Green Tea in pet bottles. Only in Asia huh? This tea is made by Sapporo, however, Coca-cola also has a brand of green tea, and other teas for sale in Japan.

This is likely one of the “green-est” of the bottled green teas, if you ask me.

Ad Text in Japanese:

「極めれば、玉露」

「まろやかな旨味 、さわやかな香り」

Let’s break it down!

「極めれば、玉露」

This one is pretty tough. The verb 「極める」means to “master” or “take to the extreme”. To understand the nuance behind this, let’s look at some other verbs that use the same Kanji.

「極端」means, “extreme”, such as 「そんな発言、極端過ぎない？」meaning, “Isn’t that statement just a bit too extreme?” Individually the Kanji mean “extreme”, and “edge”.

「極低温」means, “extremely low temperatures”. The Kanji mean “extreme”, “low”, “temperature” (that’s easy).

「極楽」means, “paradise”. The Kanji mean, “extreme” and “fun”. Check the pronunciation, it’s different than the others.

「極東」means, “Far East”, as in the part of Asia that includes Japan.

Okay, you get the point of 「極」… and 「極める」means “to master”, and 「極めれば」is the 「ば」form of that verb, which makes it into the “if” form.

So, “if you master, 玉露”…

What’s 「玉露」… It’s just a high quality green tea. As far as I know, 玉露 is not only a brand, but it is a general type of high quality tea.

This sentence has the nuance of, “If you want to master (as in, really get the best of it, the best tea…), gyokuro.” As in, chose gyokuro.

「まろやかな旨味 、さわやかな香り」

「まろやかな旨味」

「まろやか」means mellow. I’ll keep that short. 「旨味」is pronounced 「うまみ」and explained simply is the noun form of “delicious”. You know how when you eat something good, you can yell, 「うまい！」, this is where it comes from.

So, direct translation, “a mellow, deliciousness”. More natural translation, “a mild flavor”.

「さわやかな香り」is more straightforward, 「さわやか」means “fresh” or “refreshing” and 「香り」means “smell” or “aroma”.

So, there you have all the pieces, I think you can understand what this ad is saying now!

Tough stuff!

- Harvey