This week in Japanese Pepsi flavours

Oh god.

Did you just throw up in your mouth? A little bit? Man, it should be pretty obvious by now but really all these flavours that Pepsi rolls out now and then actually have nothing to do with Pepsi-cola at all. They're like flavoured soda - just weird variations on carbonated drinks with the Pepsi brand name attached.

And I cannot resist them, even when the very colour of the drink makes me feel somewhat queasy. This one was actually ok, but incredibly sweet - a very boiled-candy kind of flavour. But boy, I can still feel it coating my teeth.

Recommended if you like those swirly 'strawberries and cream' boiled sweets they used to make, or if you're a spelunker into the cave of oddball limited-edition junk foods like me.

Japanese Junk Food Times - Pepsi Dry and Kit-Kat Zunda

Oh! I didn't see you there! Let me just put my gourmet hat on, and then tell you about my journeys in the realm of... flavour.

I don't need to go into how the Japanese snack food market retains its vim and vigour by trying out new flavours of existing products all the time, do I? I've read about a zillion other blog posts explaining the concept recently, so let's just say that I am thoroughly down with the concept. It reminds me of Grant Morrison's Seaguy a little, and also makes me think of white suited cowboys of the lab - pouring bubbling test-tubes into each other in search of the essence of... pistachio nut shells or something.

Above you will see Dry Pepsi. What is Dry Pepsi? It is non-sweet Pepsi. It makes no claims about being especially healthy on the bottle (though you would assume the lack of sugar is a good thing) and instead talks about being light and refreshing or something. I don't like Pepsi really, weirdly it is a little to sweet for me. So I figured that non-sweet Pepsi might be something worth checking out.

It was not.

It is not less sweet, as I was foolishly imagining, it is not sweet at all. In fact, it doesn't taste like Pepsi, it tastes like soda water, and I soon found myself wondering why it existed. If you like the bitter tang of soda, try it, or better yet JUST BUY SODA. After Shiso Pepsi, Azuki Pepsi and Montblanc Pepsi... this was a let down.

Better, but not incredible was, Kit-Kat Zunda - Zunda-Mochi being soy-bean rice cakes from Sendai. A quick google reveals that Pocky Watch - based in Sendai - reviewed this back in 2009. Tohoku was devastated by the tsunami in March of course, and now it looks like they're rolling out this flavour nationwide and giving 10yen from every bar to support the rebuilding effort. Good stuff.

The bar itself was nice, faintly bean-y, faintly rice-cake-y, but nothing to write home about. Wait, what am I doing here? Is this more effort or less than writing home? I'm lost. Anyway it was ok, but as usual they nail the scent a lot more than the actual taste - which comes out a little bit like funny white chocolate.

Anyway, that's my traditional Japanese food post. You're welcome.

Product Review: Pepsi Azuki

Ok now, WTF? What. The. Fuck. I leave the country for less than a month, and nobody (except Yuki) thinks to tell me that this hit the shops? -


Did I not make my love of novelty flavours and ill-advised limited edition taste experiments obvious enough? Azuki flavoured Pepsi, and no-one noticed? I find that hard to believe.

Azuki, for those not in the know is another very Japanese flavour - a sweet bean that is made into a paste and often used to fill sweets and cakes and sweet cakes and cake sweets. My gut feeling is that azuki is a better fit for a soft drink than shiso, but better in the way that an otter is better suited to space travel than an anteater - i.e. neither of them should really be operating in the field being discussed.

And taste wise, yes, Azuki Pepsi is better than Shiso Pepsi. For a start the shiso flavour pretty much only stretched to the smell, the actual drink itself wasn't so distinctively flavoured, whereas the azuki smell and taste are pretty strong throughout the 'drink experience' here. Yuki agreed that it really did taste like azuki, but still thought it was pretty horrible. I thought over all it was... ok. It's actually not bad at all, and if you're after an azuki flavoured soda then - my friend this product is for you.

Problem being, hands up who's really craving azuki flavoured soda?

Thought so.