STB47: Yamanashi
A New Series, Lasting Somewhere Between Three And 47 Posts
Review — Starbucks JIMOTO Frappuccino #19 Yamanashi
The very first sip delivers a rush of grape flavor rarely found in any chain restaurant creation or snack offering. This isn’t the artificial experience of a Good Humor popsicle — the nostalgic memory of young disappointment at the lack of red or orange ice novelties — but rather something closer to the rich taste you’d expect to find from fruit at a farmer’s market. It’s almost uncanny how much the Barney-colored syrup the Starbucks staff adds in to this Frappuccino actually tastes grape-like, both clearly fake but tasting real enough to make me do a double take in store. This is the stuff tourism departments dream of when they hype up local produce, even if it only lasts about four sips.
After that, the other dominant element — white chocolate — takes over, letting just enough grape taste linger around to prevent it from becoming too much of a sugar bomb. This is, basically, a milkshake, so it is of course good. Yet nothing really approaches those initial gushes of fruity flavor, the un-Starbucks like tartness that justifies riding a special train an hour out of Tokyo to go to a mall.
I don’t know totally why Starbucks Japan’s “47 JIMOTO Frappuccino” campaign has become a source of fascination and fantasy for me. This summer event, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the coffee chain’s debut in the country, finds outlets in all 47 prefectures across the archipelago selling their own special region-inspired Frappuccino, only available in said prefecture. Perhaps it’s tapping into a desire for domestic travel after largely being a no-go over the last year — dreams of sipping corn and watermelon beverages allowing for grander ideas of just getting out of the neighborhood — or maybe (more likely), it ties to a general feeling of Tokyo being just kind of…miserable this summer. The vibes all off, thanks to the Olympics and the rage they inspire, the ongoing COVID-19 situation, a particularly dreary rainy season and just an all-around exhaustion at city life.
It proves impossible to escape the realities of Tokyo Summer 2021 even after an hour-ish express train ride out to Kofu, on the edge of Yamanashi Prefecture. Exiting the main station gate leads to a mini armada of press, fiddling with huge cameras in anticipation of…something. I’m pretty sure athletes representing France were arriving soon after, to prepare ahead of the Games, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out — I had a bus bound for an Aeon Mall to catch.
Shopping malls will always be linked to the Japanese suburbs in my mind. There’s no reason to schlep out to one when you’re in Tokyo, but when you live in a bedtown tucked away in some lesser prefecture, malls take on newfound importance (not all that different from the American suburb experience). In my first two years living in the countryside, a two-hour-long trek out to the mall was like an exploration, where I’d come back home with tortilla chips and root beer.
In Kofu — which itself feels like a weird suburb of Tokyo, but somehow with much better summer weather — malls also apparently house all the Starbucks, so to enjoy this grape dessert drink I must revisit the biggie-sized shopping centers of a decade ago. And what a rush it was! Before enjoying the prefectural Frappuccino, I wander around Aeon aimlessly, taking in the sights of near-empty movie theaters, Uniqlos and food courts. The Starbucks itself is spacious, occupied by only a few older folks enjoying a nice morning coffee (I’m the only one sipping on the grape). Like the Japanese suburbs in general, it’s all relaxed with plenty of room to get around, though who knows where my mind would be if every coffee shop experience was like this.
Outside of the mall, you could find lockers full of locally sourced tomatoes. Country life!
The music Foodman makes reimagines everyday Japanese life — particularly the no-frills existence of bedtown culture, with its family restaurants and hardware stores dotting the landscape — into something fantastical. Talking to him last year for Tone Glow, we spent a lot of time reflecting on how his relatively common suburban situation on the edge of Nagoya — fried fish dishes! Video games! Childhood memories looked at from the newfound perspective of maturity! — was shaping his work. Yasuragi Land is his celebration of simple joys, using the all-around inspiration of food courts, service stations and more to springboard his imaginative percussion. The mundane happenings you take for granted morph into something nearly surreal over the course of this album, one of the year’s best.
I listen through the entirety of Yasuragi Land on the train ride to Kofu. As the city recedes in favor of stretches of forest, rivers and small clusters of houses, Foodman’s latest makes for a great soundtrack to leaving the busy capital…even if just for a day…for something a little less hurried. It’s music aiming to elevate the everyday, by re-imagining the mundane as the magical.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies