JAPAN
In the Americas and Europe, vending machines are mostly a convenient point of purchase for foods and beverages that are sold on the supermarket shelf. Sodas and chips are obvious instances. Japan stands out as unique in its vending machine range of offers of products and services. They are everywhere, almost literally. There are an estimated 5.5 million in use, 1 per 20 people. They dispense an extraordinary range of high-end and exotic products, including gourmet teas: sencha, genmaicha, hojicha, and even the sublime gyokuro, noted for its complexity of flavor and of brewing demands.
At Buddhist temples, vending machines dispense amulets. Cashless payments, LED displays and touch screens, built-in heaters and cold storage, and internet connection are becoming standard features. Many of these are also being provided in the US, European, and Indian markets, but in most instances, these are scattered in location, more an interesting novelty at airports than an everyday service, and well below critical mass. Flower bouquets at railway stations, the growing smart refrigerators in offices, or the French bakery that sells par-baked bread that is finished off and dispensed fresh and warm are all noteworthy innovations. But they are not part of every day and everywhere. Many firms are moving to add to the convenience element. Pepsico and Lipton are collaborating to add new food and beverage items to their vending platforms, for example.
The broader question for tea sellers is does the Japanese experience create an opportunity for gourmet quality and not just standard products? Are vending machines a base for expanding the market for the rich variety of greatly improved new generation of RTD, botanical and flavored teas, wellness teas, matcha, kombucha, cold brew, and other innovations yet to come? Is this a missing base for selling traditional specialty teas in an era when tea houses have been eclipsed in such countries as the UK by coffee bars?
None of this is happening today beyond interesting occasional examples. Where tea is a choice on a vending machine, it is largely pre-mixed or ice tea. A marked constraint on the quality of both coffee and tea is the use of powdered milk substitute instead of fresh milk. Japanese machines dispense 2.5 billion servings of green tea a year. The number of US cups or cans of, say, an organic Darjeeling estate tea is in the thousands. Perhaps – no one is counting.
There are many distinctive aspects of Japanese culture and daily routines that do not apply elsewhere and make it unlikely that adoption will be immediate ad automatic. Japan’s population is used to the machines which are already ubiquitous and feature-rich. They are used with no pre-association as a pick and pay lobby, booth, or street device for buying low-end goods of so-so quality. Crime rates are low so there is no need to anchor the machines so they can’t be stolen and loaded on a truck or broken into – in the US, ATM once stood for automated theft machine.
So, how about a matcha latte or a robust Nepalese black? Oh, you don’t know where to get one on your way to work? That’s a shame.