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Consumer Culture

Deconstructing a global commodity: Coffee, culture, and consumption in

Japan
Helena Grinshpun
Journal of Consumer Culture 2014 14: 343 originally published online 22 May 2013
DOI: 10.1177/1469540513488405
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Article

Deconstructing a global
commodity: Coffee,
culture, and consumption
in Japan

Journal of Consumer Culture

2014, Vol. 14(3) 343364
! The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1469540513488405
joc.sagepub.com

Helena Grinshpun
Department of East Asian Studies, the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract
Since their entry to Japan in the latter half of the 19th century, coffee and coffee shops
have been closely linked to the economic, political, and socio-cultural change undergone
by the Japanese society. The cafes themselves have gone through numerous transformations in order to address the various social needs of their patrons. Today, coffee shops
occupy a significant niche in the Japanese urban lifestyle. However, the cultural baggage
of coffee as a foreign commodity still plays a central role in generating its consumer
appeal. Coffee is a global commodity whose value on the world market is surpassed
only by oil. Moreover, due to its peculiar historical background, it became a beverage
charged with a wide range of cultural meanings; tracing these meanings in different
contexts can shed light on the way cultural commodities behave in the globalized
world. In order to examine the niche that coffee occupies in the Japanese consumption
scene, I will analyze the manner in which representations of coffee are constructed and
translated into a consumer experience. Through the case of coffee in Japan I will try to
demonstrate the process of movement of culture, whereby the relevance of a foreign
commodity in the local context is determined by the complex interplay between two
culturally engineered binary entities of global and local, foreign and native.
Keywords
Coffee, Japan, consumption, globalization, cultural melange, code-switching

Malls, temples, Christmas and other goods

Chilly December evening in the city of Kyoto; automatic glass doors of one of the
citys trendy shopping malls lead to a marble-paved lobby with a small Starbucks
Corresponding author:
Helena Grinshpun, Department of East Asian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Email: helena.grinshpun@mail.huji.ac.il

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outlet in it. An outer glass wall overlooks the back yard where, just a few meters
away from the mall, stands an ancient temple of Rokkakudo one of the oldest
Buddhist temples in Kyoto. Seen through the transparent glass, the temple, with its
noble contours and dark brown color, appears to occupy the inner space of the
mall. Armchairs serving the Starbucks store are lined along the glass wall, facing
the outside, as if turning the transparent wall and the temple behind it into a huge
screen. Quiet Irish-sounding Christmas-themed music is played in the background.
Between the glass and the temple, there is a small garden patch with several Tanuki
statues hiding in the grass.1 In the center, a Christmas installation is erected a
white carriage pulled by a white horse, both made of illuminated wires; by its side
an illuminated Santa climbs an illuminated tree trunk. The brightly lit marble hall,
the gleaming horse and the dark mass of the temple in the background create a
rather surreal landscape. Visually, the temple is turned into an exhibited artifact;
however, it is a functioning temple, to some extent more real than the blinking
Christmas images. The temple and the mall seem to represent two polarities of the
Japanese cultural construction the old tradition, on the one hand, and the incorporation of new (often foreign, mostly western) trends, on the other. Gazing on this
scene, we can lament the loss of elegance and spirituality of the old times to the
imported images of globalized consumption; or we can try to comprehend the new
reality embracing both aspects as two interconnected elements responsible for forging new tastes, lifestyles and identities.
What place does Starbucks, a globalized American chain notorious for its ubiquity and aggressive expansion, occupy in this mixed landscape? What is the nature
of its interplay with the temple, the very epitome of Japaneseness? What kind of
consumer experience do global coee chains construct in Japan, and how does it
correspond with the cultural baggage of coee? This essay attempts to answer
these questions by oering a perspective on the role of foreign products in contemporary Japanese consumption, and on the way various cultural odors
(Iwabuchi, 2002) are exploited to generate consumer appeal. Following
Iwabuchis conceptualization, the term odor is used here to denote the way in
which cultural features of a country of origin and images or ideas of its national, in
most cases stereotyped, way of life are associated positively with a particular product in the consumption process (Iwabuchi, 2002: 27). Through the story of coee
in Japan, this study aims to inform the debate on globalization and incorporation
of global commodities in local contexts.
The migration of global products involves a process by which new meanings,
interpretations and applications are attached to them, and can be discussed as
moving in three possible directions. Movement towards the homogenization of
local markets has earned itself the labels of McDonaldization and cultural imperialism, typically associated with the American cultural hegemony (Ritzer, 2004;
Tomlinson, 1999). The alternative direction, involving a more dynamic mixture
of the global and the local, is depicted as hybridization or creolization (Hannerz,
1992; Pieterse, 2009). These two directions assume major transformations
undergone by the local fabric under the inuence of the globalizing force.

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Therefore, both imply hierarchy and colonial power relations between the local and
the global. The third approach, which this study seeks to promote, emphasizes the
contextuality of the two entities as exible cultural constructions (GoldsteinGidoni, 2001), a dynamic dialog in which the focus can shift from one entity to
another, contributing to the movement of culture (Silverberg, 2006: 34). In this
process, the locality emerges as a cultural co-producer, an agency rather than a
recipient of the foreign produce.
In the context of Japan, I nd several conceptualizations of the third scenario
particularly helpful: the idea of cultural melange, shaped by the emic distinctions
between the Japanese and the western drawn by the local actors (Goldstein-Gidoni,
2001), and the metaphor of code-switching, i.e. moving between various elements
of the native and foreign cultures (Silverberg, 2006: 4).2 Both concepts emphasize
the creative participation of the local agency in an ongoing process of producing
new cultural forms (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2001a: 22), and challenge the view of mere
cultural borrowing and implementation in favor of cultural strategizing (Silverberg,
2006: 33).
The notions of melange and code-switching imply a conceptual duality between
the local Japanese and the foreign (for the most part, Euro-American) cultural
elements, which Gordon refers to as double life, namely, the simultaneous presence of goods and practices described as western and Japanese in the realms of
daily life and national imagination (Gordon, 2007: 12). This duality constitutes
both a source of symbolic tension and a cultural capital, and is closely linked to two
interconnected issues that of identity, and that of consumption.
In this context, the Euro-American culture emerges as a consumed artifact
rather than a hegemonic power. This view is supported by several studies on the
manifestations of Americana in Japan; one of the most illustrative cases is the
Tokyo Disneyland (TDL). Disneyland is often depicted as an epitome of
American imperialism; however, closer examinations reveal that it functions
rather as a commodity, appropriated and modied to suit the local needs (see
Brannen, 1992; Raz, 2000; Yoshimi, 2000). Moreover, this acculturated western
Other is often imagined (or imagineered, using the Disney lingo) as an authentic
product, with its alleged authenticity providing a source of consumer appeal.
The Japanese appropriation of non-Japanese goods and images, which had
earned itself a rather one-dimensional label of westernization, is in fact a multifaceted historical process that was ascribed various meanings in the course of the
last hundred years. The contemporary Japanese reality hardly leaves a space to
discuss its westernization; it is more appropriate to talk about the complex interactions between the culturally produced entities of global and local, foreign and
Japanese. I believe that the construction of the cultural Self and Other is best
observed through its everyday expressions in consumption.
An interesting case of this construction is described in Caldwells study of
McDonalds in Moscow. McDonalds acceptance was determined by its eventual
domestication, whereby its product was eventually labeled as Ours (Nash) and as
such successfully drawn into the Muscovites intimate spaces (Caldwell, 2004).

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The highly negotiable contents of Ours and Theirs did not challenge the clear
separation between the two constructs, as well as their mutually complementary
role. Wilks (1999) ethnography on the construction of native cuisine in Belize
provides an example of how the presence of the foreign helps to objectify the local.
As part of the post-colonial discourse on national identity, certain local foods were
reinvented as elements of authentic diet through a contrast with an externalized
western Other. A similar phenomenon is depicted by Creighton in the context of
Japanese department stores, which helped to rearm Japanese identity by
drawing clear boundaries between things Japanese and things foreign
(Creighton, 1991: 677).
Everyday commodities provide multiple axes around which these negotiations
on identity take place. In Japan, mundane substances like food (see Bestor, 2011;
Cwiertka, 2007) and the way it is presented (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2001), ordinary
places like department stores (Creighton, 1991, 1998) and amusement parks
(Hendry, 2000; Raz, 2000) play a signicant role in shaping not only our consumer
experiences but also the way we experience culture. Culture is more often than not
a function of otherness; as we shall see, exploiting culture in marketing often
implies appealing to its foreignness or strangeness. The issue of imagination
(I nd the term imagineering most appropriate for the process of cultural production) is crucial in this context, as both the foreign and the Japanese emerge as
subjective products of negotiation on identity, rather than objective cultural
entities.
The link between consumption of western products and social class in Japan
also deserves mentioning. Gordon describes how goods of Euro-American origin
dened middle-class modernity in the trans-war period (1920s1960s). This denition was rooted in the association between the ideals of the modern middle-class
lifestyle and the images of western, notably American, life (Gordon, 2007: 10).
Junichiro Tanizakis novel Naomi, written in 1920s, exemplies this connection.
The author depicts the overpowering fascination of the Japanese with the West,
and the destructive inuence of this fascination on the identity of the protagonist, a
middle-brow engineer who represents the dilemmas and the aspirations of the
middle-class of the era.
The overpowering enthusiasm for things western, depicted in Naomi, had vanished as Japan itself joined the club of lifestyle superpowers.3 In the post-miracle
auent Japan, what used to constitute a symbolic tension became part of the
complex Japanese cultural reality, incorporating local traditions with elements of
foreign cultures and lifestyles but nonetheless still accommodating discourse on
identity. The complex relations between the foreign and the native, the Other and
the Self, estrangement and familiarity, represent today a powerful resource for
both marketers and consumers. The marketers exploit it in constructing their product experience; for the consumers, the ability to maneuver between the two modes
adds up to their cultural capital same way as code-switching between two languages is a form of symbolic capital that endows access to additional symbolic
resources and identities (Silverberg, 2006: 33). Unlike the relatively concrete verbal

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codes involved in linguistic code-switching, however, the metaphor of cultural

code-switching implies a process in which shifting cultural cues and interpretations
(Silverberg, 2006: 33) are employed. The use of these interpretive constructs in
consumption underlines the role of culture as an artifact, constantly re-produced
in response to the demand generated by particular historical, political, and social
circumstances.
There are many studies which link the commercialization of the Japanese side of
the foreignlocal scheme to the issue of cultural identity. These focus on topics
such as domestic tourism and the furusato movement (see Creighton, 1997;
Robertson, 1988),4 local food products (Francks, 2007; Rausch, 2008), and traditional arts and crafts (Goldstein-Gidoni, 1997; Moeran, 1997). Obviously, dierent commodities call for dierent types of cultural branding: marketing a product
as traditional will involve appeals to the indigenous culture, while commodities that
have a foreign background will invite exploiting foreign associations. Coee, as the
next section will illustrate, belongs to the latter category, which is by no means a
minority in the Japanese consumption. In contemporary Japan, the foreign odor
is still in demand, facilitating odor branding, i.e. exploiting the association of the
commodity with a foreign culture in order to enhance its consumer appeal.
Goldstein-Gidoni (2001, 2001a) describes how this technique is applied to the wedding industry and cuisine. Clammer, in his study of shopping, demonstrates how
foreign products possess in Japan a certain aura of otherness and infuse re-enchantment into the everyday life (Clammer, 1997).
Among these commodities, products related to food and beverages occupy an
important niche. Multiple studies illustrate the manner in which these substances
provide sustenance, a form of symbolic communication, and a social ritual, thus
demarking social boundaries and asserting cultural identities (e.g. Appadurai,
1988; Belasco and Scranton, 2002; Bell and Valentine, 1997; DeSoucey, 2010;
Pettigrew, 2002; Wilk, 1999). What has been much less explored is how specic
products behave in the state of ongoing intercultural contact brought upon by
globalization, and how their translation into a consumer experience reects the
complex dynamic between the global and local forces.
This study aims to ll this lacuna by exploring the case of coee in Japan.
Coee, due to its high value on the global market, its peculiar cultural history,
and its intensive incorporation into peoples everyday lives, represents a valuable
case for exploring intercultural encounters. Moreover, the rather narrow scope of
up-to-date academic research on coee and coee shops in Japan (see Derschmidt,
1998; Hiraoka, 2005; Molasky, 2005; Tipton, 2000; Wada, 2005; White, 2012) and
the lack of research on coee shop chains in Japanese consumption request this
exploration. By drawing on the behavior of coee in Japan, I follow the logic of
the extended case method which applies interpretive analysis to empirical data to
extract the general from the unique and to move from micro-level data to macrolevel constructs (Burawoy, 1998).
The following section will outline the place that coee and coee shops occupy
in the Japanese coee scene. Then, the manner in which global chains construct

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consumption experience around coee as a cultural commodity will be discussed,

using Starbucks coee chain as a study case.

Coffee in Japan: Acquiring the taste of modernity

Among foreign commodities, which in Japan represent a broad category ranging
from cheeseburgers to Disneyland, coee has earned a place of honor. Although
Japan is commonly recognized as a tea-drinking country, today, coee occupies a
massive niche in everyday life and consumption. According to the All Japan Coee
Association, in recent years Japans consumption of coee, both roasted and
instant, accounted for twice as much as its consumption of green tea.5 Japan is
the number three importer of coee beans worldwide after the United States and
Germany. The beans imported to, roasted, and served in Japan are of the highest
quality, and Japanese coee equipment is considered to be among the best in the
world (White, 2012: 89).
I will not elaborate here on the history of coee from its advance from Ethiopian
highlands to the Ottoman Empire, where it was discovered by the European travelers, its consequent incorporation into the European lifestyle as an attribute of the
exotic Orient, and to its eventual commercialization as a global commodity; I will
focus solely on its Japanese incarnation. In Japan, coee has been historically
associated with foreign culture. As a beverage, it was introduced to Japan in the
17th century by the Dutch; however, it did not become a mass commodity until the
end of the 19th century when, after more than 200 years of seclusion, Japan was
forcibly opened to western trade. During the Meiji era (18681912), coee shops
gained popularity as a symbol of modernity and attributes of the newly introduced
western lifestyle. They served as entry points for foreign products, and shaped new
local fashions and trends resonating with the wider international context. To some
Japanese commentators of the era, the cafes ranked in signicance with the establishment of the Diet (Tipton, 2000: 119).
The rst decades of the 20th century further strengthened the association between
coee and modernity. The already established link between modernity and material
culture along with the consensus that the West was the source of this modernity
(Silverberg, 2006: 15) set the ground for the coee shops appeal. In the 1920s and
1930s, the coee shops represented an increasingly visible segment of urban life, and
oered an accessible space accommodating various public expressions of modernity.
Women occupied an important place in this setting, both as clients and as service represents one of the controversial
givers. The gure of a cafe waitress (jokyu)
images of the era. It is not accidental that the plot of Naomi, mentioned earlier,
contrives at a Tokyo cafe, where the protagonist falls under the spell of a young
waitress who, for him, embodies the physical representation of everything western.
The role of jokyu provided to lower-class women not only a new occupation, but
also relative personal freedom. The jokyu were the working class personication of


the Modern Girl (Modan
Garu, or Moga),
which can be seen as a key ideological construct in Japans modern transformation (Silverberg, 2006).

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The cafe clientele represented the middle-class embodiment of this modernity.



The coee shops provided one of the few public settings for Moga
and Mobo,
modern girls and boys, to meet and mingle socially. The presence of female
patrons in what had previously been almost an exclusively masculine space was
another indication of modernity. During the late 1920s, the waitress service was
eroticized, and a certain type of cafes came to resemble a cabaret more than a
classic coee shop. The cafes association with westernization and the growing
popularity of the jokyu served as a justication for increasing restrictions in the
late 1930s (Tipton, 2002). Silverberg describes how as late as in 1939, the persisting attraction to the cafe was criticized as a demoralizing aspect of modernity
(Silverberg, 2006: 35).
The imports of coee stopped in 1938; during the war, few coee shops were
able to oer their clients something besides a coee surrogate made of substitute
ingredients (White, 2012: 64). The post-war era saw a proliferation of coee shops.
Japanese society as a whole has undergone numerous social, political, and economical transformations, in which the US served as a frame of reference. Leheny
(2003), in his study on leisure policies in post-war Japan, describes how the
Japanese government used American and European models to build what was
later formulated by the Prime Minister Kiichi as lifestyle superpower. From the
1940s onwards, the West provided appropriate reference points for determining
how the Japanese lifestyle should look like (Leheny, 2003: 44). One manifestation
of the American cultural inuence was jazz, which was introduced in the pre-war
era, but did not gain widespread popularity until the 1950s. This trend facilitated a
propagation of the so-called jazz-cafe, which became highly popular among the
young generation. Jazu kissa provided the means of coming in contact with the
world by oering jazz on vinyl, which otherwise was nearly impossible to acquire
(Derschmidt, 1998).
The coee shops of the 1960s and 1970s served as hubs for the progressive youth
of the era; they hosted expressions of trends such as artistic avant-guard, protests
against the US-Japan Security Treaty, and feminism. The cafes kept on changing in
response to the changing urban life, oering their patrons spaces as diverse as their
clientele. The 1980s witnessed a coee shop boom, as coee shops competed among
themselves, oering their patrons not only dierent styles of coee, but also various gimmicks, styles of atmosphere and decor. Some retreated to erotic services,
such as the no-pants cafes (no-pantsu kissa), where waitresses served the customers orders walking on a mirrored oor with no underwear beneath their
skirts (White, 2012: 65). The conventional Japanese-style coee shops constituted
the majority, however; their number reached 160,000 in the early 1980s.7 In the
1990s, as speed and convenience became a crucial factor, the coee scene was
signicantly aected by the emergence of the new players coee shop chains.
The rst chain, Doutor, was founded in 1980 by a Japanese entrepreneur inspired
by Brazilian coee culture; the second was the American Starbucks. The chains
introduced a new coee-drinking format and created a new market niche, encouraging other coee chains, both foreign and local, to enter the market. As a result, the

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number of independent coee shops decreased; the number of the chains has been
on a slow but steady rise.8
In the course of the decades, the local coee culture has evolved and departed
from the original format oered by the West, developing its own interpretations of
the coee experience (White, 2012). In contemporary Japan, coee is a quintessence of the routine nothing like the exotic western fad of the turn of the 19th
century. Coee shops became an integral part of the urban landscape; they represent a symbol of an ordinary, normal life. Nevertheless, exploiting the association
of coee with foreign culture still helps to enhance its commercial appeal. This is
especially evident in the sphere of advertising and promotion. Recruiting western
celebrities in the branding of coee-related products has been a customary practice
in the Japanese coee industry. One of Japans most prominent canned coee
brands, Boss Coee, released in the 1990s by Suntory, carries a recognizable
logo featuring Tom Selleck smoking a pipe. In 2006, the company hired another
American actor, Tommy Lee Jones, to be its spokesman. He has appeared in a
series of highly popular TV commercials as Alien Jones (a name underlining the
heros non-Japaneseness more than his extra-terrestrial origin),9 who was sent to
Japan from another planet to study human society. Another canned coee brand,
Roots, has had Ewan Macgregor and Brad Pitt as its spokespersons.10
There is a vast use of foreign terms and slogans in the coee business, written
either in Roman letters or in katakana, a writing system assigned for borrowed
words. While there is a hieroglyph compound (kanji, a writing system used mostly
for native words), for the word coee, the use of its katakana version is predominating. For coee-related vocabulary (words such as roast, blend, drip,
shot, aroma, as well as the more specialized terminology referring to types of
roasts, blends, and coee equipment), foreign terms are commonly used. The
names of the local cafes also exemplify this tendency: while many of them carry
Japanese names, western (or western-sounding) names predominate. In Leaf, a
monthly magazine dedicated to Kyoto dining and cafes, more than two-thirds of
the listed coee shop names are in European languages, mostly English, less frequently French, and sometimes, as in the case of bakeries and family restaurant
chains (famiresu), not always intelligible in any foreign language, but nevertheless
projecting a western or international image (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2001: 75).11
Here, I tend to disagree with Merry White, who, in her recently published book
on coee life in Japan, claims that coee and coee shops have become entirely
naturalized, having lost any western cultural odor they might have had (White,
2012: 4). White presents an insightful picture of the Japanese cafes as public spaces
fullling important social roles. To her, the acquired normality of the cafe and its
ability to cater to the local needs contradicts its early association with foreign
culture. I maintain that the two represent mutually complementing elements in
the process of the commodication of the cafes. It is my belief that the cultural
baggage of coee as a foreign commodity determines its foreign odor, which
constitutes a source of appeal rather than a cultural discordance. This very odor
creates the setting for what White likens to shakkei, borrowed landscape a

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traditional gardening technique, which employs visual incorporation of the outside

elements into the scenery to create an illusion that the garden extends beyond its
physical borders. White extrapolates the term on a certain type of cafes, which have
a scene of interest that creates a feeling of place, such as an outer garden peeked
on through the window, a display of old photographs or an art gallery (White,
2012: 164, 170). In my opinion, however, the metaphor applies to the Japanese
coee scene by denoting the incorporation of foreign cultural elements into the
local coee experience. The association with foreign culture creates a kind of borrowed landscape by bringing in imageries from other cultural contexts, just as
distant mountains and hills lend their appeal to the inner premises of the garden.
The nature of local consumption, in which the interplay between the native and the
foreign has been occupying a central place for decades, has made the foreign odor
no less normal and geared to the local needs, than the Japanese.
The following section seeks to substantiate these points by looking at global
coee chains in contemporary Japan. Similarly to the independent coee shops
depicted by White, the chains represent meaningful sites of everyday life, which
have acquired relevance for the local consumer. Allow me to validate this claim
with two short media references. In mid-March 2011, a few days after the tragic
events of that year,12 an extract from an internet blog was posted on the BBC
website. It belonged to an American residing in Japan; the author described the
sense of confusion which took hold of her at the sight of the changes inicted by the
disaster. One of the signs signaling a state of emergency was a closure of a
Starbucks store at the local train station.13 Several months later, in summer
2011, an opening of a Starbucks in Fukushima city was reported by several news
agencies. Even a nuclear crisis cant keep Fukushima residents away from their
double lattes, stated a caption of a photograph by a Japanese blogger Hiroko
Tabuchi, depicting a long lineup at the new store. An article in a Canadian news
service commented optimistically on this news: Lets hope the next meltdown
involves a Frappucino left on the counter too long and not the local power
plant.14 Consumption sites like the Starbucks chain therefore fulll an important
social function in a sense that they serve as markers of ordinariness and stability.
The opening of a store in Fukushima, a city which since March 2011 has been
associated with national emergency and nuclear crisis, was a sign that the everyday
life was slowly moving towards normality. Chains oer a standardized experience
based on the format conceived outside of Japan, but nevertheless succeed to
acquire relevance for the local consumer, both socially and culturally
(Grinshpun, 2012).

Coffee chains and the marketing of coffee experience in Japan

Today, it is nearly impossible to discuss the Japanese coee scene while ignoring
the niche that global chains occupy. The chains did not introduce coee to Japan;
neither did they pioneer the modern coee shop culture. Moreover, they arrived
after the rst local coee shop chain, Doutor, was established. However, they

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managed to implement new tastes and create a new niche in the coee shop industry, constantly generating a new consumer demand. The concept introduced by the
chains diered from that of the local establishments: instead of the highly diverse
spaces of the local cafes (kissaten) and Doutors quick grab-and-go format catering
mostly to salarymen (sarariman), they oered a more accessible, predictable, and
anonymous public space catering to new segments of the urban clientele, such as
single working women and young adults. Another signicant innovation oered by
the chains was the espresso, which, until the late 1990s, was rather unfamiliar to the
average Japanese coee-drinker.
Starbucks pioneered this trend, opening its rst Ginza store in 1996; it was
followed by the second biggest chain, Tullys, in 1997 also in Ginza, an area
historically associated with foreign culture and modernization. Today, Starbucks
operates close to one thousand outlets nationwide, Tullys close to 400, and Seattle
Best (a Starbucks subsidiary since 2003) has more than 40 outlets.15 Since its
arrival, Starbucks has been the leading force in the Japanese coee chain
market. Japan was the chains rst destination outside of North America and is
one of the few world locations where its popularity never showed a sign of fading.
Even the recent downturn did not undermine the Japanese consumers appetite for
Lattes and Frappuccinos.16 New stores continue to open nationwide, inltrating
not only urban centers but recently also rural areas.
The research I conducted between the years 2006 and 2009 on the Starbucks
coee chain in Japan aimed to clarify and interpret the range of meanings attached
to coee as a cultural experience. The data was collected through (1) the textual
analysis of printed materials and advertisements issued by Starbucks Japan, (2) instore observations and interviews with customers and the stu, conducted at ve
outlets in Kyoto and Osaka, and (3) a thorough Japanese media survey. The analysis focused on three dimensions: the product (the coee experience), the agent
(the companys branding strategy and its implementation), and the way it is perceived by the local consumers. It is appropriate to mention that only Starbucks
customers and employees were approached for this study; I did not survey people
who did not go to Starbucks. Investigating the general Japanese publics attitudes
and perceptions of the Starbucks brand constitutes a separate topic which is not
dealt with in the present essay.
The research determined that the major reason for Starbucks success was that it
had constructed a consumption space charged with relevant social and cultural
meanings. Culturally, this space oers the consumer the experience of a coee
theme park; socially, it provides a novel type of public space allowing for anonymity, a sense of communal belonging and individual control. Here, I focus on the
cultural segment of this formula, and attempt to point at the mechanisms of cultural incorporation of coee as a cultural commodity in Japan.
I do not look at the Starbucks phenomena, that is, the success formula of this
highly ubiquitous chain, which has become a subject of scrutiny and replication by
other business enterprises. Neither do I treat the company as a agship of globalization (see Klein, 2000; Ritzer, 2004), a hegemonic brandscape (Thompson and

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Arsel, 2004), or a lens to comprehend American tastes and lifestyles (Simon, 2009).
I will not dwell here on the dierences between Starbucks and other global coee
chains, or on the dierences between Starbucks in Japan and elsewhere (for further
reading, see Grinshpun, 2012). I treat Starbucks as an archetype of a global chain,
with the principles of its marketing strategy applying to other global agents operating in Japan. It is important to note in this context, that many of the marketing
elements described below are by no means unique to Starbucks or to coee; they
are used by various agents of Japanese consumption, and point at the way culture
acquires its marketing value.
In his book The Inland Sea (2002), Donald Richie deemed early Japanese cafe
to a window onto the world, which introduced not only the beverage but also new
social and cultural forms (quoted in White, 2012: 5). Coee chains make use of this
metaphorical window by oering their customers a product wrapped in an appealing envelope of a cultural experience. The concept of wrapping or packaging has
been widely discussed in the context of Japanese cultural production (see Clammer,
1997; Goldstein-Gidoni, 1997; Hendry, 1995). Seen not only as a physical act, but
as a cultural metaphor, it is invested with a range of meanings concerning intercultural communication and interpretation, suggesting that the wrap plays a role
no less important than the content in signaling prestige, taste, and value. The
notion of packaging points to a curious parallel between chains and theme
parks, with TDL as their epitome. Theme parks build cultural representation by
wrapping other cultures and turning them into a consumed commodity (Hendry,
2000:12). Starbucks exoticizes other cultural contexts by packaging them as a
setting for the coee experience. I will discuss here two key techniques employed
for this purpose: the creation of textual and visual references to foreign traditions,
and the use of language.
The textual analysis of a number of leaets, yers and brochures, issued by
Starbucks Japan, demonstrates that most of the Starbucks products, from the
coee bean to the music playing at its stores, are promoted against the backdrop
of foreign traditions. Western holidays (mainly Christmas, Valentines Day, and
Halloween) and customs related to them provide a setting for this cultural placement. A customer is led to believe that having a Gingerbread Latte, a pumpkin
scone or a lone sandwich can bring her or him the avor of a tradition characterizing another, non-Japanese, cultural landscape.
As early as November, Starbucks switches its paraphernalia (cups, barista outts and product packages) to Christmas colors; seasonal products are introduced as
the harbingers of the Holiday. As an editorial of The Starbucks Press free paper
urges, by introducing special Holiday items (beverages and sweets) Starbucks
brings the Japanese customer the magic of the Holiday.17 These items are described
as bringing to Japan the classic avor of western Christmas. The article also
features an explanation on the special nature of the Holiday, described as a
secret hidden in the land of birth of Starbucks, America. The column gives a
vivid description of the Holiday time in America, with an emphasis on its emotional and family-oriented character. Following this theme, the second part of the

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newspaper features, under the title Virtual Trip to the World, an article on
Finland, introduced as the land where Santa lives. The article is written as a
travel narrative of a Japanese girl visiting Helsinki during Christmas. A Finnish
friend gives her a tour of the country and reveals to her the ways the locals celebrate the Holiday. The article depicts the peculiarities of the Finnish lifestyle as
seen through Japanese eyes.
This practice is not unique to the coee chain; other consumption sites make use
of Christmas to infuse their product with cultural connotations. Shopping malls are
decorated with garlands and Christmas trees, supermarket cashiers put on Santa
hats, ower shops take out pots with Poinsettia owers. The meanings ascribed to
Christmas in Japan, however, have undergone several visible modications since it
was adopted in the post-occupation years. The Japanese Christmas was never a
religious holiday. Instead, it evolved as a secular ritual associated with the
American lifestyle in the 1960s (Plath, 1963), with children in the 1980s
(Creighton, 1991: 685), and with romance in the 2000s. Throughout the decades,
the most visible attribute of Christmas has been a decorated Christmas cake

(Kurisumasu keki),
which by default refers to a sponge cake with whipped cream
and strawberry, and is customarily oered for sale annually by department stores
and western-style pastry shops throughout Japan.
Browsing through the chains printed materials, one nds multiple examples of
how seasonal oers are turned into a cultural experience. A leaet titled Great Food
for Great Coee is dedicated to lone, a type of bread roll introduced to the
Japanese market recently.18 Filone is said to be especially suitable for female customers, since its relatively small size ts perfectly a womans mouth. It is also
described as a traditional Italian product, manufactured in a traditional way and
brought to the Japanese consumer from the United States:
Born in Italy, like the espresso, lone in Italian means small river. With its shape like
that of a river, lone is popular both in Italy and America. . . . Brought by the Italian
immigrants to New York, lone has become a favorite throughout the United States.
Although you wont see it in Japan, today lone is widely popular in Europe and in
North America.

Promotion of chocolate timed with Valentines Day is accompanied by a

detailed account of the holidays romantic connotations the way they evolved in
the West and therefore dier from the Japanese format.19 Reviews of Latin
American coee industry abounds stories and illustrations characterized by the
ambiguous ambiance which Klein referred to as a Third World aura (Klein,
2000: 112), implying a commercial exoticization of remote lands associated with
less advanced cultures.
Through such depictions, foreign traditions are romanticized and made into a
perfect wrapping material. The textual references acquire a visual form in the
decor of the outlets. Photographs and posters feature landscapes or still life compositions reminiscent of the coee-growing countries of the Third World, notably

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Latin America and Africa. Most landscapes depict rural areas, and reinforce the
vague aura of the Third World. A few photographs feature rather unidentiable
urban scenes. None of the pictures carry explanatory notes as to the exact location
depicted; the only comprehensible thing is that none of the locations is Japan. All
of the above are in European languages, mostly English, although French and
Italian are also present. The various iconographies encompassing references to
Western traditions, vague urbanity, and the Third World imagery have a
common denominator of otherness juxtaposed to Japaneseness.
The posters typically feature abstract patterns with sentences and words disconnected from their context, calendar dates, names of world cities, and airport ight
displays. Some are designed as old-style maps, evoking the romance of the early sea
travel. The viewer is referred not only to an Other place, but also backwards in
time. In the coee context, this commercialized nostalgia is exploited rather often,
supposedly sending the consumer back to the good old days prior to the era of
mass production (Roseberry, 1996: 764). In the decor of the Starbucks outlets, this
backward-looking gesture is visualized via numerous retro motifs. Photographs on
the walls feature for the most part sepia and black and white colors. Despite the
fact that coee-related procedures require high-level technological equipment and
today are fairly mechanized, the photographs depict the old, traditional ways,
involving natural materials and manual labor. The pictures of bare hands stroking
the beans, burlap coee bags, and old but tasteful equipment create a nostalgic air
of the rustic past, when the humanity was still connected to the fruits of its labor
(Grinshpun, 2012: 182).
The commodication of the past is one of the most powerful tools in the marketing of culture. Moeran describes how in Japanese advertising an imagery of a
Japanese past is established in order to evoke nostalgia for a world that no longer
exists (Moeran, 1995). Creighton discusses, in the context of nostalgia for communal belongingness, how communities of memory are replaced by communities of
imagination (Creighton, 1998: 141). The visual lexicon used by Starbucks also
substitutes memory with imagination by referring its Japanese customers to a
past that has no connection with Japan.
The exoticization of the Other is manifested not only via visual representations,
but also through the choice of language. Especially interesting in this sense are
Starbucks Japans printed materials, briey discussed earlier. Although all of them
are issued in Japanese for Japanese readers, there is an extensive use of foreign
words, written either in English or in the katakana alphabet. In a More About
Coee leaet,20 a sector dedicated to espresso (titled in English Art of
Espresso) features almost exclusively katakana words. A color diagram demonstrates how ve dierent espresso-based beverages are prepared: Cae Americano,
 a;
 Caramel Macchiato is prefor example, consists of esupuresso and hotto wot


pared with karameru sosu,
fomu
miruku, suchimu miruku, esupuresso and

banira shiroppu.21 In a section dedicated to food pairing (fudo
pearingu), the
reader is advised to ask for add shot (adoshotto) in order to fully enjoy the

Starbucks experience (Sutabakkusu
ekusuperiensu). Often, foreign terms are used

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 a
for words which have an exact equivalent in Japanese language, e.g. hotto wot

 u
instead of oyu (hot water), or fomu
instead of awa (foam), miruku instead of gyuny
(milk). This way, three linguistic modes are employed in a single text, creating a
rich lexicon that expands the range of cultural associations to include not only the
products material characteristics but also its symbolic properties as a foreign commodity. This selective use of language has been part and parcel of Japanese consumption, helping to demarcate the foreign and the native and tting perfectly into
the scheme of code-switching.
Espresso occupies a major place on Starbucks cultural menu. It is regarded as
the trademark of the European coee culture which Starbucks has been aspiring to
disseminate (Schultz, 1997). In Japan, espresso remains largely limited to chain
coee shop and trendy espresso bars in big cities; for many, it is still considered
an attribute of the foreign coee culture. The encounter with the art of espresso
and its incorporation into ones coee-drinking routine was presented by my interviewees as a step toward developing a sophisticated taste in coee. Various
espresso-based drinks served by Starbucks carry elaborate Anglo-Italian names
concocted by the company; basic familiarity is required in order to select the
type and size of the desired beverage.22 As reported by several respondents, the
ordering procedure can be rather complicated for someone who is not familiar with
the terminology, or has little experience with foreign languages. It is not uncommon to see a customer belonging to the older generation being assisted by a
younger companion or an employee in comprehending the menu and formulating
the order. For both customers and employees, mastery of the coee-related lingo
and its implementation not only guarantee a smooth performance at the Starbucks
store, but also translate into cultural capital.
Another language-related phenomenon, albeit one not initiated by the chain, is
the foreign (for the most part, English) language lessons held at the chain cafes.
The lessons are conducted by foreigners working as private tutors; some of them
spend many hours in the store, tutoring one student after another. One of my
foreign interviewees reported that the English language school by which he was
employed was notied by Starbucks that the teachers were requested to place an
order every hour they spend in the store; it seems, however, that the request was
never enforced in any manner. Despite the fact that there is no ocial acknowledgment of this activity by Starbucks, there is an unocial consent on the part of
the sta to accommodate the lessons. The language lessons have become so commonplace that both customers and sta view them as an integral part of the landscape. My barista interviewees stated that these lessons contribute to the special
 u)
 between cusStarbucks atmosphere by allowing for cultural exchange (kory
tomers. In this way, the language lessons are perceived as a form of cultural activity, helping to shape the cultural aspect of the coee experience and constituting yet
another element in the borrowed landscape.
The unocial incorporation of foreigners as agents of the abstract West
(Goldstein-Gidoni, 2001: 84) into the Starbucks landscape is reminiscent of the
role of the foreign sta in TDL, whose role as real-live Americans (Raz, 2000: 94)

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is to reinforce the authenticity of the site as not Japan. In this regard, the
Starbucks coee chain can be seen as a variation of a theme park. While TDL
builds a cultural representation by packaging Americana in a format suitable to
the Japanese idea of it, Starbucks packages the world of coee as a foreign commodity. This parallel leads me to the nal point of this discussion the role that
Japan plays in this cultural collage.

Incorporating Japan: Switching the code

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Starbucks in Japan, a special
Anniversary Magazine was issued in 2007. The emblem of this special edition

read Japanese Sutabakkusu,
and combined katakana alphabet for the word
Starbucks with the English letters for the word Japanese, both written against
the graphical image of Mount Fuji and a red circle suggestive of the national ag.
Interestingly, the word Japan (Nippon), usually written in kanji, a hieroglyph
system used for native words, appeared throughout the magazine in katakana,
an alphabet used for borrowed words. An opening photograph of Tokyo
Shibuya district with the green Starbucks sign on one of the buildings read:
Without Starbucks, its not Shibuya. An article titled The Development of
Japanese Merchandise: Born between the Global and the Local described the attitude of the developers to the Starbucks merchandise as combining the global set of
values with local cultural roots. One of the most representative examples of this
approach, according to the article, is the Starbucks tumblers (portable thermal
mugs) designed locally and featuring images of famous Japanese sites as well as
traditional seasonal themes.23 The tumblers have become highly popular items of
Starbucks merchandise, indicative of consumers brand loyalties, tastes, and traveling trajectories. Interestingly, their practical application has been altered while
the concept of a tumbler assumes their use for take-out beverage orders, in Japan
they are used mostly inside the stores.24
In promoting its product, Starbucks often resorts to incorporating local cultural
codes. Seasonal themes are made use of in order to introduce new or re-introduce
existing products, which is a practice widely exploited in the local retail sector.
Seasonality has long been part of the Japanese construction of tradition,
frequently employed in consumption as a marker of Japaneseness. Moeran
points at the entire lexicon of marketing images that posit a quiet, slightly unreal
dreamworld of traditional Japan (Moeran, 1995: 120); most of them, such as cherry
blossoms, red maple leaves, carp banners, and bamboo, signify seasonal changes
and festivals, which are at the core of the Japanese narrative on identity.
 o
I saw another manifestation of this approach in Kyoto in the shape of a nory
yuka, veranda over water, constructed during the summer by restaurants serving
local cuisine. Yuka is considered one of the attractions typical of old Kyoto downtown, allowing patrons to enjoy dining above the stream. In 2006, a centrally
located Starbucks outlet adopted this pattern and began oering its own summer
yuka. In a leaet explaining this novelty, yuka was described as a unique Kyoto

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tradition, oered now by Starbucks as a completely new coee experience that

combines the rich culture of coee with the traditions of Kyoto.
Another example can be seen in the recent opening of a new Starbucks store in
Dazaifu, in close proximity to one of the most sacred Shinto shrines in Japan. The
store was designed by a famous Japanese architect to resemble shrine architecture,
and to be contextually rooted in the site, as if almost nested within it.25 The
opening was covered by numerous Japanese and international news services,
describing the new store as both ornate and minimal, traditional and modern,
continuing the architects exploration in the crafts and carpentry heritage of his
native land a kind of enchanting cultural rhyme revolving around the binary
opposition of old and new, native and foreign, Japanese and western.26 All these
communicate the idea that Starbucks has gone a long way to t itself into the local
scene. The incorporation of local cultural codes by global brands is often regarded
as glocalization, aimed at adapting the global products to the locality and leading
to its eventual hybridization. According to Pieterse (2009), the cultural form of
hybridization leads to the development of melange cultures that span multiple
locations and identities. This notion of melange culture ts the popular image of
hybrid Japan, where East meets West, and where foreign inuences are processed
and incorporated in a harmonious manner characteristic of the Japanese cultural
production. This harmonious hybridity (Goldstein-Gidoni, 2001: 70) often characterizes both the image of Japan held by western observers, and the Japanese
self-presentation (see, for example, Iwabuchi, 2000). The view of melange as an
attribute of hybridity, however, disregards the complexity of the dialog between
dierentiated cultural codes involved in the process of global cultural production.
In case of global actors, the actual adaptation of the product often occurs
behind the scene especially when the foreign origin of the product is inherent
in its brand image, as in the case of TDL or coee. Food items oered by Starbucks
in Japan represent a curious example of how the product is modied while being
made to look authentic. According to Barbara Le Marrec, Chief Retail Ocer at
Starbucks Japan, the products sold in the Starbucks stores represent the Japanese
idea of an American food experience, with the same form factor, but with dierent
ingredients (Grinshpun, 2012: 184).
As was mentioned, I see many commonalities between Starbucks (and other
global coee chains) and TDL in the way their products are culturally branded
in Japan. Both sell the authentic Other, albeit tuned to Japanese consumer preferences; both promote cultural nostalgia disconnected from the local past; both
romanticize the world while oering it on sale; and nally, both incorporate the
element of self-exoticization. The seasonal oering of Japanese New Years

(Oshogatsu)
cuisine at the TDL World Bazaar (Raz, 2000: 94) seems to fulll the
same role as yuka in Kyoto Starbucks, referring the customer to his/her own culture as part of what can be called self-Orientalism.
The exploitation of the local odor does not necessarily imply creation of a
hybrid cultural substance. Rather, it appends another layer to the commercial
appeal of the commodity, and contributes yet another element to the process of

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code-switching. The use of traditional cultural icons as authentic markers of the

unique locality suggests that along with the exoticization of the foreign, the domestic itself is being de-familiarized in order to enhance the consumer appeal. A sense
of estrangement, essential for the commodication of culture, plays a central role
here. Wilk describes how the return to local foods among the Belizeans was accompanied by a sense of emotional distance (Wilk, 1999: 247). Creighton (1998) mentions the estrangement underlying the nostalgic yearning for furusato, ones home
village, which since the 1970s has been the core of various campaigns aiming to
foster domestic travel, but which can also be seen as part of a wider discourse on
national identity and self-exoticization (Robertson, 1988).
The politics of cultural marketing incorporates various cultural vocabularies as
integral components of local consumption. By vocabulary, I refer to a set of
images and representations which comprise the repertoire of a cultural code, in a
similar way to words that comprise the repertoire of a language. These cultural
vocabularies are case sensitive, dynamic, and contextual, as suggested by the principle of code-switching. Moreover, the cultural entities behind the codes are often
imagineered; nevertheless, their symbolic separation is clearly demarcated. White
mentions that coee, assimilated as it is, cannot be accompanied by Japanese food.
Japanese cafes therefore rarely serve Japanese dishes; although local tastes and
techniques are incorporated into various cafe foods, their foreignness is nevertheless clearly marked for example, by referring to rice as raisu, to distinguish it
from the same rice (gohan) served at local eateries (White, 2012: 123). The separation between the two cultural codes underlies the notion of cultural melange,
whereby the apparent mixture in fact follows a strict logic of contextuality
(Goldstein-Gidoni, 2001a). The use of language, whether by the choice of borrowed words where the native vocabulary is available, or by the inversion of
roles, whereby Japanese words are written in a manner suggestive of their alien
nature, provides a linguistic validation of this contextuality.

Conclusion: The coffee question and the movement of culture

In the study of coee as a cultural commodity, one important question often arises,
which can be articulated as follows: Is it really about coee? A recent book by
Bryant Simon on the Starbucks chain in the United States is titled Everything but
the coee (Simon, 2009; italics mine) and suggests that it i.e. the consumer
experience oered by the chain is not. I maintain that while the beverage itself
might be of a secondary signicance, its cultural background and the associations it
generates are of primary importance.
When the experience oered by Starbucks in Japan is examined, it becomes
evident that what Starbucks promotes is not merely the coee, but a cultural
vocabulary associated with it. Given the considerable niche that foreign products
occupy in the Japanese consumption scene, as well as their interaction with the
local constructs of Japan, the ability to pass from one cultural mode to another
translates into cultural capital. Despite the familiarity with multiple foreign icons

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and images characterizing contemporary Japanese consumers, the boundaries

between the two cultural entities of the foreign and the Japanese are usually
maintained and cultivated.
Similarly to Christmas or western cuisine, coee and cafes in Japan fall into the
category of imported trends that owe their aura to the fact of their foreign origin.
Christmas has long since become a commonplace; while modied to t the local
needs, it has never been stripped of its foreign cultural odor. Bread, which today
constitutes an integral part of the Japanese diet, is still associated with foreign food
culture, as manifested by bakeries foreign-sounding names, representative more of
the abstract West than of any particular bread-related tradition. The manner in
which the Starbucks items are marketed as authentic products associated with other
cultures illustrates this trend. Filone bread roll is introduced in the context of Italian
baking tradition; the Christmas items are referred to as bringing the genuine taste of
Americana. The other cultures themselves are exoticized by being packaged as
evoking the magic of remote lands. Creating this theme park-like environment
around coee was made possible largely due to its baggage, i.e. the particular
circumstances of its incorporation as a cultural commodity.
The factors shaping the marketing of coee in Japan can be exemplied by the
anecdotal gure of Alien Jones from the Boss Coee commercial mentioned in the
beginning of this essay. The coee, although produced and sold by a local brand,
nevertheless invites an association with the outside the same window onto the
world of which Richie wrote. Japan gazes at the world, while the world gazes at
Japan, with the mutual gaze working to reassert each others otherness. The
demarcation of clear boundaries between things Japanese and things foreign
not only rearms cultural identity, but also ensures the lasting appeal of the two
allegedly authentic entities, and illustrates how both the Self and the Other are
utilized in the construction of a consumer experience. In this process, new meanings
are ascribed and new uses are attached to the consumed product, pointing at the
active role the local agency plays in the appropriation of foreign commodities.
Having developed a model of a global chain, and reinvented an everyday commodity as a source of long-term consumer appeal, Starbucks provides a lens for
comprehending how the interplay between foreign and local modes forges a new
vocabulary of cultural branding. It is important to note that the described marketing techniques do not point at the uniqueness of the Starbucks brand or at the
exclusive nature of coee; rather, they provide a case for comprehending trends
occurring in Japanese consumption. By examining the global brew in the local
context, this study sheds light on the dynamic between foreign and native cultural
imageries, rather than on the power relations between the agents of globalization
and local markets. The global and local emerge not as a dichotomy but rather as
dynamic imagineered constructs, relations between which switch in accordance
with the context.
I would like to nish this exploration with the mall and temple metaphor which
opened it. The ocial concept of the Kyoto Rokkaku Starbucks store, as stated on
the ocial Starbucks Japan website, manifests the aspiration to bring Japan and

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the West together, resonating with the early Japanese coee shops cultural function. In this setting, which represents a vivid example of shakkei, a borrowed
landscape, Japan and the West comprise a pastiche in which each one is assigned
its own role. Codes switch, cultures move, creating a dynamic multifaceted cultural
reality where a dialog on culture is carried out through consumption.
Notes
1. Tanuki is a mythological creature symbolizing prosperity and good fortune; its statues
are often placed at the entrances to bars, restaurants and private homes.
2. The term is borrowed from linguistics where it refers to shifting between two or more
languages in the context of a single conversation.
3. Lifestyle superpower was a term used by Prime Minister Kiichi in 1991.
4. Furusato literally translates as ones old home village; it is often used to invoke a sense
of nostalgia with Japans rural past.
5. As of year 2004, 147 tons of roasted coffee and 105 tons of instant coffee were consumed, as compared with 128 tons of green tea.
6. The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan
was signed in 1960 and triggered a wide-scale opposition movement.
7. According to the data presented at the World Coffee Conference, 2001.
8. Today, coffee shop chains take up more than 5% of the coffee shop market.
9. The word foreigner (gaijin) in Japanese literally means alien, a person from outside.
10. Produced by Japan Tobacco Company.
11. Bread, despite its integration in the local lifestyle, still carries a symbolic association with
western lifestyle; famiresu, although their menus include both western and Japanese
food, are considered American-style dining.
12. In March 2011, the north-eastern part of Japan was hit by an earthquake, which caused
a disastrous tsunami and the consequent dysfunction of the Fukushima nuclear
power plant.
13. Susan Bartons online blog, March 2011.
14. From the online news portal: http://www.straight.com/article-418686/vancouver/
fukushima-gets-starbucks
15. Retrieved in March 2013 from: http://www.starbucks.co.jp/company/, http://www.
tullys.co.jp/company/franchise/index.html, http://www.seabest.co.jp/aboutus.
16. In summer 2008 Starbucks announced the closure of 600 stores in the United States; in
2009 the company announced major job cuts.
17. Issued November 2005.
18. Introduced by Starbucks in September 2008, filone has been offered exclusively for the
Japanese market.
19. In Japan, Valentines Day has long been a highly recognizable consumption icon, but its
local interpretation represents a curious cultural translation whereby only women give
presents to men.
20. Issued February 2008.
21. Hot water, caramel sauce, milk foam, steamed milk, vanilla syrup.
22. The scale introduced by Starbucks consists of short, tall, grande and venti sizes.
23. Most of the Starbucks product development is done in Seattle, but there are products
conceived and produced locally.

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24. One explanation for this modification points to the fact that in Japan, drinking on the
move is considered impolite.
25. From the Architizer Blog, December 2011, http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/
35497/kengo-kuma-designs-a-splendidly-calm-cafe-for-starbucks/
26. From the Architizer Blog, February 2012, http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/
39494/kengo-kumas-idiosyncratic-starbucks-store-opens/

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Author Biography
Helena Grinshpun is currently a Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research
Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Israel. In 2009 she completed her doctorate in anthropology and Japanese studies
at Kyoto University, Japan. Her PhD thesis dealt with the incorporation of global
cultural commodities in Japan. Since 2010 she has been teaching courses on
Japanese contemporary society and culture at the East Asian Department of the
Hebrew University. Her main research interests are cultural representation, structuring of public space, consumer behaviour and consumer education in Japan.

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