White coffee wonder whips up a storm in Tokyo

Japan’s food and drink makers are well known for their love of all things weird -- from Cucumber Pepsi and Curry Lemonade through to Horse-flesh ice cream and roasted baby crabs in a bag (too sad).

So, Tokyo residents on the frontline of their marketing experiments are probably lucky that the latest taste-bud twister to get the blogosphere’s panties all bunched up is as harmless as a bottled coffee that’s entirely white. Woo.

Asahi -- home of the harmlessly bland, yet mega-selling Asahi Super Dry beer -- dropped its White Wonda coffee-like drink on the nation yesterday morning.

Admittedly, it didn't provoke quite the fuss engendered by the recent arrival of the white iPhone 4, but it's still a big deal when something new hits vending machine slot A19 here.

Chattering classes

Newspapers haven’t yet reported how millions of shocked salarymen reacted to finding not dung-brown, but pearly-white and sickly sweet coffee featuring on their breakfasting menu, but Twitter soon lit up.

Tales from the trenches about the rad new 350-milliliter party-in-a-bottle range from, “This isn’t coffee -- it’s too sweet” to “Man, this taste is a miracle.” Clearly, all of life is here.

Whichever camp you fall into, the taste test clearly beckons -- White Wonda can be yours for ¥150 at a friendly neighborhood vending machine now.