Featured

Lemongina

Does the new Lemongina taste like medicine and dirt? Mr. Sato investigates

Not since New Coke has a soft drink lowered the bar of expectations quite like Lemongina and its great taste of topsoil.

Read More

Lemon or dirt flavored? Lemongina is the blue dress of the soft drink world 【Taste Test】

The French carbonated orange drink Orangina has been widely accepted in Japan as one of the top sodas. In fact Japanese beverage company Suntory now owns the beverage in all Asian and European markets.

So it was with great anticipation that Japanese consumers welcomed the new lemon flavor, dubbed Lemongina, on 31 March. However, that warm welcome lasted barely a few minutes as Twitter was flooded with complaints that the new drink “tastes like dirt.” This was followed shortly thereafter by a flood of complaints that it “doesn’t taste like dirt” when drunk after hearing that it did.

Had Suntory made a major blunder in their artificial flavoring, or is part of Japan undergoing mass hysteria? We headed down to the supermarket to find out.

Read More