Coke Santa's Christmas Ornaments (promotion information)

I've mentioned on my other blog that there was a time in Japan when I was laid up with terrible back pain. The remedy according to the doctor I saw was to stay in bed and get up as infrequently as possible for up to three months. He insisted that I was risking a permanent crippling if I did otherwise.

After two months of this and not getting any better, I took matters into my own hands and started walking little by little every day. One of the things that I did was walk to the local Inageya market and buy 1.5-liter bottles of Diet Coke. The time when I concluded that "enough was enough" was near Christmas and there was a promotion going on in which they gave away adorable little ornaments with the famous Coca-Cola polar bears on them with the purchase of such sizes.

I could only carry two bottles at a time because of my back, but walking there everyday and trying to slowly acquire every single type of ornament provided with early motivation to keep conducting my personally prescribed "physical therapy". My back got better, and I had a full collection of the nifty ornaments.

Unfotunately, I didn't bring them back with me when I left Japan, but Coke is putting out a new set for those who'd like to start their own collection. These aren't nearly as cute as the ones I got (they were all polar bear themed), but they're still worth collecting. They're one of the more useful little freebies that you can get with a snack or drink. I'd also encourage people to give Coke some business because I have to give the company at least a little credit for pulling me through a very difficult time. 

Random Picture #173

This picture is courtesy of Coca-Cola and it's not a product announcement because the contents are nothing new. This is a limited edition design for cans sold only in Okinawa. It's a limited edition, so it won't be around forever. The illustration is of hibiscus flowers and they are apparently quite popular in the region as part of gardens and parks. They are not originally from the area as the plants were brought over from China and transplanted there.

I'm not using this picture because I want to give botany lessons. The truth is that the only thing I've ever successfully grown is green onions which pretty much thrive if you put them in a glass of water and leave them alone. I'm using this picture because the can is pretty. :-)

Coke and Pepsi Beverages Round-up (product info.)

 No, Pepsi is not coming out with yet another weird flavor. They are, however, encouraging people to join the dark side of the force. The timing, given that Disney recently bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise, seems rather ironic. Pepsi released an energy drink on October 23 which shows Darth Vader on the packaging and encourages people to join the dark side.

The drink is promoted with the fact that it contains 5 different energy boosters: royal jelly, Arginine, guarana extract, ginseng extract, and good old-fashioned caffeine. I'm not sure what Darth Vader has to do with legal stimulants, but it does allow them to make cool black packaging.

Note how distressed he looks? I'd be pretty freaked out, too, if women in giant food costumes were following me around.

Pepsi is also releasing a "Pepsi Special". It was released on November 9 and is supposed to reduce absorption of fat. Yeah. That'll work. Part of the advertising includes a commercial which has a woman dressed as a giant slice of pizza. I guess the whole idea is that you eat the pizza and drink the soda in order to not absorb all of the fat from your piece of pie. 

While Pepsi wants to boost you up, Coke wants to help you regulate your life. They are selling a Latin Biorhythm tea. Instead of ponying up the dough to license Darth Vader's image, they're using photos of a buxom Latin babe "playing", "eating", and "drinking", because these are the things that you need to do to have balance in your life, at least if you aren't in need of using the Force to get through your day.

Random Weekend Picture 10

The Japanese are fairly fanatic about being anti-drug, unless the drugs of choice are alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine. There are a lot of energy drinks that are chock full of caffeine on sale in train platform kiosks and convenience stores. Tired office workers can get a big jolt of caffeine to keep them from falling asleep at their desks while they wait for the boss to finally go home (workers don't leave until the boss does, even when they have no work to do). The notion of removing caffeine just simply doesn't occur to most companies. In fact, it's very hard (thought not impossible) to find decaf coffee, and as far as I know, some Starbucks are the only coffee shops that carries it.

Because of the widespread use of caffeine, and blithe attitude toward consumption of it, I thought I'd never see caffeine-free sodas in Japan. I was quite surprised to see this display of "Coke Zero Free" a few days ago. It's both calorie and caffeine free. I'd wager though that it'll vanish from the market by the end of this year (if not sooner) because I think people really don't care enough about the caffeine. In the mean time, I'll stock up on a few for later in the day consumption.

Incidentally, Suntory has announced that the  next freaky Japanese Pepsi flavor is "Pepsi Baobab". It's based on an African fruit and will be released on May 25. Watch this space for a future review. If you click on the link in the first sentence, you can see the bottle design.

Coca-Cola Plus with Fiber

On October 26, Coke released yet another version of its expanding "plus" line of no calorie beverages. Though I've only reviewed the green tea version, I have tried the version with Vitamin C, and I wasn't a fan. That being said, I wasn't offended by it. I just am not a huge fan of the lemon with Coke flavor that is in it.

If you live in Japan, you might realize that the Coke Plus line of drinks is a way of more directly competing with Pepsi Nex. First, there was Coke light with 50% of the calories of regular Coke. Pepsi introduced zero calorie Diet Pepsi so Coke finally came out with zero calorie Diet Coke (Coke light is part of history now). Now, they sell Coke Zero. Then Pepsi came out with a diet lemon-flavored version called Pepsi Nex and Coke countered with this stuff. It's interesting that Coke is constantly playing catch-up with Pepsi in Japan when it's the reverse in the U.S.


Though I didn't care for the lemon Diet Coke that is Coke Plus, the fact that this has fiber hooked me in. I paid 147 yen for this at 7-11 because I imagined I'd pour this into a glass and see little bits of grain floating around in it. Of course, that's not the way it is. It's more like Metamucil has been dissolved in it, I'd guess. It looks like normal Coke, has the mouth feel of, and smells like Coke with a twist of artificial lemon.

This isn't awful, but the difference between this, Coke Plus with Vitamin C and even Green Tea Coke is practically non-existent. There's a Simpsons episode about the making of "Duff beer" where they show the beer pouring down three pipes into different containers. The pipes says "regular Duff", "Duff Dry" and "Duff Light", but the liquid pouring into the pipes is coming from the same central barrel/vat. This image came to mind after sampling this Coke Plus. It's as if Coke is pouring the same stuff into different bottles.

If for some strange reason you'd like a desktop picture with Sarah Jessica Parker hawking Diet Coke beverages or the design on the bottles, you can download them here.

Green Tea Coke Plus with Catechin

You'd think that living in Japan would mean I'd be right on top of every new release, but the truth is that one would have to make it a priority to stroll through every aisle of a convenience store on a daily basis to see new items or keep an eye on the news of new releases in Japan. I'm too busy for the former and too lazy for the latter. The truth is that I was completely unaware of this new green tea Coke until Marvo at The Impulsive Buy brought it to my attention. It's because of him that I sauntered down to the local Family Mart and bought three bottles (one for me, two for him) and that you're seeing this review in such a timely fashion.

I didn't realize it when I first looked at this, but this Coke is meant to appeal to the type of people who will buy junk food that has been "enhanced" to make it healthier. It's "Coke Plus" for starters, not "Diet Coke" or "Coke Zero". Coke Plus is the ugly stepchild to the other calorie-free Cokes. It has vitamins or minerals or some such crap added to it such that it has a weird aftertaste. I tried Coke Plus once, and decided that I'd never allow it to darken the doorway to my taste buds again.

The "catechin" is supposed to be the "plus" in this whereas the "plus" in the more commonly available Coke Plus is Vitamin C. Catechin is supposed to reduce your chances of developing cancer or hardened arteries. I'm guessing that you'd be lucky if the catechin in a bottle of this canceled out your chances of developing cancer from the artificial sweeteners in it.


The first ingredient in this is green tea extract followed by caramel flavor and then another type of green tea acidulant flavoring (which adds a sharpness to the flavor). Other ingredients include both of the artificial sweeteners aspartame and Sucralose. You'd expect it to be bursting at the seams with green tea taste given the ingredients list, but taking a whiff of it doesn't really reveal much except an off-brand cola smell. The first several sips also didn't overwhelm me with tea flavor, but as I drank more, there was more and more of a sense of the grassy flavor that comes along with green tea. Halfway through the bottle, it became increasingly more pronounced. It's as if I had to build up a sensitivity to the flavor to detect it more clearly.

The sense I got from this is that it carries the basic flavor of green tea, but without any trace of its trademark bitterness. This gives it a strange flavor which seems reminiscent of Stevia. It's like a grassy, malt flavor. I'm not sure that a green tea aficionado would recognize what this is as actual green tea taste, but I'm pretty sure a Coca-Cola fan would recognize that something was not quite right with it.

This certainly was not bad at all. If I were in the market for a calorie-free Cola and couldn't buy regular Diet Coke or Coke Zero, I'd buy this without fear that I would find it unpalatable. I'd take this over the Coke Plus with Vitamin C for certain. However, I don't see this as particularly special or appealing and it'd definitely be second to a regular plain old Diet Coke. Unlike Pepsi's weird flavors, Coke seems to be attempting to make something more subtle and palatable.

Note that there is currently a contest going on with all Coca-Cola beverages where numbers in the cap can be used to win J-League (Japan Soccer League) shirts and other bits of flotsam if you're inclined to fill your life with useless possessions. You have to go to the contest web site and enter your numbers and manage in Japanese, and you have to care enough to bother.

This is also reviewed at the Impulsive Buy.