Japanese Pepsi goes green

THE Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with Pepsi Ice Cucumber — a soft drink based on the green gourd.

The beverage, which hits stores this week, doesn’t actually have any cucumber in it but has been artificially flavoured to resemble “the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber”, said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan’s Pepsi distributor Suntory Ltd.

“We wanted a flavour that makes people think of keeping cool in the heat,” Ms Takemoto said. “We thought the cucumber was just perfect.”

The mint-coloured soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan. Ms Takemoto said initial sales were brisk and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.

Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15% of the cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee.