for pointing this out! I have updated the post. Boss was launched in 1992 (which was already a long time after canned coffee had taken off in the 70s) and only hired Tommy Lee Jones in 2006.
- ETH_start 3y agoI never had these hot bottled/canned beverages, despite spending considerable time in Tokyo's subways. I was always concerned about what chemicals could leach into the beverage from the interior of the container, with the prolonged exposure to hot liquid. Heat in general is not good for foodstuff, as it generally breaks down nutrients and creates free radicals.
- keiferski 3y agoIt’s my impression that the coffee is stored cold and only heated up when you order it…?
- ETH_start 3y agoI've checked and it is not stored cold. It's stored hot so it that it can be immediately dispensed. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
- keiferski 3y agoInteresting, yes I can see why that might be a health issue. But these things have been around for decades now, so presumably they’ve solved this problem. Edit: I found this: IH vending machines This is a type of vending machine equipped with Induction Heating. They store canned beverages at normal room temperature (or lower temperature) on standby and rapidly heat up a selected drink during the process of dispensing. It is possible to raise the heat up to 140 degrees or so in less than one minute in the case of a 250 ml can. https://www.japanesewiki.com/culture/Canned%20Coffee.html https://www.japanesewiki.com/culture/Canned%20Coffee.html
- ETH_start 3y agoI have low confidence in society's ability to solve these kinds of problems—where the consequences only emerge years afterwards—in a timely manner. Interesting find on the IH vending machines. I would buy canned coffee from one of these.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ricardobayes 3y agoMy buddy brought me one of these from Japan, halfway across the world in a luggage and still tasted good. I drank it cold, never thought I could warm it up. Was an ok cold brew.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago> tastes the way it was supposed to taste It really isn’t that great. Sure it will make do if you are deprived of it in a country where coffee culture is basically non-existent and being warm and accessible everywhere is super nice. But try it when you are home and it’s pretty vile. I prefer instant one most of times (unless I wish convenient packaging i.e. day in the beach, etc)
- WeylandYutani 3y agoThe greatest invention of mankind. Never understood why this didn't catch on here. Don't have to time to grab a coffee from Kiosk when I'm waiting for a train.
- suction 3y agoBecause the taste is not good for European palates.
- dukeyukey 3y agoCanned cold coffee is pretty common in the UK, even small shops will have several brands. Never seen canned hot coffee though.
- NeoTar 3y agoBack in the early 2000's (maybe 2004-2005) I remember buying a can of Coffee from WHSmiths which was self-heating - I think through some exothermic chemical reaction. It was also really bad as I recall, more like an instant Nescafé than something you'd get in a coffee shop. I didn't repeat the experience.
- cmod 3y agoThis old site: https://cannedcoffee.org/ https://cannedcoffee.org/
- anotherevan 3y agoIn the early to mid nineties I worked in Tokyo outer suburbs on and off for a bit - working ridiculous hours. One fond-in-retrospect memory is in the late evening or early AM hours going up to a vending machine on the train platform, getting a nice hot can of coffee and sticking it and my hands in my coat pockets to keep warm until the train got there. Then once in the heated carriage cracking it open and drinking it to keep me awake for the ride back to the hotel.
- geswit2x 3y agoI'd pay to know more about that story lol
- anotherevan 3y agoWell one time I broke a tooth. Using my little Japanese/English phrase book I told the concierge at my hotel who took me to a local dentist. The dentist whacked a temporary filling in and via the concierge's rudimentary English told me to get it fixed when I got home. The only thing he said to me directly, and with no trace of an accent mind you, was, "Open wide, please."
- geswit2x 3y agohahahahahaahah
- version_five 3y agoIn Japanese, tooth is Ha (歯,は)
- rmbyrro 3y agoDidn't it ruin your sleep?
- anotherevan 3y agoWith the hours I was working at the time, no.
- suction 3y ago[dead]
- isitmadeofglass 3y ago[dead]
- kristianc 3y agoFond memories of working on the Georgia Coffee account when I was in Japan at the start of my career - insanely profitable drink for Coke as there’s very little distribution cost, simply strike a deal with the bottlers and boom you have 200m units in front of people. This means that you can have insane variety - 20/30 different types of this canned coffee are not uncommon at all and the Japanese consumers are absolutely hooked on it.
- e12e 3y agoAlways struck me as a weird descrepency in William Gibson's "Idoru": > (...) His computer there, a featureless black cube. A shallower shelf of the juice-carton board supported a pale blue microwave, unopened ramen bowls, and half a dozen tiny steel cans of coffee. > One of these, freshly microwaved, was hot in Chia's hand. The coffee was strong, sugary, thickly creamed. She sat beside him on the lumpy bed ledge, a padded jacket wadded up behind her for a cushion. I mean, you can't (well shouldn't) microwave a steel can, right?
- dr_hooo 3y agoMicrowaving steel isn't really a problem, as long as it is not just a very thin layer (can confirm)
- e12e 3y agoA (regular) steel beverage can is pretty thin, and comes with sharp edges on the opener ring/tab? (I suppose the tab could be plastic - but they're not now)
- throw0101b 3y ago> I mean, you can't (well shouldn't) microwave a steel can, right? Sharp points are a problem, but one can design things to work: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg_lqy1p6B4&t=11m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg_lqy1p6B4&t=11m20s
- michaelbuckbee 3y agoThe article mentions that seeing a collection of historical Japanese vending machines would be neat: there's a great episode of "Strange Parts" on YT that's an engineering focused visit to an informal Japanese vending machine museum. https://youtu.be/gzxW3B3_Pak https://youtu.be/gzxW3B3_Pak
- snvzz 3y agoThe problem is getting real-ish black. With no trace of sugar or sweeteners, nor milk.
- brap 3y ago>You and I would have grumbled and moved on. But not Toshikage. In many of these sort of entrepreneurship stories, this is the key takeaway. It seems like one really has to disable their auto-grumbling setting and enable something else instead. Of course this is easier said than done. Is this an innate ability? Something that can be trained?
- user_7832 3y agoI think it comes more easily to some people than others but I see no reason why it cannot be trained. In my personal case (I find myself often finding and wishing I could solve such problems) I don't have a very high threshold of accepting the "existing state" if it's not comfortable for me.
- theelous3 3y agoI find it interesting that people associate italy with good coffee. Given their reputation there the coffee is poor. Espresso is typically burned quite badly and praised as strong. Northern europe, Ireland, and the UK have far better coffee. Also Oz. At least in my experience. Also, to briefly comment on the oz conversation happening here - perth does have fantastic coffee. My favourite cafe ever is a little place called issacs in rocko.
- joshvm 3y agoAustralia and New Zealand have probably the best coffee (on average) of anywhere I've been, if you like milk drinks. The UK has a lot of fantastic coffee shops, but it's still overrun with Costas and a lot of places have added flat whites to their menu, even though they can't make them well.
- cylinder714 3y agoSacramento has Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters, founded by two fellows from New Zealand: https://chocolatefishcoffee.com/ https://chocolatefishcoffee.com/
- theelous3 3y agoCosta and insomnia should be shuttered as a public gratuity. Absolute muck from each at their very best.
- paulcapewell 3y agoHad to look up Insomnia - hadn't heard of it before in the UK. Seems to be only in Ireland and across the English midlands. https://www.insomnia.ie/nearest-coffee-shop https://www.insomnia.ie/nearest-coffee-shop
- elyobo 3y agoWhen I lived in Perth in 2008 the coffee was awful compared to NZ (and to Melbourne, where I ended up afterwards). I lived in Leederville and Subiaco, both with popular cafe strips, but broadly awful coffee.
- wdb 3y agoWondering if they have similar stories about tea. There aren’t many good ice teas in vending machines. Barely taste like tea. Personally I don’t drink coffee but can imagine it’s similar to the tea problem?
- rvba 3y agoI dont have any information about canned tea, but I would assume that it exists, since Japan has a whole tea ceremony ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tea_ceremony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tea_ceremony ).
- johnwalkr 3y agoDrink vending machines in Japan will typically have 3-4 types of unsweetened iced tea (such as black tea, oolong tea, barley tea, green tea and jasmine tea) and sometimes sweet/flavoured black tea and English-inspired milk tea. In winter 1-2 of those will be offered hot, too.
- donatj 3y agoI drank sooo much canned coffee during my time in Japan. I really wish it was regularly available in the US. You can get Starbucks drink nonsense but I want real, decent god-fearing black coffee. You can get the Japanese stuff at Asian markets near me, and I do regularly, but it’s not nearly as convenient as it being in convenience stores.
- ghaff 3y agoYou can get black cold coffee in larger containers in supermarkets but, yeah, in general the canned/bottled cold coffee you can buy is oversweetened and overmilked for my taste.
- amelius 3y agoIs this iced-coffee, or is it somehow heated?
- Gunnerhead 3y agoI remember in Japan they had both! Pretty cool.
- donatj 3y agoI only ever had the cold variety in Japan, but I can imagine the warm variety being nice as well.
- brewdad 3y agoThese are aluminum cans, I presume? Is the “hot” coffee more like lukewarm coffee or is this something that one would only be consumed in the winter when one is wearing gloves?
- kizunajp 3y agoYes, nowadays all cans are aluminum though they used to be made of steel. The hot drinks are hot hot, not lukewarm hot.
- 3y ago
- pard68 3y agoMy roommate through all of college was a man from Taiwan. We were and still are good friends. He started dating a girl from Japan around our Sophomore year and the next thing I knew our room was full of cases of canned coffee. Turns out the girl's father had tried to start up an export business shipping cans of coffee to the US. Didn't work, but my roommate loved it so his girlfriend off-loaded all of it on him, after her father had done the same to her.
- theGnuMe 3y agoThis would probably work now... hot canned coffee in airports, specifically, as the Starbucks are always backed up and never open for the very early or very late flights. I would target the major international airports first. Also my kid is really into Ramune as a soda. Even our almost "rural" edge of the metro supermarket is carrying it.
- version_five 3y agoI think airports work on a concession model where companies essentially bid to get a spot there, like a mall food court. So the business model is to get a monopoly and then sell overpriced crap, which doesn't lend itself to innovation and makes the market hard to break in to. I agree it would be awesome to be able to get it at the airport.
- blamazon 3y agoThis is changing, slowly - airport leaders today recognize the value of innovation for customer experience and are making moves where possible to back out of such models, plus welcoming local business, although the difficulties of operating in an airport environment does still lend the environment to larger players, or smaller ones operating through a middleman. KATL and KMSP are two that come to mind for me. Entrepeneurs should definitely consider reaching out to airports that are locally managed - often their hands are tied due to contracts, but those will time out someday.
- joecool1029 3y agoI miss the UCC Drink It Black coffee cans. I used to see them at Asian grocery stores (Mitsuwa was where I first tried the cans) and would buy a dozen or so at a time. I guess they discontinued the line.
- anotheruser13 3y agoThat was good stuff! I'd buy it by the liter at the 7-11 near where I lived in Kyoto, and chug it on the 203 "guru guru bus" on my way to Japanese school.
- backendanon 3y agoI was in Sasebo, Japan in the early 1980's and remember buying cold coffee in a can from a vending machine similar to buying a can of Coke in the States.
- postcert 3y agoOne aspect I rarely seen mentioned is The price of these canned coffees in Japan. I remember most ranging from 100-250 yen ($1-2 when I last visited). As a tourist that was the biggest selling point for me, getting pretty good coffee warm or cold in seconds. Sadly every time I see some mention of UCC or Boss coffee I spend a few minutes browsing to see if it can be imported near that price. Lately though it has been getting better with occasional sale on Amazon making them a nice treat.
- night-rider 3y ago> Pokka collaborated with a vending machine manufacturer to build a “hot-and-cold” vending machine which could sell both hot and cold beverages simultaneously How does the 'hot' thing work? Is it kept hot for long periods of time?
- perebas 3y agoI wanted to live in Japan after this post LOL
- sgu999 3y ago> The success of canned coffee rests on two pillars – cans and vending machines. I can think of a few more pillars: cheap energy, laziness, and carelessness for the environment
- an_aparallel 3y agoi tried Boss hot coffee in japan, holy moley is it sweet. Cant say I was a fan. Though Sydneysiders can be coffee snobs - im sure this works for 99% of the population
- dannyr 3y agonot mentioned in the post was UCC solved the separation of milk and coffee issue. any resource on this?
- kizunajp 3y agoThey solved the separation issue by homogenizing the milk: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogenization_(chemistry) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogenization_(chemistry)
- ca_tech 3y agoI think another wonderful rabbit hole to look at when talking about coffee in a can is the ongoing quest for the self-heating drink can. https://theconversation.com/self-heating-drinks-cans-return-heres-how-they-work-98476 https://theconversation.com/self-heating-drinks-cans-return-...
- tdeck 3y ago> In those days you would buy your drink, drink it on the spot, and return the bottle. As luck would have it, he mistimed his coffee and his train started to pull out of the station. He hurriedly returned his half-finished bottle and ran to his train. > Now, Tadao had somewhat of a reputation as a frugal man. He hated seeing things go to waste. And he couldn’t shake off the frustration of the coffee. “If only there was a way I could buy and carry my coffee with me…” he reasoned. Something about this doesn't make sense to me. Why not just return the bottle to a different machine, or bring it back the next time he was in the station? It seems to be like a bottle is actually easier to carry with you than a can, since a bottle can usually be resealed (even crown closure bottles you can push the cap back on).
- kizunajp 3y agoAuthor here. This was actually something that puzzled me too. There must have been many steps between "Want to carry my coffee with me" and "Let's stuff it in a can" that I wasn't clear about. So I did some more digging (but didn't put this in the post because I thought it'd make it very long). I don't have the definitive answer, but a few things to consider: - The bottles might have been resealable, but you would have to be worried about leaks for as long as you had the bottle with you. FWIW, the bottles from that time looked like this: https://www.townnews.co.jp/0607/images/a001046055_01.jpg https://www.townnews.co.jp/0607/images/a001046055_01.jpg - Someone going on a long-distance train might not be able to bring the bottle back to the same station - The store at a different station might not take the bottle from you since shops usually pay a bottle deposit to their suppliers and own the (fungible) bottle - In many countries with bottled drinks the store charges you a bottle deposit that's much more expensive than the drink. Perhaps the frugal CEO did not want to pay that. - Or even if he wanted to, did not have the time for that transaction given the train started pulling away
- tdeck 3y agoWow thanks for the reply!
- anotheruser13 3y agoThe first time I went to Japan, I was wandering around Osaka with a friend. I spied a vending machine featuring a new canned coffee and started laughing. The coffee was called BM. Granted, coffee has that effect on some people, but I think Pokka was unaware what BM is a euphemism for in English. Needless to say, that brand didn't last long.