Snapshot of a can of cafe ole from a vending machine a couple blocks away from where I live in Shinjuku. (I took it a while back with the camera on my cell phone on the way to work.) The image on the can is from a painting by the Art Nouveau artist Alfons Mucha. There were 6 other different Mucha images on various flavors of coffee — demitasse, capuccino, mocha, kilimanjaro, “black”, and “blend” — in the same vending machine.

Canned coffee is a really common drink to find in vending machines in Japan. They often have some interesting names, the most famous probably being Boss coffee, the logo for which looks a lot to me like William Faulkner. I remember a Blues. coffee, but I haven’t seen it for quite a while. Anyway, there are all kinds of varieties and speciality types that are labeled and targeted for specific purposes. For example, Driver brand, which sports the slogan, “A brand new fine coffee for all drivers. Enjoy the taste and refresh your mind!” Even better is Driver Black, slogan: “A coffee for drivers. Refresh your mind with extra caffeine!“

But probably my all-time favorite canned-coffee slogan was this one for Asahi Next Stage Wonda (or something like that) brand :

Exclusive Elite Coffee

Related posts:

1. Chibaragi Coffee
2. Get bigger coffee
3. Smart and Sophisticated
4. Nipponkan
5. Fizzy coffee (炭酸コーヒー)