I don’t really drink caffeine. Unless I have a super early morning meeting, I don’t need it — and I spend a lot of my life making sure meetings start later than early morning. I am very sensitive to it and one serving of caffeine, even before noon, has the potential to keep me up all night. I love diet soda, so I drink a lot of “diet caffeine-free anything.” In the U.S. that is easy. In Japan, this is very, very hard. Besides plain water or alcohol, there are mostly two options for beverages — sugar or caffeine. They have lots of variations of sugar milk tea, sugar coffee milk, sugar soda, and an obligatory Coke Zero (which is “diet” but has caffeine). But not much in the sugar free, caffeine free group.
With one notable exception — Asahi Zero.
It is beer, without calories and without alcohol. It tastes just like beer. And fits into my “diet caffeine-free anything” category. It is also fairly ubiquitous. Every time I order it in Japan, someone always wants to make sure I know it has no alcohol. I tell them I do. They look at my oddly. Like why would anyone order this. They don’t realize I am desperate for bubbles that has no caffeine, no sugar and tastes like something besides water. But I wonder, given their reaction, who does order this in Japan? Me and Japanese recovering alcoholics?