Sapporo Canned Coffee

Posted by Josh Friedlander | No Comments

Summer is now clearly over (ed: has Al Gore confirmed this? Yeah? OK), and daydreams of iced coffee are morphing into lusty visions of cream-frothed steamy cappuccinos and cozy hot chocolates. But regardless of the season, there’s always something wonderful and chemically uplifting about a cold shot of coffee.

Sapporo wants to be your instant coffee friend. Though I haven’t seen these distributed widely (and I find no mention in the blogosphere), a local Japanese market near me in Astoria recently began carrying 300ml cans of Sapporo’s “Jack Black Mocha Blend” coffee.

It’s just cold, dark, medium-strength coffee. I hadn’t had a cup of full-on caffeinated coffee in one month, but decided to fall on the sword last night. I can testify to the drink’s authenticity. Or my neighbors can if they heard me dancing to 80s hits at 7am (great…and now I’ve brought my sexuality into question).

The drink is sugar-free, milk free, and I think the closest competitor is that series of pre-mixed Starbucks blends. I really love those, but they are basically milkshakes. This is just pure well-made java.

Oddly, the can (for which I can find no official picture online, and no mention on the crappy Sapporo web site) is covered in English. Words wrap around the screw-top can and read: prefefferent (sic) people have different taste. “Prefefferent” is meant to be “different” I suppose, but Sapporo still has some kinks to work out with their shrinkwrap labeling.

I say “oddly” with regard to the appearance of English on the bottle decoration because the nutritional information is all in Japanese kanji script. On the back is one of those stick-on labels with information in English. Again oddly, while the Japanese nutritional info lists “0 kcal”, the English label says “Calories: 3″. I’m going to go with 0 calories as my guess, though all canned drinks are likely to have some minute amount of protein in them from rodents, insects and their feces (I’m not kidding about this. Some of it is on purpose: look into carmine, which is used in red food dyes and is found in some processed yogurts).

Anyway, my guess is that this product is still available only in Japanese markets and Sapporo hasn’t begun a full U.S. push.

But they should. The coffee is slightly metallic, but it’s clean and crisp and doesn’t leave an aftertaste. It’s less metallic when poured into a glass (that tinny sensation is probably psychosomatic, anyway). I haven’t tried mixing the drink with milk or sugar, but I imagine it makes a really great iced coffee and would hold its own against the Starbucks blend. It’s especially good if you’re on the run and don’t want to down 200 calories. At 0 calories, it’s the ultimate energy drink. Except, as we all know, coffee really, ultimately, robs the body of energy and leaves us feeling like crap a few hours later.

But I’m sure caffeine addicts will argue with me on that one. I am a caffeine addict who doesn’t currently drink coffee (kind of a dry drunk), so I can relate. Coffee is marvelous. Cold coffee is marvelous. Sapporo is pushing one of the last legal drugs and should be able to make a few bucks at it.

On that last point, the 300ml can was priced at $1.99. I think that’s kind of expensive, but people on the go will pay anything for coffee, as Starbucks has proven again and again. Also, no one ever got poor overestimating Americans’ laziness. Keep some of these in the fridge (especially on a summer day) and there’s no need to crank up the Krups.

Apparently, canned coffee is ubiquitous in Japan where they also sell heated cans for winter (out of vending machines). That’s an awesome idea. Think about the business that drug stores — and other nontraditional caffeine distribution points — could do. They’d be competing with local delis, starbucks and dunkin donuts, but competition is the American way, right? Yeah…just like it was a great idea to let the Japanese sell their cars here at reduced prices (subsidized by the Japanese government). Oh, maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all.

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