There are so many grape-flavored drinks in the world. I picked up this grape-flavored soda at the HMart near me. It is produced by the Hata Kōsen company (ハタ鉱泉株式会社) in Ōsaka.

The can itself seems to want to emulate an bottle of premium iced Boss coffee with its silver finish and twist top; I believe those premium Boss coffee cans are steel. According to the recycling label on the side of this can it is aluminum, which is different from what I'm used to with Japanese bottling. The bottle livery also only goes most of the way up and has Fuji, cherry blossoms and Hokusai's Great Wave on it. The can is also weirdly rigid and difficult to bend along the contour which tapers towards the top of the bottle, beyond the livery. I'm not a material science guy so I can't tell you beyond that I think it's weird and that I noticed it.

My first impression after tasting this drink is that it's carbonated: very bubbly (バブリー) and aggressively sour on the front note. Considering citric acid is listed even on the EN label this is not surprising. But this impression only lasts a moment. There is a fleeting echo of artificial grape. It lasts only a second or two and is immediately overtaken by a very mild, underwhelming finish. Not a fan.

I'm surprised that a single bottle has 42g of sugar since it has such an ethereal, artificial taste. Even in the face of such empty calories I do appreciate that this soda is not sticky like many other drinks with so much sugar. It tastes light even though it is not.

Considering there's no upside to this drink beyond, I dunno, being carbonated, I can't recommend it at all. You can call it a modern take on ramune minus the nostalgia and the glass ball. But considering these are the only two things that make ramune stand out this little soda thing has almost nothing going for it.