I've never commented before, but I'm glad to see you writing these again. It gives me inspiration to be a better writer, the kind of writing that can only be achieved with originality, humour, succinctness, spot-on sarcasm, and careful word choice. Seeing you pull these all together into coffee reviews provides small bursts of writing guidance, much like how each two-gulp can inspires you to write a new piece. Please keep writing these.

Thanks Ben! Now I feel like asking someone for a raise.

Don't worry -- the canned coffee fire has been rekindled, and more writers will be contributing.

I wonder, though, whether my reviews are the best place to look for writing guidance. Content-wise, they tend to be overly ape-centric (cheap laughs -- who doesn't find apes (chimps, gibbons, etc.) intrinsically funny, with their malleable leather lips and jabby, clutching fingers? Playing the tired old orangutan card was a crutch for a desperate man). And one can use the words beverage, liquid and nectar only so often before readers start catching on to the fact that you don't know any more synonyms for coffee. I'm sorry, but "ambrosia" is too dramatic.

But if you find inspiration here, then I am happy.

David

hey david, good to have you back in this part of the world. and yeah, unfortunately having been a teen in the 1980s, i associate the word "ambrosia" with pop tunes i listened to while i made out with acne-ridden boys with braces. so, apologies accepted.

Yes, this is a classic canned coffee review. Made classic by the very use of hackneyed ape shenanigans. In fact, many of the themes common to these reviews (capering, apes, homelessness, contemplation of the can's artwork as though it were a lotus, homoeroticism, transfigurations, mirrors, and fecal matter--to name a few) are all undying greats quite welcome in any review. The frequency of their mention may indicate universal experiences while high on canned coffee. I know I oft find myself as Dave in these sometimes lurid tales; naked, sobbing afore the looking glass.
Thanks Dave for this wonderful site. I am also absolutely jazzed seeing this community grow, now bustling with perhaps 10 or even more canned coffee connoisseurs.
Does anyone else collect cans, perchance?

I quick coming here after you refused to print my coffee review. Stormed off in a huff, as it were. However, after several months of anger expression therapy, hypnotic regression to release my inner abused child, and a brief stint as a back-up dancer for a traveling burlesque troupe, I've forgiven you (mostly) and returned to slake my thirst at the fount of your hilariousisms.

Oh, and Ben? You don't "gulp" canned coffee. They must be sipped, slowly, in savorful little increments. Cretin.

Especially when you gotta drop 110 Yen a pop, you're gonna want to make 'em last for a while.

Six months and another semester of university later and still no more canned coffee reviews. If there are no more coming, then you can say this and I will remove your page from my bookmarks. Otherwise, I will wait patiently, I guess, since there's nothing else to do.

Ben,

There are more coming. Promise.

Bruce

When I was in Tokyo back in the summer of 1990, I would find Georgia Iced Coffee in the vending machine outside of the little house I was living in. Sweet and creamy. Just like I would have made it back home, but I had never had chilled coffee before. Is Georgia available in the U.S.?

Scott, yes it is, although you won't find it in many places. Best place to look is in the hearest Japanese supermarket. Here in Seattle, we can find it at Uwajimaya. It's owned by Coca-Cola.