Coffee in a Can

hahahahahaahah

I've never seen it in the UK, but having seen it in Cyprus, I will have to check out Greek Cypriot stores in London now...

This is changing, slowly - airport leaders today recognize the value of innovation for customer experience and are making moves where possible to back out of such models, plus welcoming local business, although the difficulties of operating in an airport environment does still lend the environment to larger players, or smaller ones operating through a middleman. KATL and KMSP are two that come to mind for me. Entrepeneurs should definitely consider reaching out to airports that are locally managed - often their hands are tied due to contracts, but those will time out someday.

We have ones selling live worms (fishing bait) in Lithuania

I had a “pizza” out of one of these things in the UK. Very, very bland. Sorta like a really cheap pitta bread with cheese on top.

I was pretty drunk so it didn’t matter, and it was fun to watch it mix flour and water to a dough, top it with sauce, cheese and pepperoni, then cook it in a matter of seconds.

But in the end there’s a reason we don’t usually go from flour-> eating in under 5 minutes!

Yes, when I think of how dirty the microwaves are in shared houses, the idea of a public microwave doesn’t appeal.

What exactly is gross and dirty about them? I have never thought about them that way (but I don't use them because they generally only have overpriced unhealthy crap).

That's a surprise to me. Having lived and travelled across Eastern, Central and Western Europe a lot I never considered vending machines gross. The first vending machine I ever saw must have been a coca cola (or pepsi) vending machine in my primary school 30+ years ago. Then my high school too had a coca cola vending machine and then they were everywhere.

As they became more popular I started seeing them on gas/petrol stations, rail stations and many other places.

However, the kind of machines I talk about always dispense cold cans, sweets, crisps, sometimes packaged yoghurt, but never hot stuff.

Any time I encounter a hot vending machine they are always within some establishment like a gas station where you're supposed to pay first, you get a cup and then you go to the vending machine. The staff of the place is responsible for keeping it clean. However in busy places sometimes there is trash around them (people dropping sugar packets on the floor etc). So perhaps you meant this kind.

Europe tolerates graffiti and de-beautification of public areas too much for quirky complicated things like these to work, unfortunately.

Vending machine are pretty common in France and not gross at all.

It's nowhere near as common as in Japan but you will often find them in train stations or highway rest areas.

Thailand (well, Bangkok) has had quite a lot of vending machines pop up over the last couple of years. Some in malls, but especially within condos.

Singapore has them too. Never eaten from them so I don’t know what the food quality is like, but they’re never busted or filthy like you’d see in Australia.

You can have a lot of nice things when you have a government (and a society) committed to law and order.

The US has had vending machines for cold soda and snacks forever. Though, without looking up numbers, there's probably been a general trend towards convenience stores and fast food over time. Certainly the vending machines in Japan are more ubiquitous than I think I've seen anywhere else.

Naaaah. Recently I used a great vending machine in Brussels station when heading towards Amsterdam by train, rather than dropping my drink straight down using the curly metal things, it has a little platform that the drink slid into and then it brought it to the slot, avoids it getting shook up.

I think the core issue is that vending machines outside of Japan lack variety...there's not much in them.

That said in Europe (not really the UK though) you can always find little vending machine "nooks" filled with machines containing alcohol, drinks, medicines, condoms etc. I think the negative perception is because of these - they seem to get left dirty and homeless/general public just mess up the spot.

But when you think about it, that's less vending machines and more Japan's culture of cleanliness and lack of public disorder. Outside of Japan, well, people don't really give a crap unless it's their own property...

>We have refrigerators, A/C and hot water heaters all in close proximity.

Maybe yes maybe no. My water heater is in the basement and I don't have AC. It would all have to be very house-specific and customized. And it would tie together what would otherwise be independent systems. A lot of complexity which is usually a bad thing especially at small scale.

Fridges use minuscule amounts of energy. The added complexity of integration would overwhelm any savings.

I imagine it was a few years ago, or in country side because nowadays you can find a lot of good independent coffee shops in Tokyo or big cities.

> Finding it at a cafe that doesn't also allow smoking was harder.

As a long-time Japan resident, I had the same problem for many years. But smoking indoors in public places was finally banned nationwide in Japan effective April 2020 [1].

I don’t know how effective the new rule is in bars and the like, but all of the cafes I’ve been in in recent years have been either completely nonsmoking or have had a separate, walled-off smoking room.

[1] https://www.gov-online.go.jp/useful/article/201907/2.html

In my experience UCC's cheap instant coffee is better than their canned ones. To my taste of course.

Agreed, that Columbian Supremo is roasted beyond what I would even call dark. The Kirkland signature blends are roasted by Starbucks so we know why those are burnt but the Columbian seems to be by someone else.

Do you have a pic or a link on how to prepare it, and how your setup looks like?

Thanks!

Update: Cold brew is a game changer, I'm a convert.

I used to buy liters of Drink It Black (unsweetened black coffee) or Tasty Club (sweetened black coffee) which I chugged on the 203 bus that I took to Japanese school. Good times!

Would love to see that. In theory a robot could make perfect coffee, latte art, etc.

Most people don't encounter enough Australians to know this, but the #1 way to identify an Australian is their absurd patriotic complex about how they're the only country with good coffee. This universally comes with insulting Starbucks, which is the only non-Australian coffee they seem to know about.

It's true that Melbourne does have good coffee, but the city is basically an accidental reinvention of Seattle. But they don't know this since they haven't been to Seattle.

Generally I feel like people in the coffee production chain give too much credit to James Hoffman types and/or baristas with man buns and not any credit to the actual farmers.

It's fine to just like what you like! There's nothing wrong with being happy with Starbucks. And yes, Starbucks deserves a lot of credit for promoting an interest in better quality coffee.

But a lot of what has attracted Starbucks' huge audience has been their very milky, sweetened, flavoured beverages that end up not being much of a coffee by the time they're consumed, and I think when people scoff at Starbucks, that's a big part of what they're reacting to. But I do think people who just have very milky coffee like cafe latte and flat white but then diss Starbucks are mostly just being snobbish.

I'm from Melbourne Australia, which several people in this thread have commented about, and I know what people are talking about, both those who talk about the good coffee here and those who talk about the superiority complex we have developed about it. I can see it both ways. Starbucks didn't take off here, not because people thought it was "bad"; we just didn't need it, as people already had favourite cafes serving coffee they really liked, so there was no need to change.

But the modern-day, 3rd-wave coffee snobbery thing arose a few years after that. On the one hand, like everything Melbourne claims to be better at, it can be a bit eye-rolly. On the other hand, my favourite coffee these days is long macchiato (I developed the taste for it when spending time in Italy and marrying into an Italian-Australian family), and even in Melbourne it can be hit-and-miss finding a cafe that does a long-mac "right"; I don't mean to be snobby about it, it's just about how I like it having developed a taste for it over several years. But it does make a difference that cafes here do try very hard to achieve very high standards in the coffee they serve, and people here really appreciate it.

I only ever had the cold variety in Japan, but I can imagine the warm variety being nice as well.

These are aluminum cans, I presume? Is the “hot” coffee more like lukewarm coffee or is this something that one would only be consumed in the winter when one is wearing gloves?

Thank you. The world is amazing.

Heh there's also a crepe stand in Harajuku called Santa Monica Crepes, if I'm remembering correctly.

I think I've had that Emerald Mountain one too.

He's remodeled it many times and put on additions (I think).

Interesting, yes I can see why that might be a health issue. But these things have been around for decades now, so presumably they’ve solved this problem.

Edit: I found this:

IH vending machines

This is a type of vending machine equipped with Induction Heating. They store canned beverages at normal room temperature (or lower temperature) on standby and rapidly heat up a selected drink during the process of dispensing. It is possible to raise the heat up to 140 degrees or so in less than one minute in the case of a 250 ml can.

https://www.japanesewiki.com/culture/Canned%20Coffee.html

Had to look up Insomnia - hadn't heard of it before in the UK. Seems to be only in Ireland and across the English midlands. https://www.insomnia.ie/nearest-coffee-shop

Back in the early 2000's (maybe 2004-2005) I remember buying a can of Coffee from WHSmiths which was self-heating - I think through some exothermic chemical reaction.

It was also really bad as I recall, more like an instant Nescafé than something you'd get in a coffee shop. I didn't repeat the experience.