Japan-born coffee pod machine brews Thai expansion

UCC Ueshima Coffee aims to tap growing appetite beyond home market

20250428 coffee UCC capsule

The pod squad: UCC Ueshima Coffee's Drip Pod series offers a wide variety of flavors. (UCC Ueshima Coffee)

NOBUAKI NISHITO

TOKYO -- Japan's UCC Ueshima Coffee plans to launch its pod machine in Thailand, pushing deeper into Southeast Asia with a device that aims to recreate the taste of hand-dripped brews at the touch of a button.

UCC has shifted around 500,000 units of the Drip Pod series, which uses small capsules of ground coffee, since it launched the tech 10 years ago. But most of those sales have been in its home market, and the company has been expanding into places where it says hand-dripped coffee is mainstream such as China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Singapore. UCC aims to enter the Thai market this autumn.

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