No sugar and no artificial sweeteners, let's introduce vinegar lemonade! #reinventingtraditions

No sugar. No artificial sweeteners. On one of Tokyo’s main streets you can suddenly find yourself standing in a designer store offering fermented soft drinks: Osuya. A fresh and sour non-alcoholic soft drink made from vinegar.

Vinegar Latte

In Japan, vinegar is sometimes advertised as a dietary aid or nutritional drinks, but Osuya’s focus is on taste. Rose hip, blueberry, apple and pomegranate flavoured vinegar are just a few of the options available. They even offer seasonal flavours like mango in summer. Aside from the soft drinks they also offer coffee, like a vinegar latte or even a vinegar beer.

Healthy Benefits

Drinking vinegar is a centuries old tradition in Japan. Samurai warriors supposedly drank apple vinegar to enhance their strength before battle. Drinking vinegar offers countless health benefits: improved digestion, heightened energy, a cure for sore muscles. It improves heart function and helps the body burn calories faster. Vinegar plays an important role in reducing the effects of diabetes and according to the Japanese it also slows aging.

Vinegar based drinks

According to Judy Tan, co-founder or Genki-Su, a company from Portland, Oregon specializing in vinegar based drinks, 70% of Japenese drink vinegar based drinks. In Japan, the amount of vinegar bars rivals the number of coffeebars.