Last August, I promised that if Aqua: Water Store and Bar Concept was still in business in 2005, I’d go buy their most expensive bottle of water.
Good to my word, I stopped in last week and picked up a bottle of Ame. It was, by far, the most expensive bottle they had, by absolute and per-unit price (504 Yen for 330 milliliters).
Unfortunately, I was had. It wasn’t water at all, but soda. It was loaded with fruit juice and various herb extracts. It tasted, more than anything else, like apfelschorle (a mixture of sparkling water and apple juice).
Ironically, the product itself is only pseudo-Asian. Ame is produced by Britvic Soft Drinks, a British concern, that claims the name derives from the Japanese word for “gentle rain”. As far as I know ame (雨) just means plain old rain, but I’m guessing that gentle rain tested better in some focus group.
I’m still astonished that Aqua is still in business. The place is open very irregularly and when it is open, it is almost always empty. When I’ve expressed my astonishment to folks here in Japan, more than one person has suggested that it’s probably just the hobby of someone who has more money than common sense. I guess someone really likes water.
