I love the convenience (and taste) of a quick coffee in Japan. Coming in all flavours imaginable, including green tea flavoured lattes, these drinks are the perfect aid to powering through a day of travelling Japan. My go to coffee is the Japanese iced coffee.

Available from convenience stores, vending machines, grocery stores and sometimes pharmacies, Japanese coffee is cheap – usually between ¥100 and ¥200. Personally I like the slightly sweet milk coffees. Black coffee is popular in Japan, so it’s easy to mistakenly buy a non-milk coffee.

Japanese iced coffee

NIKON D5200 (35mm, f/1.8, 1/50 sec, ISO100)
Japanese Iced Coffee: Mt Rainer Cappuccino

If you’re like me and prefer milk in your coffee, use this quick language tip to avoid any unpleasantly black surprises…

These types of Japanese iced coffee (in a cardboard cup) aren’t usually found in vending machines but in convenience and grocery stores, so you can use this quick Japanese language tip on an actual person and not talk to a machine like a crazy person. For what I’m guessing are logistical reasons only canned coffee is in these machines. The canned coffee typically uses some form of “cream” instead of actual milk, so I prefer to grab the cup version of the Japanese iced coffee when I can.