It is supposed to be a strong coffee but the taste is very smooth. Also even though it is written on the can “MILD&BITTER” the beverage is not bitter at all. It has a relatively low calories content – 17 kcal per 100 ml. Another particularity of the coffee is that for a first time the sugar on the content label is given separately from the carbohydrates:

Carbohydrates are 4th from the top (pronounced tansuikabutsu in Japanese )  – 3.0 g. The sugar (which is supposed to be part of the carbohydrates) is given at the end (pronounced torui in Japanese) 1.9g. We do not know the exact reason of this separation by the Asahi producer but we are working on it and let you know once the issue is clarified.

It’s also worth mentioning the very nice design on the top of the can:

It resembles aurora borealis and it is definitely a new touch in the overall simplistic WONDA can design.

Anyway – the coffee is indeed excellent and the Chottomatte team strongly recommends it. The only disadvantage is that as a new brend of WONDA espresso is still dificult to find in most of the vending machines. We hope this is  gonna change soon

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A perfect combination between coffee and milk content. Despite the high milk concentration there is a well distinguishable coffee aroma (a sharp difference  from most of the rest of the coffee lattes in which the taste of milk and sugar is overwhelming).

It has high energy content (41 kcal per 100 ml) but again – the sweetness is somehow soften.

The only criticism of the Georgia Full Shot Coffee Latte is its availability. From all the vending machines in Kobe we could find it in only one (not far away from Sannomiya – the center). I hope soon this gonna change.

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I am sure you gonna ask – what does dry coffee mean? To be honest I do not know. I tried it and it tested more or less as an ordinary coffees. “More or less” is the catch phrase here. Indeed when I was drinking it I could feel a kind of dryness in my throat. It was a strange (sublime) feeling – I am not even absolutely sure it existed.  May be Suntory producers after all succeeded somehow in using a particular combination of food additives to generate this “dryness” of the coffee taste.

Apart from this “tricky” dryness Suntory Boss Dry coffee is not bad at all (I gave it 7 stars out of 10). Nevertheless I still prefer the most classical coffees which play less tricks on your taste buds

As all of the rest of the black coffees it is 0 calories, 0 milk, 0 everything (apart from coffee and water of course). Nevertheless I notices something very particular until I was drinking it. The taste of the coffee is indeed very pure. What I mean? Well, when you drink other coffees you always feel some very light other taste (like slightly acidic with Georgia coffees for example). With UCC BLACK there is nothing else but pure coffee taste. When I was examining the can I noticed something which may be responsible for the pureness of the taste. It contains significantly less sodium than the rest of the coffees (the underlined with red is the sodium concentration):

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Just for comparison the Georgia Black coffee (EMERALD MOUNTAIN BLEND) contains 27 mg sodium per 100 ml versus the 10 to 20 mg of UCC BLACK coffee (or between 1,5 – 2 times more). Most probably this is the reson for the exceptionally pure taste of the UCC black coffee. (I ma not sure but I presume the differences of sodium concentrations are due to the difference in water source between UCC and Georgia coffees). Anyway for now the UCC is definitely my top choice for pure, black coffees.

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In general it is not difficult to find sweet can coffees in Japan. Actually most of them are quite sweet. But the Cafe au Lait – The Creamy has somehow “not imposing” or “not intrusive” sweet taste (if I can say like that). I do not know the exact technology of preparation of this coffee and most probably it is company secret but it is definitely worth knowing if you are a fen of the sweet, creamy coffees.

BTW I couldn’t find any information concerning this coffee at the ITO EN web page http://itoen.co.jp/ -  it must be a very new product. But I found commercials of Tully’s coffee – which are some of the best Black coffee I ever drank. Apparently ITO EN is covering (and I must say quite successfully) the complete spectrum of coffee tastes.

Just a few more words for the coffee.

It is creamy (as it says). High Energy content 42 kcal per 100 ml. Caffeine content – 68 mg per 100 ml (one of the very few producers who actually bother to write it). Overall – one of the best creamy, sweet coffees ever!

Here comes the chottomatte’s summary table for Georgia Emerald Mountain Bland – The Classic

Rating
Energy
Milk
Caffeine
Sweetness

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To achieve the morning boost they combined:

- relatively high energy content (36 kcal per 100 ml)

- caffeine concentration (which my personal feeling tells me) is slightly above average even though far away from the BOSS Gold Presso concentrations

- and of course some milk so your brain have the necessary aminoacids to synthesize more neuromediators during the day  (of course do not rely only on Wonda’s milk protein for this task )

Overall very good combination of ingredients and something tells me that this will be my favorite morning coffee for the next several months. Completely deserves its four stars in the table (and may be I will give it even 4.5 when I master well enough photoshop to create the appropriate image).

Here comes the chottomatte’s summary table for Georgia Emerald Mountain Bland – The Classic

Rating
Energy
Milk
Caffeine
Sweetness

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BTW lately in many vending machines you can see moving commercials of the Wonda Morning Shot. Here is one of them:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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There is no “super-size” me here. Just pure, black, refreshing coffee (0% milk and 0 calories). It is interesting that this together with the rest of the Georgia coffees has very mild acidic taste. This taste is very typical to virtually all Georgia coffees and may be is a result of the technology process. Still this is one very good everyday coffee for all the Black coffee lovers.

Actually in the middle-right part of the can you can see the two kanji for “no sugar” within a gray circle. Here is a magnified picture of them:

The first one of the kanji – (which resembles to me a strange walking 4 leg fish) is the “No” Kanji or it rather means negation of the thing which follows it. The second one is sugar.

Here comes the chottomatte’s summary table for Georgia Emerald Mountain Bland – Black

Rating
Energy
Milk
Caffeine
Sweetness

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Relatively mild taste and may be a little bit too sweat for the purists (this is not a problem though as there is a completely Black version of Georgia Emerald Mountain Bland – no milk, no sugar, no calories). In general Coca-Cola did well with this brand. If you are on diet be careful with this one – the energy content is relatively high – 34 kcal per 100 ml.

Here comes the chottomatte’s summary table for Georgia Emerald Mountain Bland – The Classic

Rating
Energy
Milk
Caffeine
Sweetness

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Actually “zeitaku” means luxury or extravagant in Japanese.

It is usually smaller than the rest of the Georgia coffees – only 160 ml (versus the standard 190 ml). The energy content is 24 kcal per 100 ml. It is with milk and sugar and the taste is superb. It seems the people from Georgia coffee company indeed have been able to achieve a fine balance between milk and sweetness. It is favorite among girls also (maybe because of the stylish outfit but it is a good (well above average) coffee anyway).

Just in case you didn’t know Georgia is actually own by Coca Cola so this is a little bit particular Japanese coffee company.

Here comes the summary table for Georgia Zeitaku Espresso:

Rating
Energy
Milk
Caffeine
Sweetness

The story is not so simple though. There is another enzyme which cAMP (and caffeine respectively) could bind. It is called Glycogen Phosphorylase A. This is an interesting enzyme as it is responsible for the utilization of glycogen in our bodies (glycogen is one of the important energy depots in our organism  – it is a very long molecule composed of chained (polymerized) glucose molecules). The Glycogen Phosphorylase A can add small molecule residuals (phosphates) to the glucose molecules of the glycogen. As a result other enzymes could detach easily the single glucose molecules and “send” them for the generation of energy. The binding of cAMP to Glycogen Phosphorylase A activates the enzyme whether the binding of caffeine molecule inhibits it. This is exactly and the place where the caffeine was “caught in action” by a research team in year 2002.

Ekstrom JL and colleagues used a special scientific method called crystallography. They co-incubated caffeine molecules with ultra pure Glycogen Phosphorylase A molecules. As a result the mixture crystallized (it is common for ultra pure mixture of protein molecules (and most of the enzyme are proteins) to crystallize under special conditions (not all protein molecules could form crystals though)). When you irradiate this crystals with X-rays you can generate a nice refraction pattern. Knowing the composition of the protein molecule (enzyme) (the exact sequence of amino acids), the refraction pattern and using some mathematics magic, one can generate a 3D model of the original molecule (enzyme). This is exactly what the research team did. As a result a nice picture of the Glycogen Phosphorylase A molecules bound to caffeine molecules was created:

Of course the colors of the image are not real (they are computer generated) but you could see clearly the small caffeine molecules bound to the two big subunits of the enzyme (violet and dark blue). The next image is a magnification of the green rectangle part of the previous one and it represents the binding place of one of the caffeine molecules (in yellow):

You can see how neatly the caffeine molecule positions itself in the grooves of the big enzyme molecule (the grooves are formed of the amino acid chains composing the enzyme). In doing that the caffeine molecules prevents the binding of cAMP to the very same site and as a result the enzyme is not activated. This property of the caffeine molecules is quite important as it could be used to potentiate the action of some anti-diabetic drugs (of course the caffeine has and many other actions also so in no way it could be used alone as a treatment of diabetes).