Pocari Sweat
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| Product type | Sports drink |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. |
| Country | Japan |
| Introduced | 1980 |
| Markets | East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East |
Pocari Sweat (ポカリスエット Pokari Suetto?) is a Japanese sports drink, manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. It was launched in 1980, and is now also available in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
Pocari Sweat is a mild-tasting, relatively light, non-carbonated sweet beverage and is advertised as an "ion supply drink". It has a mild grapefruit flavor with little aftertaste. Ingredients listed are water, sugar, citric acid, trisodium citrate, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium lactate, magnesium carbonate, and flavoring. It is sold in aluminium cans, PET bottles, and as a powder for mixing with water. An artificially sweetened version with reduced sugar called Pocari Sweat Ion Water (ポカリスエット イオンウォーター Pokari Suetto Ion Wōtā?) is also sold.
The reference to sweat in the name of the beverage tends to have a certain off-putting or humorous connotation for native English speakers. However, the name was chosen by the manufacturers originally for the purpose of marketing the product as a sports drink in Japan, where English words are used differently. It was largely derived from the notion of what it is intended to supply to the drinker: all of the nutrients and electrolytes lost when sweating. The first part of the name, Pocari, does not have any meaning; the word was coined for its light, bright sound.
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