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Family Mart’s Instagramable Galactica Grape and Fantasy Peach frappes warp into stores

Katy Kelly Apr 28, 2018
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Family Mart’s newest drink campaign shoots for the moon and promises a rainbow of dreamy starshine flavors.

Whether you get taken in by the craze or not, there’s no denying the gravitational pull of a limited beverage. Starbucks Japan’s seasonal offerings make headlines almost every holiday, and even something as classic as a Pepsi or Sprite gains an exotic edge from a unique (or equally important, limited) flavor.

Family Mart, one of the most popular convenience store chains in Japan, is no stranger to the power of a constantly rotating drink menu. Visitors can buy staple drinks like coffee, tea, and hot cocoa at the stores’ Family Mart Café machines, but every season also comes with its own specialty flavors in the form of Family Mart frozen frappes.

To get your own, pick your frappe base right out of a freezer, add hot milk from the café machine, then mix it with the special extra-wide straw. Voila, a great-tasting frappe without the coffee shop price tag!

▼ Just remember to use milk to mix it, not tea or coffee. Ahem.

These seasonal frappes usually play it safe on their trip to Flavortown with flavors like milk tea, strawberry, or chocolate mint. The newest additions to the line-up are much more adventurous, and promise to boldly go where few convenience store drinks have gone before…

The dramatic ad above introduces our two new stars. On the top, billing itself as “the taste of space”, is the Galactica Grape frappe. This frappe comes with colorful stripes of flavor: yellow (lemon), purple (blackberry and grape), and turquoise (orange).

Once filled with the hot milk and mulched into submission by your straw, the colors and tastes blend into a gorgeous grape-flavored galaxy that could give the Unicorn Frappucino a run for its money. It’ll make for a good selfie too!

If sci-fi isn’t your thing, the Fantasy Peach frappe is described as “a fanciful flavor from dreamland”. Bands of dark pink (white peach), orange (vanilla yogurt), and pale pink (lemon) swirl together into a beautiful pastel concoction that wouldn’t look out of place in a fairy tale. Once all those bands harmonize, the drink will taste like peach yogurt.

Both these otherworldly experiences can be yours for just 290 yen (US$2.65) per cup, and they’ll be in Family Mart freezers from April 29th.

What if your tastebuds aren’t especially adventurous? Family Mart has you covered. From May 6th, the stores will stock the rich and aromatic Café Frappe. Coffee beans from Columbia and Brazil form the base of this creamy classic, and it’s dusted throughout with ground Ethiopian Mocha beans. It’ll cost 270 yen (US$2.50) a shot.

Finally, you can grab the Banana Gelato frappe, though you’ll have to wait all the way until May 13th. Crammed full of rich banana juice and pieces of banana fruit imported from the Philippines, this drink has a special twist: buy a packet of the special chocolate syrup to squirt over the top and it’ll harden into a crunchy coating. As a choco-banana fan I can’t wait to shell out an extra 35 yen for that! The Banana Gelato drink retails for 320 yen (US$2.95).

▼ Banana Gelato Frappe + Crunchy Choco Syrup = Chocobanana Frappe!

Are these funky new flavors going to be enough to take on the coffee kings of Japan? Could you stomach a Galactica Grape frappe taste mixed with tea instead? Most importantly, which of these frappes do you want to try? Let us know!

Sources: Entabe, Family Mart
Top image: Family Mart
Insert images: Family Mart (1, 2)