Posts Tagged ‘Japanese coffee’
Navigating a Japanese Starbucks
The first time I walked into a Japanese Starbucks, I thought I was ready. It’s pretty easy, really. “Large” translates to “Grande,” in some bizarro Italian-English-Japanese-word hybrid, and “coffee” is just a bastardized pronunciation of the same: “ko-hee.” Even “Hot” is, well, “Hotto.” So it’s not rocket science. Coffee’s just about all they sell, so they’ll definitely figure it out. Anyway, that’s what I thought.
It was a Starbucks in Ginza. I remember it clearly because it was a sunny day and I was sweating like a Shiba, having just walked back from a sushi lunch in Tsukiji wearing a suit. The moment I stepped through the door, a young lady in black and green greeted me. I was ready. “Hotto co . . .” I started to say.
But instead of saying “Welcome,” she blurted out, “Right now, all the seats are full,” in Japanese. I understood the words all right, but why was she saying them? I looked behind me, like maybe she was talking to someone else, but it was like the Sahara back there. Whatever, once I make a plan, I stick with it.
I am a Japanese Farmer
Did you know that when you get a coffee from a convenience store in Japan, it comes in a can, not a styrofoam cup? For real, it does. My favorite brand is Black Boss, just because it sounds hilarious. For some odd reason, Tommy Lee Jones is the spokes-model for the coffee. They have his old wrinkly-ass face on posters all over Japan, above the headline “Black Boss.” Personally, I think Rick Ross would be a better choice.
In other news, last weekend I worked on a farm. While I thought it would be kind of exhilarating in a back-to-nature sort of way, it was more like hitting stalks of wheat with a bamboo stick for eight hours. Man, working on a farm sucks. Being a farmer must really suck. All I did what hit this effing wheat with a stick and little wheatlets would fall off. Like you ever hear the expression–separating the wheat from the chaff? Well, me neither, but that’s apparently what I did. And that was kind of cool, to see where wheat actually comes from, for about 30 seconds. And then I was like, man, I need a break. Gonna drink me a Black Boss and get my relax on. But instead we did that shit until sundown, all covered in wheat dust.
