7-Eleven Japan adding fresh-brewed tea machines to 2,000 stores, but is their tea any good?

Mr. Sato sets out to taste the future of 7-Eleven drinks at one of its Tokyo branches where the machinery is ready to use right now.

There are a lot of great things you can get at 7-Eleven branches in Japan, but one of our very favorites is their coffee. And no, we’re not talking pre-made coffee in cans or bottles, but 7-Eleven’s very own private brand of coffee that’s fresh brewed by specialized self-serve machines right before it goes into your cup.

Now 7-Eleven is looking to enhance its drink selection even further by offering fresh-brewed teas, specifically Western-style black teas. Within 10 months from now the chain wants specialized tea brewing machines in roughly 2,000 of its stores, and we set out to get a taste of the future today by tracking down a branch that already has its machine up and running.

Right now there are only about 90 7-Elevens in Japan with fresh-brewed tea, primarily in either the Tokyo area or Hokkaido Prefecture. As luck would have it, one of those stores is the Shinjuku Rokuchome Bunka Center-dori branch, which is within walking distance from SoraNews24, so we dispatched our ace reporter Mr. Sato to check it out (in downtown Tokyo the tea machines are also already installed at 7-Eleven’s Shibaura Yonchome and Akasaka Hacchome branches).

Even if Mr. Sato hadn’t known ahead of time that this 7-Eleven had fresh-brewed tea, he would have been able to figure that out even before he saw the in-store signage. That’s because as soon as he walked through the door he could smell the elegant fragrance of tea emanating from the machinery.

Just like with 7-Eleven’s fresh-brewed coffee, you order and pay at the register first, then receive your cup and select your drink to be made from the machine’s touch panel. You get to choose from multiple types of tea leaves, with the straight tea options being Darjeeling, Assam, or Earl Grey. You can also have your Assam or Earl Grey as milk tea, and all of those can be ordered hot or cold.

The pricing system is a little complex, with hot straight tea being 120 yen (US$0.80) for a regular size or 180 yen for a large. The other regular/large prices are 120/210 yen for ice straight tea, 190/250 yen for hot milk tea, and 240/300 yen for ice milk tea, with no price variation for different tea leaves.

In contrast to the complex prices, though, the tea machine is incredibly simple to use. All you have to do is place your cup under the spout, tap a few on-screen buttons to tell it what kind of drink to make, and that’s it. The text is bilingual, in Japanese and English, so that even tea fans who can’t read the local language can still get their cup.

There are a few things to be careful about, though. First is that 7-Eleven has separate, dedicated machines for coffee and tea, but they look pretty similar to each other. So if you’ve ordered tea, make sure you’re using the correct machine, which will have markings such as 紅茶 (black tea) or 紅茶専用 (for black tea only).

Also, since the tea is extracted after you order, you’ll need to wait 90 seconds for it to be ready.

For his taste test, Mr. Sato opted for a large hot Assam tea with milk. As it brewed, the aroma of tea filling that part of the store intensified, which, in a bit of linguistic irony, soothed Mr. Sato’s nerves and put him in a tranquil mood. Because of the layer of milk at the top, visually you might mistake this for a caffe latte, but once again, the aroma leaves no doubt that this is a cup of tea.

And now, for the moment of truth…

…in which Mr. Sato learned that this is some truly tasty tea!

Full disclosure: Mr. Sato is usually more of a coffee guy, and he’s not a black tea expert. Still, his palate was immediately and immensely pleased with the flavor, and he’s certain that he couldn’t brew tea this well himself, and doubly sure that he doesn’t have the delicacy to add milk to hot tea without scalding it or otherwise mucking the mixture up. Being able to enjoy a masterfully made, just-brewed cup of tea with only a few screen taps is a game changer in his eyes, and as 7-Eleven expands its network of machines, he sees himself adding their teas into his drink rotation.

Store information
7-Eleven (Shinjuku Rokuchome Bunka Center-dori branch) / セブンイレブン（新宿6丁目文化センター通り店）
Address; Tokyo-to, Shinjuku-ku, 6-12-8
東京都新宿区新宿6丁目12-８
Open 24 hours

Photos ©SoraNews24
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