If you need a little jolt in the afternoon and are standing in front of your office vending machine, trying to decide on whether that means a coffee or a Coke, consider this: In Japan, people don’t have to choose.

Coca-Cola Japan has just launched a new coffee-cola hybrid it’s calling Coca-Cola Coffee Plus. The new product, which comes in a familiarly red-and-white, if comparatively diminutive, can (190ml, just over half the size of a traditional 12-oz can of Coke), is available only via vending machines in Japan.

With added “coffee extract powder,” it packs a punch with 50 percent more caffeine than regular Coke, the Japanese website shin-shouhin.com explains. At the same time, thanks to the use of sweeteners, the high-octane cola has half as many calories.

Still, a reporter for shin-shouhin.com who tried it didn’t describe it in the most flattering terms —  at least according to a translation of the review via Google translate. The fragrance doesn’t seem “to be very tasty,” and the aftertaste was not so hot either, according to the reporter, who added, “It was exactly like I added coffee to Coke … I do not think it's delicious, but it's not as bad as I thought.”

A drink best drunk for effect rather than taste then?

In related news, Jolt Cola, the late, lamented proto-hyper-caffeinated soda, just announced it was coming back on the market, making itself exclusively available for the next year at Dollar General Stores across America.

The deal, according to a news release trumpeting the drink’s return, “will provide customers with access to single $1 cans offering 16 ounces of all the sugar and twice the caffeine.”

And you don’t even have to go all the way to Japan for that one …

Photo: iStock