Wednesday Weirdness: Salty Watermelon Pepsi

It is really, really hot here. The temperature itself is bad, but the humidity is just lethal. Our Californian coworker Kevin spoke longingly the other day of 105 degree dry heat back home, which I thought sounded silly since it's only 93 here, until I used a heat index calculator and learned 93 with 73% humidity is the equivalent of 118 (or 48, for those of you reading in Celcius). At midday, this places our front porch firmly in steam room territory. 

Justin had to cycle into the school around noon on Saturday to pick up some materials. Poor guy came back looking like this:

Except smellier.

In a situation like this, there's nothing to do but reach for a nice, cold, refreshing bottle of...

Salty Watermelon Pepsi?

We've been in Japan so long we don't even ask anymore.

It turns out that, as with Kit-Kats, the number of soda variants in Japan are, as Lady Bracknell would say, considerably above the proper average which statistics have laid down for our guidance. This is not the first seasonal summer Pepsi tried out here. Others included Blue Hawaii Pepsi ("just a little smurflike"), Shiso Pepsi ("really reminds you of the sort of thing you'd use to scrub your floors"), and Ice Cucumber Pepsi ("kind of like Satan's in my mouth.") So Japan does not have a totally unblemished record in the novelty Pepsi department.

What, then, of Salty Watermelon Pepsi?

You know what? It's actually pretty good. Disconcerting, but good.

The thing is, Salty Watermelon Pepsi tastes like real watermelon. Which is unexpected, to those of us for whom "watermelon" flavor means Jolly Ranchers. This is a very mild flavor, and not at all tooth-fuzzingly syrupy. If you threw watermelon in a blender and then somehow converted it to soda form, it would taste kind of like this. It might even be this color of pink. At the very least, we finished the bottle. We certainly wouldn't clean floors with it, and Satan was nowhere in sight.

And if it strikes you as odd that those two statements constitute high praise for a beverage, then you don't live in Japan.