Just when you thought Japanese vending machines couldn’t get any more awesome, here comes an awesome-sounding dessert drink.

If, like those of us at RocketNews24, you spend a lot of time thinking about desserts, there’s a question that might keep you up at night as you struggle to find a definitive answer for it. Specifically, should cream puffs be considered food or beverages?

Conventional wisdom would say that cream puffs are obviously food, since they’re flaky pastries that you can hold in your fingers. But try thinking outside the box, or, rather, inside the puff. What we’re really after when we’re craving cream puffs is that sweet, sweet cream.

And so Japanese food and beverage company Nagatanien has hit upon the brilliant idea of teaming up with popular cream puff chain Beard Papa to create the Beard Papa Drinkable Cream Puff canned beverage.

The production process isn’t as simple as just cracking open a few Beard Papa cream puffs and letting their contents drip into the cans, however. That would be too thick to easily drink, and so the beverage, which is served chilled, is inspired by, though not entirely identical, to the fillings of Beard Papa’s baked treats.

But make no mistake, this is a dessert beverage, as opposed to a thirst-quencher. Nagatanien says it expects the Drinkable Cream Puff to be a big hit with male customers who’re feeling just a bit hungry or looking for some quick and sweet refreshment.

The beverage is priced at 130 yen (US$1.15) a can, which actually makes it cheaper than its Beard Papa cream puff source material. The Drinkable Cream Puff will first be available inside select JR East rail stations, starting March 21, ahead of an April 24 nationwide rollout. We can’t wait to try a few cans for ourselves and find out how it stacks up against the drinkable Country Ma’am cookies we fell in love with a few years back.

Source: Entabe, PR Times
Top image: Beard Papa
Insert images: PR Times, Beard Papa (edited by RocketNews24)

Follow Casey on Twitter, where between all of Japan’s teas, craft beers, and dessert beverages, sometimes he has a real problem choosing what to drink.