As the world becomes more connected, finding products that are unique to specific countries can be tough. But in Japan, you can still find foods and drinks that are special to the country.
For food, while different types of sushi are popular, the real standout is Japan’s unique Kit Kat flavors.For drinks, while sake is well-known, there’s also a strange competitor to Coca-Cola. Here are ten weird, and mostly gross, Pepsi flavors made just for Japan.
Pepsi Ice Cucumber.
Nothing keeps you cool and refreshed like this unusual mix of artificial flavors. This pale green soda, which contains no real cucumber juice, first appeared briefly in 2007. A company spokesman hinted it might come back in summer 2016, but we hope it doesn’t.
Pepsi Pink Cola.
For years, soda producers have competed with the dairy industry. While children love carbonated drinks, milk doesn’t have the same appeal. Last year, a new challenger entered the scene: Pink Cola. It combines the delicious taste of strawberry milk with the fizzy bubbles that kids enjoy. However, it still doesn’t count as a dairy serving.
Azuki Pepsi.
If you’ve ever had an Asian dessert, you’ve probably tasted Adzuki beans. These beans are often boiled with sugar to make a red bean paste used in tasty treats like anpan (sweet rolls) and taiyaki (fish-shaped cakes). Sadly, this flavor didn’t work well in a soda. When this Pepsi flavor was released in 2009, it got almost all negative reviews.
Pepsi Salty Watermelon.
Summertime and the living is easy. Summer in Japan can be quite beautiful and one of the best treats is some fresh watermelon. Sprinkle on a little bit of salt and the fruit transforms into an even more delicious mid-day snack. Pepsi capitalized on this summer tradition by launching a soda flavor that reflects that blend of sweet and salty. This is the best Japanese Pepsi flavor of the bunch.
Pepsi Blue Hawaii.
Keeping to the tropical theme of summer fruit, this variety burst onto the scene in 2008. The flavoring is a combination of lemon and pineapple. The taste could be worse; for instance, it could taste like Ice Cucumber. The two products also share a neon color. Whereas Ice Cucumber looks like radioactive waste, this looks like antifreeze.
Pepsi Baobab.
A beverage perfect for those moments when you want to sip on the dried fruit powder of an exotic tree found only in Africa and Australia. The Baobab flavor is tart and actually has the most nutritional value of any soda brand in Japan. The color, however, looks like someone peed in the bottle.
Caribbean Gold.
If sipping on the fruit of an exotic tree makes you thirsty for more adventure, there is this fine flavor. This blend uses the apple-sized White Sapote fruit from central Mexico. The flavor is sweet, but due to the chemical qualities of the fruit, this beverage can induce drowsiness.
Pepsi Mont Blanc.
One of the most popular desserts in Japan is named after the eleventh tallest mountain in the world. At 15,776 feet, the White Mountain in the Alps towers over the smaller, tastier treat in Japan that consists of a chestnut cake topped high with whipped cream frosting. In 2010, Pepsi attempted to capitalize on the sweet’s popularity by producing the dessert-flavored soda. The beverage was relatively popular and reappeared on the market in 2012.
Pepsi Strong.
Perfect for the always-on-the-go Japanese businessperson, this flavor has twice as much caffeine as a regular Pepsi. The taste is less jarring than Jolt Cola, but the burning of the esophagus is twice as intense. Nevertheless, the drink has become so popular that entire Pepsi Shot bars have been established in Tokyo.
Pepsi White.
This is the latest flavor to appear on the Japanese market. It was developed specially for the 2015 holiday season and has a powerful, but not overpowering, orange flavor. It is strange to see clear and taste orange though. As weird as this product is, it pales in comparison to the 2008 version of Pepsi White which was yogurt flavored.
Ghost cola
To celebrate Halloween this year, Pepsi Japan launched a “mystery flavor.” There were actually 14 types of Pepsi Ghost available for a limited time, forcing customers to guess which flavor they were sipping.
Leave a Reply