Mmmm, a frosty cold glass bottle of Coca Cola on a summer’s day. The cool, solid feeling of the glass as you raise it to your lips, the satisfying heft of the bottle in your hand. What could be better? A plastic bottle? I don’t think so.
A special limited edition glass bottle is now available in Japan in select supermarkets. The announcement was posted up on Coca-Cola Japan’s Facebook page on 24 July, along with the above picture. Other than on Facebook, the glass bottles weren’t especially publicized or promoted. However, they soon gained more than 10,000 likes. Why do people in Japan seem to crave Coke in a glass bottle so much?
People expressed a liking for the glass bottles well beyond what you might expect. A flood of enthusiastic comments poured in: “Glass bottles are the best!”, “I want to drink it!”, “Let’s go find them!”
Many die-hard fans were also disappointed to find that screw top caps were used, rather than the authentic crown caps which require a bottle opener to open.
Here are some other comments from Japanese netizens:
“This is the real thing!”
“I want to experience the nostalgia of drinking from a glass bottle!”
“Bottled cola is so good…”
“I tried one but it wasn’t as carbonated. Is that because of the new cap?”
“I’m disappointed with the shoddy-looking labels.”
“I remember the Coke bottle vending machine! And the bottle opener there too… People who know about this must be at least in their mid-thirties…”
Judging by the comments in general, it seems that a great love for glass bottles is more about nostalgia than any other reason. There are also a host of other issues to consider—the disposal or recycling of bottles and the dangers of broken glass as opposed to plastic, among other things.
Still, if I had to pick one, I would pick glass. There’s just something about glass…Or maybe one of those super tiny, slim-line cans you can get in Japan, smaller than most inflight cans. Or a Coke made with water from Okinawa, that’s something you don’t see every day! Or perhaps it would be better to purify the Coke before drinking it…
