My 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.
Building 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.
I 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.
Getting 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.
I 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.
Tommy 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-le...
* https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tommy+lee+jones...
Fond 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.
I 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-...
One 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.
> 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)
>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?
https://youtu.be/3acm7j9k_1w — Twin Peaks cast did a Georgia coffee commercial
The 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.
The 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.
I 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.
> 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.
Excellent (and mediocre) canned coffee is a Japanese institution
I 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.
> 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).
I 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.
Wondering 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?
Always 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?
My 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.
The 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.
This 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
The 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.
I wanted to live in Japan after this post LOL
It tastes industrial, but in a good way. When you have nothing else and you need one now, it’s decent enough
I like UCC black coffee enough that I ordered it off of Amazon when I moved to California for a while.
La Colombe makes a hell of a canned latte if you're looking for something like this stateside.
> 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?
I 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.
I 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.
This old site: https://cannedcoffee.org/
I dunno if this is just me but I find cold beverages just feel colder and nicer in cans than plastic or glass bottles.
The problem is getting real-ish black.
With no trace of sugar or sweeteners, nor milk.
i 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
> 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
not mentioned in the post was UCC solved the separation of milk and coffee issue. any resource on this?
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In 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.