In recent months, we’ve brought to you news on several interesting and creative beverages such as fat-busting cola, salty watermelon flavored Pepsi and Okinawa brown sugar cola.
Now, major beverage maker Suntory Holdings Limited has announced another new innovative drink that will come on to the Japanese market on July 31. The new drink, called Espressoda, is actually a carbonated coffee drink. However, based on the response on the internet, it appears that Japanese consumers are not so sure about coffee soda as a drink.
The drink combines the rich taste of espresso coffee with the refreshing feel of soda, and Suntory hopes it will be popular with the 20s to 30s age group. They have also made the packaging stylish, with a black and silver label on a plastic bottle with a unique surface texture created in the image of ice to give it a cool look. What’s also of note is that Suntory apparently spent 5.8 billion yen on new carbonating technology which made it possible to carbonate the drink without ruining the flavor of coffee in the process. That’s some expensive soda making technology.
While the idea of Esspresoda sounds intriguing, the response from Japanese Internet users has been somewhat lukewarm. Some people apparently have not had good experience in the past with other carbonated tea or coffee drinks. Others feel that people may buy the drink once out of curiosity but are not likely to make repeat purchases. Regardless, the drink will probably attract a certain amount of attention when it comes out next month.
Espressoda will be sold at a price of 140 yen for a 330ml (11.22oz) bottle. Since sales of carbonated drinks have risen significantly in Japan in the past five years, I’m sure we can expect more interesting sodas from Suntory in the future, especially now that they have their new carbonating technology.
japantoday
