I am a big fan of Japanese aesthetics, particularly when it comes to product design and packaging. If you’ve ever bought an Apple product you probably know what I’m talking about. Steve Jobs after all, co-opted some of the best practices of product design wizardry from the land of the rising sun. The careful attention to detail, and the meticulous improvements of every-day processes- kan-ban style- are absolutely fascinating. Opening a product in Japan is an experience in itself. Like opening a present, the details matter. I recently visited a local Japanese store in which I found another example of Japanese mastery over product design that solves another problem I didn't even know I had. This one involved coffee, so I knew it was going to be very stimulating.
There is a great variety of coffee-making techniques, and one of the most efficient ones is instant coffee. All you need to do is scoop up some grounds and add hot water. Then boom! There is your coffee. The downside of this method is that instant coffee is not very tasty, unless you add ungodly amounts of milk and sugar. Not to worry because the Japanese have taken up the challenge and come up with an ingenious way of delivering that caffeine straight into your nervous system without too much loss of flavour.
This bag contains several packets of drip coffee. You heard me right. Drip friggin' coffee IN A BAG. Surely, these are dark arts!
Each packet contains one of the greatest engineering feats ever achieved by humanity. Just look at this.
Just look at it. I’ll wait.
Isn’t that marvelous? Mysterious and subtle. To think, a group of men and women had to come together and come up with this contraption. Visualize it. Design it. Draft it. Machine it. Or maybe it was some mad genius in his underground Tokyo workshop. Did they use old tools like pen and paper or state of the art computers? The engineering is superb, the design highly functional, and the aesthetics pure Zen.
So how do you work this coffee delivery system? If you're not familiar with this method, then you might be a bit perplexed, but you'll quickly get the hang of it. The instructions are shown in the package, but they’re written in Japanese. I don’t speak a single word of Japanese, nor do I understand the written language. Thankfully, the designers added some graphics that provided some general guidance. I still managed to get it wrong, but it was a good try. The images certainly helped.
I found some videos on how to do it properly, so my second try fared better. First, you’re supposed to tear the packet along the top. They put some triangular markers and words to show you where you’re supposed to tear the bag. I didn’t quite get the hang of it at first, so I mangled the bag, but thankfully still managed to get it open.
Second, you tear and pull the handless that are flat against the bag. Initially, the whole thing seemed like an undecipherable jigsaw puzzle. I felt like some crazed engineer had just handed me a contraption and told me to “just figure it out.” I pulled and tug at the thing and finally spread out the handle like one's spreads a bird's wings.
Third, you take the handles and hook them on the edge of the cup. I did not realize that you were supposed to bend them, so my bag just dangled like a stoned monkey holding to the edges of the cup.
The next steps were a bit unclear. Was I supposed to pour the water and steep the coffee in it? At what temperature and for how long? Hmm… Looking closely at the instructions I noticed that they provided a temperature (presumably for the water) and the numbers 2~3. I took the latter to mean that you steep the bag for 2-3 minutes after pouring the water, so that’s exactly what I did.
Wrong!
I later realized that there was no steeping involved, just pour the water until you’re satisfied and you’ll be well on your way to caffeine heaven. I also learned how to properly tear the top off, so it’s easy to open the bag with the handles and form a squarish basket with the coffee inside.
I cannot tell you how much I’m enjoying this coffee. The taste is much better than instant coffee, even when drinking it black, which is my preferred way of drinking coffee. I enjoy how the aroma hits you when you open the bag. It reminds me of airplanes and airports in distant lands. I enjoy drinking it early in the morning, when I can’t sleep and just want to look out at the cityscape glittering across the bay while holding a steaming cup of coffee, inhaling the cool morning air and thinking of Japan.
All images @litguru
That’s awesome lol I love the Japanese and their ingenuity! Great how it sits on the cup like that!
It's very clever. I enjoy this kind of design.
Oh my gosh, this has got to be one of the coolest instant coffee solutions I've ever seen. I want to try it! Is this just a local thing or do you know if it's available online?
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I bought it locally, but you can probably find it online. It's great to try, even if it's just for the novelty.
Update I just saw that Amazon Canada has it under Japanese drip coffee
Thanks I'll def check it out 👍
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Thank you!