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[PR] We can get trend of Butter Coffee at anytime, anywhere! The challenge of FamilyMart.
Butter coffee is now going viral in Japan and becoming popular in Europe and the U.S. Its good reputation is discussed in Mr. Dave Asprey`s best-selling volume, The Bulletproof Diet: Lose up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life. FamilyMart just launched Butter Coffee as a private-label product, and it became an instant hit, so we conducted an interview with product developers.
イエノミスタイル編集部![メインビジュアル：[PR] We can get trend of Butter Coffee at anytime, anywhere! The challenge of FamilyMart.](/sites/default/files/common_mainimg/6811_00b.jpg)
“We can get ‘good’ fats” from butter coffee. And it’s delicious!
—First, what is FamilyMart’s BUTTER COFFEE?
Aoki: In some European countries and the U.S., people have started thinking about ‘good’ fats in order to be healthier. This idea is on trend. Our product started with this idea. This product contains grass-fed butter made of milk from cows raised on grass, and an MCT, Medium Chain Triglyceride oil made from medium-chain fatty acids. Customers can easily take in these good fats and oils from the product we developed. Some may think butter is rich and high in calories, but actually a bottle of this coffee contains just 157 kilocalories, Compared to some Café Latte products that have over 160 kilocalories per bottle, its calories are not especially high.
—How is the taste?
Aoki: To be honest, it’s super tasty! It tastes rich and smooth with a strong butter flavor. It is not sweet, but has enough satiety. The sense of fullness can be a way to control your appetite and to diet.
Read more Butter Coffee on the Official site
※English translation
Made based upon the developer’s own experience
Aoki: I used to work at Dole, a company famous for selling bananas, before working for FamilyMart. Dole has a coconut oil product, and a colleague there recommended me to drink it every day for my health and to also read Coconut Oil Miracle, written by Dr. Bruce Fife. The book says medium-chain fatty acids, which coconut oil highly contains, is very good for our health. I wasn’t sure if it was true at first, but I tried drinking it with coffee for a month. At the time, I worried about my neutral fat and cholesterol levels. To avoid getting worse, I went to regular health checkups twice a month before and after drinking the coffee with coconut oil. Surprisingly, after just one month, my neutral fat and uric acid levels greatly improved. It was amazing!
—Didn’t you change any other habits? Did you exercise harder or more frequently?
Aoki: No. Nothing. I ate and drank alcohol as usual. The doctor who conducted my checkup was surprised and asked me, “What did you change apart from drinking the oils? If it is true, that’s surprising.” That is how big of a change the level was. From this experience, I came to believe that good oils are healthy. After that, I got to know The Bulletproof Diet published in the United States and that butter coffees introduced in the book is now really popular among American celebrities. The volume recommends drinking coffee with these butters and oils. To make these coffees you just mix and churn the grass-fed butter from grass-fed cows and the MCT oil made from coconut oil, with coffee. I then began to pay much attention to butter coffees because the knowledge from the book fit into my own experience. Moreover, a butter coffee shop opened in Tokyo around that time. I transferred to the current Department of Processed Food and Beverages last spring. When I planned to develop FamilyMart’s private-label product, which other rival convenience store chains and major manufacturers have not, I found butter coffee. It was the total Aha moment!
Specialty ingredients and emulsification technique
Aoki: The first is the ingredients, but lowering the cost was also important in addition to the quality, because our goal was to create something consumers could drink every day. We negotiated directly with the providers of grass-fed butter in New Zealand and MCT oils from coconuts. Our coffee beans were also carefully selected and only Arabica beans are used. Although we used highly priced, quality ingredients, we were able to bring the price down to under 200 yen per cup. Another point is our special technique. We used it and achieved the development of the base ingredient, which can keep the coffee, the butter and the oils stable.
—Butter, oil and coffee are mixed well. The drink looks like coffee with milk.
Yokota: That’s the most difficult thing I worked to achieve with this development. Water and fat do not mix well naturally. We used a technique called “emulsification” to mix and stabilize them. Think about the milk we drink. It contains emulsified water and fat. To make this product, we had to mix butter, a fat from milk, and vegetable-origin MCT oils first. Then, the mixture had to be emulsified with coffee. These processes were developed in cooperation with our partner, Fuji Seiyu, an edible oil and fat manufacturer. The product’s Eat-By expiration date is ninety days, which is our minimum goal to keep fresh and stable. We made and experimented with the product by using the actual production line to check it in terms of emulsification, taste and 90-day-stabilization over and over again.
—How did you use it to twist the taste?
Yokota: A large amount of butter and MCT oil overtook the taste of the coffee many times. We made the coffee stronger to strengthen the taste, but stronger coffee is more difficult to emulsify. We also carefully selected the coffee. We picked Arabica coffee and blended the beans from Brazil, Colombia, and Guatemala. That’s the way to balance the full body in order to overtake the butter taste, while preventing burnt and ashy tastes.
Read more Butter Coffee on the Official site
※English translation
Recommended for everyone
Aoki: We are proudly providing this great Butter Coffee, which has both a strong coffee aroma and butter flavor. I finally realized this idea by scooping up an under ripe and tiny trend. My heart is now full.
Yokota: We recently had a fair for franchised stores, and I gave away samples of Butter Coffee. A young staff member there drank it and was surprised by its taste. I thanked him and asked his opinion of it, and he praised it and said, “It’s tasty. I like it because it costs just 200 yen.” I felt deeply blessed when hearing his comments.
— Comments for future customers of FamilyMart’s Butter Coffee.
Aoki: I put in a great deal of love and effort into this product. It is designed for everyone and every situation, for everyday life with hard work, for those who have difficulty sticking to a diet, and for the fashion-oriented young generation. I hope they drink it every day and enjoy perfect health. Of course, this product is for the regular coffee drinkers as well, the people who like Café Lattes, but feel they are a bit too sweet, for those people who do not like bitter black coffees or milky tastes, and for those who simply love coffee.
Yokota: This butter coffee is one of our products that I truly want to buy. It enables us to get good ingredients for our health. Drink it every day and be healthy. I`m going to.
—We the editors will also try FamilyMart’s Butter Coffee. Thank you for your wonderful comments.
[Breaking News]Editors of ienomistyle tried the product
Editor Y: Actually, I made hot butter coffee by myself before, so I was crazed for this cold one. It is tasty beyond imagination. I love it both hot and cold now. Most of all,it`s smooth and easy to drink.
Editor O:Unlike Café au Lait, which tastes flinty, and leaves you fading fast, with this product I feel full. After drinking it, I feel productive. It’s mild but energizing, so I wanted to drink it every day after the launch.
Editor N: I usually drink black coffee at a coffee shop, but compared to it, this taste is really rich. It’s not sweet, so I like to drink it sometimes while drinking black coffee as well. It has some calories, so it is also good for breakfast. That can save time, too.
Engineer K: You taste the coffee first, and then you taste the butter after that. The butter makes it slightly sweet, and there is an “umami-like” flavor too. I tried to microwave it in a coffee mug. That’s also great.
![[Breaking News]Editors of ienomistyle tried the product](/sites/default/files/styles/news_contents_img1/public/article_img1/11074-05z.jpg)
FamilyMart’s BUTTER COFFEE
-Product name: “BUTTER COFFEE”
-Launched on December 5, 2017. Family Mart private-label
-Uses grass-fed butter made in New Zealand
-Uses MCT oils distilled from coconut oil
-Blended from Brazilian, Colombian and Guatemalan coffee beans
-Brazilian coffee beans are ranked as the best quality “Grade 2”
-Carbohydrate-free, sugar-free. Mild and chilled coffee.
-240ml. 184 yen (tax included 198 yen)
-Buy at FamilyMart, CircleK, and SUNKUS
*Uses butter made in New Zealand. Cows are mainly grass-fed at a year-round pasture grazing dairy farm. Some grain may be added if there is not enough grass.
*”Carbohydrate-free” means foods containing under 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per 100 ml.
※Article information as of Dec 8, 2017
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