STiR coffee and tea magazine

66 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 5, 2018 (October / November) Japan's population is aging. And like the rest of the world their lifestyle is busier, making the convenience of single-serve coffee appealing. It also speaks to Japan's culture of hospitality, offer- ing an easy and delicious option when guests visit the home. For centuries this was the realm of tea in Japan, but coffee is now seen as a more modern drink and preferred by many Japanese. Single-serve capsules helped Nestlé maintain its top spot in Japanese coffee sales through 2017, even while sales for their instant coffee declined. Innovative home brew Japanese brands viewing in-home consumption take different approach. Key Coffee's "Drip On" series for example, attracts the at-home coffee lover with a system not unlike pouring hot water over a tea bag. The coffee drinker places a dispos- able single-serving filter over the cup, which rests comfortably on its foldout cardboard packaging. You then pour hot water over the coffee, and re- move the filter after allowing the coffee time to brew. The special filter creates a slow drip, allow- ing a more flavorful cup. It combines fresh coffee flavor and a pour-over feel, with the convenience of a single-serving portion. Japanese coffee brands continue to innovate, striving to learn the language of young consumers who know good coffee and want to be able to brew it at home. A new look in RTD Japan has a unique relationship with RTD coffee. It might seem odd that a nation devoted to qual- ity would be so attracted to a canned beverage. The reason is simple: vending machines. Rapid indus- trialization in the 1960s led to a vending machine obsession in Japan. Coffee was a fixture in those early machines and several decades later RTD cof- fee remains a strong seller, taking up around three of those weekly 11 cups consumed by Japanese. Japan's RTD market hit a snag in 2017 when sales declined due to competition from cheap con- venience store alternatives. In response creative RTD brands like Boss, owned by Japan's Suntory Beverage & Food, succeeded in rebranding them- selves and creating new products to meet Japan's shifting demand. The 2017 release of Craft Boss launched in a PET plastic bottle instead of the traditional small can. The new look has a craft brewed feel. Sun- tory's marketing campaign focused on this shift, claiming this is a "BOSS that's not canned coffee." The premium look lured customers with a promise of quality that canned beverages failed to communicate, grabbing the attention of office workers in their 20s and 30s. This marks an evolu- tion as the sector continues to up its game, pro- ducing better quality products and marketing them at a more quality focused consumer. Now socially equivalent to tea, serving good office coffee is the norm Japanese are obsessed with vending machines line for a pour-over in their favorite café. Cheap, yet good, it went against the grain of Japanese cof- fee culture, and was hugely successful. Within two months 7-Eleven sold more than 450 million cups. McDonalds Japan found simi- lar success with their own 100-yen offering, sell- ing 30 million cups in their first five weeks using sophisticated automatic brewing equipment while promoting high-grade arabica beans. The key in both cases was great taste — due largely to high quality ingredients. The move to high-grade coffee outside the café setting had begun. Single-serve growth Nestlé has also capitalized on Japan's demand for quality brew at home, appealing to consumers with single-serve capsule machines that produce sophisticated, limited and single-origin espresso.

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