Amazake is a traditional, super healthy drink served either chilled or warm. Ama means sweet and zake is sake, but there is an alcoholic and non alcoholic version to it. The non alcoholic one is made out of rice koji (fermented rice) while the alcoholic one is made from left sake production called sake lees. It’s traditionally consumed on New Years or during the Hinamatsuri (Doll Festival). Amazake has a thick white, creamy consistency to it. When the rice ferments it breaks down the carbs into simple sugars giving it a natural sweetness to it. Amazake is also considered to be the natural IV drip because of how healthy it is for you! Hungover? Drink some amazake to re-hydrate you! Try some on our Tokyo Food Tour.

Photo Credit: Just One Cookbook

Whether it be at home, the bar, the izakaya or at karaoke, beer is Japan’s number one choice in alcohol. Currently, four companies dominate the beer industry - Asahi, Kirin, Suntory and Sapporo. Asahi and Kirin have been known to be long time rivals. During the late showa era (1926-1989), Kirin was Japan’s number one brewer with over 60 percent of the market control. But, in the late 80s, Asahi came out with the Super Dry and took over Kirins lager as the number one beer. While you're in Japan, try different beer brands and see which one you like the best!  

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One of the most popular non carbonated soft drinks in Japan, Calpis has been serving Japan since 1919. This milky based soft drink is a favorite drink, particularly among kids. It has a light, milky taste to it - almost like a vanilla yogurt, yakult flavoring to it. You can get regular calpis, flavored calpis and even calpis soda - the carbonated version of it. Try calpis practically anywhere in Japan - vending machines, convenience stores, restaurants and drinking establishments. 

Fun fact: Calpis is made from two words. Cal from the word calcium and pis from the sanskrit word of salpis - one of the five tastes described in Buddhism. However, it’s sold as Calpico overseas because calpis sounds a lot like cow p**s in english. In Japanese it’s pronounced as karu-pisu

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If you’re a coffee lover, then trying new coffees in different countries is a must. In Japan, some of the most popular coffees are not in cafes but in a can. You might be skeptical at first, but Suntory’s canned BOSS coffee is practically in every single vending machine in Japan due to its popularity. The vending machines have both hot and cold options for their canned coffee. 

Canned coffee started in Japan in the 1950s when convenience stores and vending machines became popular. It naturally spread to the rest of the world and grew in massive popularity in Asia. While there are many brands of canned coffee and we recommend trying various brands, BOSS coffee is by far the most popular choice in Japan.

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Some of the most commonly consumed alcoholic drinks in Japan are beers and sours. But another favorite alcoholic drink is the highball. A highball is essentially a beverage with a base spirit - typically whiskey - and a majority of a carbonated mixer with ice. The regular highball in Japan is whiskey mixed with carbonated water. Some other common ones include coca cola highball and ginger ale highball. You can drink highballs at almost any restaurants and drinking establishments.

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Matcha is actually a type of ryokucha. Ryokucha is green tea and there are many different types of it such as matcha. Matcha is just the leaves of the ryokucha that are powdered after a certain process. In fact matcha is usually common only in green tea ceremonies. However, there are many flavored green tea stuff like green tea ice cream, green tea kit kats and so on. Here is a break down of different types of green tea in Japan:

Ryokucha types(Green tea): Regular green tea from the tea plant.

Matcha: Uses tea leaves that have been shaded from sunlight, dried and then powdered down. 

Sencha: The most common form of ryokucha where only the leave are harvested from the tea plant. The leaves are in the shape of a needle.

Photo Credit: Matcha Cafe Bali

Melon Soda is a popular drink in Japan - particularly loved by every Japanese kid. It has a neon green color to suggest it’s melon flavoring but it might not exactly taste like the fruit! Instead it’s a bit milder, creamier and more processed making for a unique, delicious soda. It’s quite popular to have Melon Soda with ice cream in it, making it a cream soda float. You can get melon sodas at most convenience stores and many restaurants.

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Ramune is a beloved Japanese carbonated soft drink. There are many theories on how it originated but, ramune was invented in Japan some time during the late 1800s by some foreign influence. The name is actually a Japanese loan word from the American word lemonade. Ramune is basically regular soda (like Sprite), but it’s distinguishing feature is it’s codd-neck bottle with a marble ball as it’s cap. Nowadays, there are many different flavors such as melon, strawberry, grape and so on, but the most common and popular flavor to this day is the regular ramune flavor which has a slight lemon/lime candy flavoring to it.

 To open it, the bottle comes with a small plastic plunger topper connected to the top of the bottle. You remove it from the bottle and use it to push the marble down into the drink. It’s famously sold at festivals but you can find it at drinking establishments and grocery stores as well.

Photo credit: Japan Centre

This popular Japanese alcoholic drink is made from fermented rice. In Japan, it’s commonly known as Nihonshu, as sake can sometimes refer to as alcohol in general. This drink is enjoyed at many restaurants and drinking establishments and is one of Japan’s most widely known alcoholic drinks internationally. The quality of sake is based on the quality of the rice, water, mold, yeast and it’s production process. Depending on how it’s made the alcoholic content can range anywhere from 15-20%. Niigata is known to have some of the best rice in Japan, thus making it well known for sake as well.

Photo credit: JW Magazine

Although sake is one of the most well known alcoholic beverages in Japan, there are a few other that are more consumed by Japanese people. After beer, shochu sours/chuhai are the second most consumed in Japan. Depending on the place they can either be called sours or chuhai. It’s an alcoholic drink mixed with shochu (a type of alcohol made from sweet potato, barley, rice, buckwheat and sugar cane) soda water and some kind of flavoring. Common flavoring is lemon juice, grapefruit juice, yuzu, grape juice, umeshu and so on. Typically sours/chuhai range anywhere from 3-8% in alcohol.

Photo credit: Just One Cookbook