vending machine drinks

I've written about vending machines before this year but I thought I'd show you one again...

This vending machine sits outside of the elementary school and I stand next to it when I am on crosswalk duty. Absolutely every morning that I am there a construction worker stops and buys the exact same can of coffee. I've chatted with him a bit and he says it is his wake up drink. I don't know if he's been awake all night and is trying to stay awake on his drive home or if he is just waking up to go to his job (the latter seems more probable).

Canned coffee is the most popular vending machine drink in Japan. Someone researched this and found out that men are more likely to buy canned coffee from the vending machine than anything else. (And I guess there are more long distance men drivers.) The varieties and brands are endless! Black coffee, cafe o'lait, flavored coffee, sugarless but with milk, milkless but with sugar, etc. etc.

This past month the vending machine next to the school switched to winter mode. If you look carefully you can see the top row of canned drinks now dispense hot drinks! (The top row's buttons are red...) I think this is a very nice invention (even though I don't like vending machines). In the warmer seasons the same vending machine dispenses only cold drinks... in the winter it can do both cold and hot!

Other hot drinks up there are hot Japanese tea, hot milk tea (British?), cocoa, corn potage, and six varieties of coffee. In the cold sections there are some of the same plus soft drinks... And the plastic bottled drinks (called PET bottles) also change depending on the season. The mouths of the winter bottles are a bit wider I suppose so that one can drink without burning your lips...

The construction worker I meet every morning always chooses GEORGIA original brand coffee but I notice he is drinking the hot variety this season...