Andrew's Coffee Tour of Japan

One of the things that Andrew has really enjoyed so far on his first trip to Japan is trying Japanese coffee out of vending machines.

While this doesn't sound too appetizing, you have to realize that vending machines in Japan are far superior to anything you see in the US - I'm not quite sure why American beverage companies haven't caught onto the same technology, but I digress. So vending machines here vend both hot and cold drinks, which are indicated by a blue- or red-colored price. Behind Andrew in this picture, you can see the cold rows of drinks.


There are a wide variety of tasty drinks (and even corn pottage soup, which has a corn chowder consistency) that come out of vending machines and Andrew's gotten a kick of trying a new flavor each time. The first picture captured Andrew's first purchase in Japan, which was in the parking lot of Narita Airport.

Below, Andrew took his own pictures of the coffee choices he made on our Hakone bus trip.

As we were leaving the shrine, Andrew made two more selections. He told me that they can make excellent hand warmers (as they come out of the vending machine toasty warm and the perfect temperature to drink), which is something all we Zama people discovered when we were high schoolers. There was many a cold day when I would buy a drink from a vending machine to use solely as a hand warmer, and then pop open to drink once it had become lukewarm.


Day two in Japan, Andrew sticks with just one coffee since we brewed some at home that morning:

I know Andrew will definitely miss the vending machines once we leave Japan!