April 11-21, 2025: While wandering the busy streets of Japan, I found many of the coffee shops we went by to be very familiar looking, Americanized (or should I say ‘Seattle-ized’) chains! To find something more authentic, I suppose you have to know where to look, or maybe have an eye for it! I don’t want to blame my traveling companions in the slightest however; none of them are overly into coffee (or beer for that matter!) So going out of our way to find something different, I didn’t want to press them or take up too much time looking into it. Make no mistake though, my pals have always 100% respected my love and desire for coffee, as proven on all previous travels with them, and I’m sure if I had done some research, they would have happily joined me on where ever I wanted to go!
Tully’s coffee was quite common in Japan! Pretty sure they originate from Seattle. Had no idea they existed overseas! And I saw this sign for an AMAZING looking Harry Potter Espresso Butterbeer! My gods I didn’t try it because the lineup at Tully’s was out the door! Dumb. I should have stood in that line. Although… This drink does look like a chilled version, and I draw the line at cold coffee!! Nah. I still should have tried it. Regrets! Sigh!
Then… In the 7-Eleven I was browsing the fridges… And they had a fridge that was not really a fridge at all, at least not of the cold variety. And good ol’ Tully’s had HOT COFFEE in a can! A bottle I guess, but made of metal. \,,/ Never seen that before!! Had to try it. It was not bad! And hot enough but not too hot, especially for black. And it didn’t burn my hand. Somehow they got all that figured out! I got black of course but they had ones with cream and/or sugar too! 😛
And Starbucks. Looks how dead it is in this picture (below), except for us! The only place in Japan without a crowd! How did that happen?! I started wondering how I was going to order my triple grande half-sweet mocha with almond milk and no whip IF the baristas didn’t speak English…. Help please, maybe! Then I came up with this grand plan that I would order from the app and then pick up at the counter, ‘cuz you know, you can do that these days. So I got my app out but it just would not work. For the life of me things did not display properly, but most importantly it would not display nearby locations to choose from and I fought with it to no avail. The Starbucks app has worked for me in other countries so I was baffled why it wouldn’t function here in Japan. Unfortunately I had to give up!
I did eventually manage to figure out what was wrong and I should have known better because apps have been flaky before… But I didn’t remember until I was in New Zealand (more on that later), so Japan Starbucks lost out. It wasn’t the app’s fault really… It was the VPN on my phone!! Time and time again, if an app is behaving oddly, I have learned to TURN OFF THE FLIPPIN’ VPN!! Or at least try connecting it to a different server in a different city or country. This happens at home as well sometimes, it’s not just a different country thing. I find turning it off is best although yes that defeats the purpose of a VPN I thought, especially if I’m purchasing something! Aaaaah well. Life is rough!
Next up is vending machine coffee, found at the bullet train platform at Shin-Osaka while waiting to travel back to Tokyo. Look at all the options on that machine!! I know, unreadable in this pic. Somehow I managed to find ‘black coffee’ that was hot (none of this cold brew bs), scanned my Suica card from my phone and BOOM! Coffee prepared and served on the fly right in front of my eyes. More magic! And it tasted OK!
Last up, the Ogawa Premium Blend coffee that I bought at the nearby 7-Eleven. It tasted like a typical, standard, drip brew coffee. Not the best, but certainly not the worst! I packed it around from Osaka to Tokyo but when it was time to fly to New Zealand, I left the remaining behind, because I’m pretty sure New Zealand customs would have confiscated it! No foreign foods allowed to enter New Zealand, not even a snack pack of pretzels from the plane. More on THAT later!
And there you have it. All the coffees I had and didn’t have… In Japan!
