Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar have all become well known brands around the word in the past 5 years. The break through of highly caffeinted, heavily sweetened beverages became popular seemingly overnight. Except in Japan that is.
Japan has for the past 20 – 30 years enjoyed “functional” energy drinks. Marketed as vitamin drinks or hangover cures, these little bottles are normally about 100ml – 200ml and the range is immense. Every convenience store, train station kiosk and vending machine has a huge range (40+) of the most popular drinks, and every morning a line of groggy salarymen can be seen waiting for their fix.
Maybe the “functional” style of these energy drinks is why Red Bull and Monster have not taken off in Japan like they have in the West. After all, why have a big can of caffeine/sugar when you can have a small bottle of caffeine/sugar/”function”?
For our blog today we have three different drinks to sample that we hope will give a brief look inside Japan’s energy drink market. Introducing:
1. Mamushi Snake Extract Drink
Perhaps the strangest of the three drinks available. We had the choice of turtle or snake extract, we chose snake. This extract is made from the skin of Mamushi, a venomous Japanese pitviper that causes around 10 deaths a year. The extract is taken from snake skin(the snakes are not harmed) and contains collagen. In recent years, collagen has became very popular in Japan and is marketed to stop the effects of aging on the skin.
2. Royal Jelly 200
Royal jelly is worker bee secretion used as nutrition by queen bees, hence the “Royal” term. This ingredient has been used in candies, cakes and even a version of Japanese Pepsi. “Royal Jelly 200″ is very much a standard of Japanese functional drinks, and like snake extract, this jelly is said to have anti-aging qualities.
3. Toravitan C
Many drinks in Japan are adorned with the letter C. From drinks claiming to have over 70 lemons per bottle like Suntory’s CC Lemon, or the Dekavita-C soft drink, Vitamin C seems to be in everything these days. Toravitan C is a standard store-brand Vitamin C energy drink, and we think the copious amounts of sugar may negate any health benefits.
Unfortunately, due to the fragile glass bottles and seemingly dubious ingredients, these will not be featured on Oyatsu Cafe any time soon but we hope you have enjoyed reading some about this small part of Japanese culture.