Marshall Brain's Blog

In 1987 I was in the Marine Corps and stationed in Okinawa and on the lookout for a good idea I could bring back to the United States, having in earlier travels of mine seen other idea brought into the US and done well.

One thing that came up was canned coffee, the Japanese are extremely fanatical about their coffee.

Now at the time, where I was from, New York City, a pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain sold for $25.00. There in Okinawa it was selling for about $8.00.

I spent weeks trying to figure out the discrepancy, (this was pre-internets and I had a language barrier thing going on as well), until a friend explained it to me that the Japanese loved Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee so much that they....

*Bought the mountain.*

Lock, stock and barrel.