KFC Japan is planning a new cafe concept — including woodgrain tables and individually brewed French press coffees — to debut later this month in Kobe.
First reported by Ryutsuu Business News this week, The KFC Colonel’s Cafe opening Nov. 28 will include KFC Japan’s standard fried-chicken-heavy menu, but interior touches like brick, natural surfaces and plantings are designed to create an inviting coffeehouse feel. The Colonel’s team will also serve pastries and made-to-order breakfast items like pancakes. Then there’s coffee brewed in individual French press servings that KFC will sell for 450 yen (approximately $3.90 USD).
(related: In Crimea, The Caffe Americano is Out, and the Russiano is In)
In not totally related but equally goofy news, Japanese packaged coffee drink maker Pokka has introduced coffee-flavored potato chips. Technically, the chips are actually sweetened-milk-based-coffee-drink-flavored. Japan’s Rocket News 24 — which publishes in English and Japanese — got their hands on some of the Pokka chips for a highly entertaining review. Rocket News’ Casey Baseel noted an overpowering sweetness, with not much actual coffee or potato flavor:
We’ve actually had potato chips before that tasted like caramel and chocolate, both of which have a salty edge to their sweetness. A regularly salted potato chip can help draw out more of their sweet flavors, but the Pokka chips don’t. As a matter of fact, we’ve become so conditioned to having our potato chips be salty that eating ones that weren’t at all sent our brain into panic mode as it tried to reconcile what was happening on our tongue. The sudden confusion they brought on even prompted one of our Japanese writers to declare:
“They taste like chaos.”
If Pokka chips are too threatening to your world order, there are always KFC potato chips.
Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
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