Big In Japan: Cucumber Flavored Pepsi

Here, I present to you the regionalization of marketing as it has never been experienced by an unsuspecting vegetable before:

This summer beverage, "Pepsi Iced Cucumber," was unveiled just yesterday. I had to notice it right away.  Soft drinks have grown very dear to me in recent months.  In my first month of sobriety, I drank so much Coke that I got sick from it.  Seriously.  And now that just looking at a coke bottle makes me nauseated, I still drink a variety of carbonated soft-drinks throughout the day in place of the other variety of liquid refreshment.  So of course I had to try Pepsi Iced Cucumber as soon as I saw it at the convenience store.

In Japan, "cucumbers" make people think of cooling off in the summer heat, while soda makes people think of cooling off as well.  That in mind, somebody at Pepsi Japan must have pointed out that combining cucumbers and soda could create a double-cooling-effect.  Thus, the Pepsi corporation might be able to provide Japanese consumers most effective illusion of comfort in the hellishly humid inferno that is the typical Tokyo "hot season".

It is not the first time this rule of additions has been used here in Japan.

Convenience stores all over the city decided at some point that "spaghetti is good, bread is good, so let's sell spaghetti sandwiches!"

Many "pizza" joints have joined this philosophical bandwagon. "Octopus is good," they realized, " and pizza is good: so lets make octopus pizza! And lets put lots of mayonnaise on it, because mayo is also good!!"

More recently, somebody at Wendy's Japan Headquarters surmised that since hamburgers are good, and Anko (a sweet red bean paste that is usually a desert food here) is good, the chain should put them together and call it an "Anburger"!

 

I have been guilty of the occasional spaghetti sandwich whenever I get a serious carb craving.  Though I don't like octopus pizza, I can be convinced to partake in the tuna-mayo variety.  The "anburger" though, that is just too gross; the thought of it makes my stomach turn.

So what of the Pepsi Ice Cucumber??

It is AWESOME.  I LOVE it.  I've consumed two bottles of cucumber soda already today.  I find the taste to be indescribably brilliant.  Perhaps this means that I have been in Japan too long.  But that is nothing new.

And now, the reluctant family photo:

Comments

[Irish Pal]

great post but the sodium benzoate in that stuff turns into BENZENE when it combines with vitamin c after injestion. so basically. its poisonous. oh well. never mind.

[Scout]

Sounds horrible to this grl. But I have been known to try lots of horrible things, so....
Love the family photo.
Peace,
Scout

[THW]

The initial reaction is: Eww.

But then again, who knows.
I'll try anything once.