Gratitude #61: Ogawa Iced Coffee

I didn’t drink coffee until I was 33 and if I’m being honest, up until then I kind of looked down on you caffeinated jerks. In my mind you were a bit sad because you literally couldn’t function without ingesting ever increasing quantities of coffee throughout the day. Like most addictions the diminishing returns soon become obvious but it’s no match for slowly increasing the dosage until you’re 93% DRUGS.

Allow me to dismount from my high horse and hop onto my Shetland pony for a second because even though I do now count myself a card-carrying member of the Caffeine Kidz, I only have one coffee a day. And while it would be more credible and much cleaner if I remained completely coffee-less I recognise its ability to get the morning started right, which makes the rest of the day that much easier. But if you ever find me drinking more than one coffee a day you can shoot me…a smile.

if you speak spanish and/or watch the simpsons this will all make sense

The reason I bring up such a self-aggrandising back story is to set the stage for Ogawa Iced Coffee, the old-school Japanese charcoal roasted coffee that made me fall in like with getting buzzed in the morning. I found it in a Japanese coffee in Melbourne late last year — it’s the only place I’ve ever seen it before — and I’ve been stressing about this singular point-of-failure ever since. This stuff is so Japanese its website is simply a message from the company’s President, a phone number, a section on “sales channels” and a general rundown of its financial structure.

geocities’ finest

I’ve given coffee drinkers a taste of Ogawa ice coffee but most of them recoil at the taste, claiming the flavour is a lot stronger and by extension, how manly and muscly I must be. I appreciate the sentiment but I’m just a man. I find the flavour roasty but not that gross astringent roastiness synonymous with black coffee in the western world, though I’m certainly no expert. All I know is it’s delicious.

And for anyone worried that I may too become addicted and reduced to nothing more than a wet bag of once-proud neurons, it’s ok. I have a system.