A Selection of Hot and Cold Drinks

February is midwinter in Japan, and I quickly became a fan of the kafe moka, or Japanese mochaccino. Every one I had was hot, milky and delicious. In fact all the coffee in Japan was so good I started ordering outside of my usually mocha-centric coffee zone. The Tokyo-style milk coffee at Drip Mania at Nippori station was my favourite. I also really liked the photo-based menu and constantly smiling staff who were extremely tolerant of my useless Japanese language skills. And the fact it was called Drip Mania.

Nana's Green Tea is a national chain of specialty tea houses. Their extensive menu - also thankfully picture based - comprises a vast selection of hot and cold drinks and desserts based around traditional Japanese flavours. The towering parfait I ordered in a Kanda branch comprised layers of coffee jelly, vanilla ice cream, red bean paste, black seasame ice cream, nuts, green tea sponge cake and...cornflakes. More seasonally appropriate was Hannah's small bowl of sweet red bean soup, complete with three little mochi balls bobbing around on top.

In Shibuya, I was compelled to visit the Starbucks which overlooks the huge scramble crossing outside the station. Spring had officially started a few days ago, and this was heralded by the new seasonal range of sakura flavoured drinks and cakes. I admire Starbucks' effort to tailor their products to the local market, but the pale pink sakura frapuccino and macaron were much prettier than they were tasty. I'm still not convinced sakura is actually a flavour - are cherry blossoms even edible?

Also worth mentioning was the Hokkaido Milk shop at Sapporo station. It basically just sold small glass bottles of milk to drink on the train. It was a bit difficult to distinguish between the different types but mine turned out to be coffee flavoured, which was nice.