When Coca-Cola Met Coffee in Japan

Travel in Japan long enough and you’ll see a drink that makes you wonder why anyone made it. The logo looks familiar. The combination certainly doesn’t. A conspicuous example is Coca-Cola with coffee, sold in Japan in versions including Coca-Cola Plus Coffee.

The reaction at a convenience-store or Don Quijote shelf is easy to imagine:

Coffee in Coke?

Curiosity comes first, then a little suspicion. Eventually you buy one to see. That small decision is part of what makes these shelves interesting.

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The Combination Had Been Tried Before

Coca-Cola had experimented with combining coffee and cola elsewhere. Later international releases included Coca-Cola with Coffee, and the idea made commercial sense as coffee and energy drinks began competing for some of the same customers.

Cola already contains caffeine. The coffee gives customers another way to think of it: as a drink for a quick pick-me-up. How well that pitch works depends on what happens when you take a sip.

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How It Tastes

The cola is sweet and fizzy. The coffee is bitter and smells roasted. In the version I tried, the two compete for your attention throughout the sip. Neither feels quite complete.

The coffee makes the cola less refreshing, and the cola’s sweetness flattens the coffee. That leaves a question:

“Why did I pay to drink this?”

That reaction makes sense in a drink unusual enough to divide opinion. A limited release gives room for a few people to love it and others to walk away after a single can.

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How It Reached Shelves in Japan

This sort of product has a place in a market accustomed to limited releases. Convenience stores rotate seasonal, regional and novelty products. In 2017, Coca-Cola ran a limited vending-machine release in parts of Japan. A successor went nationwide in 2018.

A good reason to try it once can be enough.

Seen in this light, Coca-Cola’s coffee experiment reads as a test of how far a familiar brand can stretch. The limited launch kept the first run within a manageable part of the market.

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Room for an Odd Drink

A bad reaction to a single novelty drink need not carry over to the brand itself. You can come away mainly amused that the product ever existed.

You take a sip, raise an eyebrow and laugh.

With this sort of product, trying it is part of what you pay for. Coca-Cola with coffee made that point unusually clearly.

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An Experiment You Meet on a Trip

A drink you find while travelling can leave a small memory stronger than the taste. Standing in front of a drinks fridge in Kyoto or Tokyo and deciding whether to buy the unfamiliar can is part of the day.

I wouldn’t go out of my way for the flavour. If I came across it again, I’d know exactly why someone might pick up a can that starts a conversation. Trips have room for purchases you find yourself laughing about later.

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Somewhere Between Coffee and Cola

Coffee and cola may never be a mainstream pairing. The limited Japanese release shows what can happen when a familiar brand leaves itself room to experiment, then puts the result in front of people willing to try it.

I didn’t think it tasted good. I remember it all the same.