Kuhaku - Canned Coffee

Dydo Coffee -- "Fukkoku Do"

We drink coffee because of its unparalleled "taste." But, as has been proven by expert researchers, there are other reasons. For eons, man has been consuming roasted beans of various types, hoping for a high of some sort. Also, as was written about extensively in the Pulitzer Prize-winning ethnohistorical tome "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," people who are short and brutish turn to coffee to escape, if just for fifteen minutes, from their godawful lives.

After World War II, the peoples of New Guinea decided that they more than liked coffee -- they fucking loved it. In the Americas, coffee is closely associated with impromptu poetry jams, and it is not uncommon to see a man and a woman in a cafe, arm in arm, weaving unsteadily around the tables and whispering their frenzied thoughts in the deepest way possible, occasionally crafting phrases of such emotional impact that the other patrons will scream at them to "just stop it."

Thanks to science, we now know that coffee is better for one's health than water, as it has none of water's deceptive clarity, which can lead to drowning. We also know that it is a powerful truth serum: to drink coffee is to utter no lies. In a recent study, 100 well-informed individuals were asked to down a can of Dydo "Fukkoku Do" coffee and then answer a range of awkward questions, including "What is the most disgusting thought you have ever had?" and "Do you fear black men?" The answers were in many cases predictable, but others revealed a large number of the doughy-but-pleasant-looking participants to be very, very bad people. In short, we drink coffee, but we do not understand it -- how could we?

]]>

Pokka Coffee "Ice Cafe au Lait"

There's a quality to this coffee that left me panting like a golden retriever. A briskness. A tang. I hobbled over on shaggy arthritic hips to the bathroom and sat down (this happened after I finished the can). My wife had moved all the magazines, so I had to make do with catalogs. A catalog. So I read about organic aprons or something and tried to push the coffee thoughts out of my mind. This was impossible, though, because of how excellent the aftertaste was. I then, well, I chased my tail. Frustrated beyond measure, I nosed open the door with my formidable, greying snout and shot across the room. My pads are like massive black soybeans that are poorly designed for holding cans. But hold them I do, because that's my job. "We need you to review canned coffee," they told me. "OK," I said. People dismiss me because of my pink-and-black mottled gums and lumpen tail filled with coniferous debris. And yes, I occasionally stutter and have poor organizational skills. And OK yes I sometimes have wayward thoughts on commuter trains. But I've got a secret, a good one, and I know I'm headed for something wonderful. I can't give you more details, but just keep watching me and you'll see.

]]>

Ito En "Salon de Cafe -- Cinnamon Cappuccino"

It's 1:00 and Salon de Cafe is getting fidgety in his swivel chair. It's lunchtime, but more importantly, it's gym time. And Salon de Cafe is intent on being "buff." This desire to have large muscles has its roots in the time about seven years ago when, upon his arrival in the U.S. for a vacation, his mom took one look at him and said, "Oh honey, you're so thin." It's not because he is gay, because he is definitely not gay. When Salon de Cafe tells you he is as straight as they come, you better believe he's telling the truth. So anyway, today is a Monday, which means it's shoulders day. He has read somewhere that women are attracted to men with strong shoulders, which he now possesses thanks to his deep insecurities about being regarded as skinny and, by extension, unathletic. Salon de Cafe will have you know that despite his rather awkward appearance, he was a stellar athlete in his youth. But he peaked early, around twelve, and has been living off the vapors of that playground glory for, oh, about thirty years now. In the gym, he is pure focus, pounding out shoulder presses, lateral deltoid raises, shrugs and posterior deltoid raises in that exact order. Flecks of his spittle dot the mirror. Fuck, he's strong. Broad-shouldered and strong. And so straight it's not even funny.

Back in the office, his shirt is slightly snugger than it was just an hour earlier. Thin? Salon de Cafe? I don't think so, Mom.

-- David Cady

]]>

Fire "Arabiki -- Coarse Grind"

Arabiki. He's the one always standing too close with his boozy exhalations, endlessly pushing his massive glasses to the top of his considerable honker with a hooked forefinger. Arabiki looks like a grizzled praying mantis in greasy glasses. Once, he suddenly peered over his desk at me and asked if I wanted to "fiddle around or something" after work. He said it in a drunken sing-song. He trilled it. Fiddle around? He's a guy, I'm a guy, and we both have kids, so how was I to interpret that? Did he mean hit the bars and talk baseball, or was it more along the lines of wrestling each other in some hotel in our underwear and black socks? Anyway, I pretended I misheard the question and gave a neutral laugh that sounded very much like, "Ha ha." Yesterday, he winked at me. His self-defining glasses popped over the top of the divider of our pod, and I'll be damned if he didn't wink at me. But it happened so fast that I'm beginning to wonder if maybe he wasn't simply just... I don't know. It was weird.

OK, this is getting freaky, because he just passed me a note. He palmed it efficiently onto my desk as he was walking to the fax machine. He's standing over there, tending as usual to his unruly spectacles and acting as if he did not just slip me a carefully folded piece of paper with a Hello Kitty sticker on it. He must have studied origami or something, because the note is creased to look like a rocket or a banana or a... oh. As it opens, each layer has a little message scrawled in cramped, uneven letters. "Meow's it going?" "You're purr-fect." "You give me paws for thought." At the center of the unfolded sheet of paper is a short question: "Are you feeling this too?"

My ears hear the rush of an angry ocean. Nausea hits my stomach. I grab a Post-it and in a shaky hand scribble the word that is now a towering, floodlit cathedral in my mind's eye:

Yes!

-- David Cady

]]>

Blendy "Cafe La Mode -- Espresso Roast Blend"

The blend of the bean is adjusted to achieve the optimum bitterness. Written and expressed on the can, which employs the simple bonito joke, is the design which utilizes the glossy expression. The tasting, which has the clean impression, has a city image that is refined and made complete. In addition, low the fact that it is the sugar type, tastily temporary can by enjoyed. Deep and actualized, it told me to tell you that it loves you always and will not stop loving you until you email it with a message saying stop it. And even then, it will love you. And its sugar levels have been cut by 37%. You will find it pining for you in Kinuta park, across from a cluster of slurring old men clutching lukewarm Asahis at eleven in the morning. They will point at you and for a moment you will despise them. That feeling will soon pass. It loves you because the years upon years away have turned you into something magical and flawless. It wanted me to ask you if you have any kids. It, which contains an emulsifier, guesses you do. It told me to tell you goodbye.

]]>

Boss "Black"

Boss Black was born in the Shimokitazawa neighborhood of Tokyo and moved to South Dakota when he was 2. In preschool he started a gang called "The Jean Jacket Gang," all four members of which wore jean jackets. They all ate their boogers, too, even though Chris's mom told him it would give him worms. Boss Black's parents divorced when he was 8 -- a story that involves too much beer, a yearning for freedom and a dose of cuckolding. He was a good adapter, however, and shrugged off the divorce like he did with high and tight pitches in Wiffle Ball. But in junior high, oh shit. He discovered that he could make people's heads explode just by thinking about it. His first victim was a boy named Cam, who wore thick glasses that magnified his blinking blue eyes to the size of 500 yen coins. Cam's head came apart extravagantly with a dry pop in English class while giving a presentation. "And that's why too much catnip will make the Maine Coon skitt(pop!)." Mrs. Brenner, the teacher, just kept saying, "Oh, oh, oh, oh." Boss Black ran to the bathroom and took the biggest poop of his life, crying so hard that snot bubbles bloomed several times in his equine nostrils.

High school was made weird by the fact that Boss Black's superpowers were openly acknowledged and he was essentially king of the world. By the age of 17, he could now fly, become invisible, make people�s bones melt, talk with animals, turn everything he touched into diamond and read minds. Walking down the pure-diamond halls of Osceola High one Tuesday, he decided he'd had enough of school, and with a single bound flew through a third-story window and didn't come down until he was in Japan. Tokyo was much more to Boss Black's liking than Osceola, pop. 208. He loved the crowds of Shimokitazawa, which he would slip into while invisible and ride the currents down the narrow streets. A massive crow told him where to find the best curry and beer. So it came to be that Boss Black, king of the world, declared Shimokitazawa the new global capital and melted the bones of all who resisted his decree.

After finishing an extra-large serving of vegetable curry and a can of Vietnamese beer at Yumeya, his favorite restaurant, Boss Black handed the cashier a diamond the size and shape of a chopstick and disappeared into the twilight. Flying invisible about 7 feet above the street, he spotted a vending machine glowing in front of a store selling used jeans. He was just about to order the crows to peck a hole in the glass and steal some coffee for him but stopped when he spotted a can of Boss Black lined up among the offerings. "My name," he whispered. He examined the can. It bore his likeness -- that trademark pipe and moustache -- and carried the words: "Smooth and clear taste made with original & drip method." He needed that coffee, as there was obviously some fate thing going on, so he ordered the crows to descend upon the machine and liberate a can of Boss Black. Not wanting any witnesses, he made their heads explode then grabbed the can and flew to his apartment, where he drank it in one thirsty guzzle. And then, quietly and seemingly without reason, he abandoned his powers on the spot and got a job as an English teacher, no longer king of the world.

-- David Cady

]]>

Wonda -- "Shot & Shot"

What the can says: Real crisp bitterness! Flavor that won't stop!

What I say: Chemicals galore in an unappealing blue can. Flavor that will make you angry.

What the can says: 68% less sugar. A low-sugar canned coffee that's delicious can after can.

What I say: Blue can, my world was plunged into stygian darkness when you entered my life. I feel I've been hoodwinked.

Can: I feel I've been kidnapped. I was chilling in a kiosk at Shinjuku station, daydreaming, when you entered mine. And now I'm in Chitose Funabashi, expunged of all joy.

Me: Stygian, I said.

Can: All I know is that I liked Shinjuku better. The kiosk lady was missing a tooth and had terrible dermatitis, but she never insulted me. Her name was Etsuko. She would pat me, so gently, when I sobbed, which was often.

Me: And then I took you home and drank you.

Can: You didn't even wipe me off first. A few days ago, a homeless man slobbered on me. We called it "The Homeless Man Incident". And now you have his juice in your body.

Me: The thing is, Shinjuku frightens me now. It never used to, but somewhere along the way the crowds became malevolent rather than invigorating. I'm getting old, blue can. Nascent crow's-feet. Women no longer look at me.

Can: I'm a sip away from oblivion, and you tell me such things? What do you want from me? Other than acknowledge that you used the word "stygian."

Me: I want you to tell me that I'm still a star, dammit. I want you to tell me that I'm special and attractive and headed for great things.

Can: Ravaged man, I know only this: When you wake up tomorrow morning, the vending machines and convenience stores and train station kiosks will be freshly stocked with canned coffee.

Me: Goodbye, blue can. Thank you.

]]>

Pokka Coffee -- Aromax

Greg sometimes got ideas. Rogue thoughts that made him giggle fiercely into his hand on the train. Or cry. Thoughts that made him come very close to telling little old ladies buying tonkatsu that he was not at all well. He was odd to begin with, and living in Japan made him even more so. Some days, he hated the country more than he hated himself. "Who fucking plays pachinko?" he would mutter incredulously at the gibbous moon while pedaling home past the bells and neon. He subsisted primarily on convenience store food, which he stuffed into his tiny mouth without relish while lurking on blogs about Japan. Greg always appeared dismayed. That's because he was.

But Greg was a genius. Those spastic cogitations that alighted like a butterfly upon childhood taunts and cats' asses one day included a revelation involving a science known only to himself as "rotational physics." Shortly after stopping at Kokkaigijidomae station on the Chiyoda line, the image of a great, oscillating device with elongated metal arms joined the rogue's gallery in his brain. More details appeared: magnetic clamps at the end of the rotating arms, tossing up and catching, forever and at the loss of no energy, a can of coffee. Perpetual motion. A perfect blueprint that induced a fit of giggling so intense and radiating such joy that other passengers joined in after the initial horror passed.

Needing air, he got off the train at Otemachi and with trembling fingers bought a can of Aromax at the nearest vending machine. Four minutes later he was standing above the moat at the Imperial Palace, drinking the coffee and chuckling at the swans below. "Your feet are so comical," Greg said to the nearest bird. It peered up at him and said, "Come on in Greg, the water's great." And so Greg took a final swig, smacked his lips appreciatively and dove in. The can floated back up to next to a very dismayed swan, but Greg -- and the science of rotational physics -- never quite made it.

-- David Cady

]]>

Georgia "Sweets Series � White Chocolate"

I picked up this rarity at my neighborhood liquor shop while buying orange juice for my kids. It was sitting in a glass display cabinet marked "Sale!" next to the cash register and a crate of eggs that looked as if they were made of shellacked wood. Those ever-present eggs. Who buys them? Why are they a deep, glossy brown? After shelling out a mere 90 yen, I was the owner of what I was certain would be a deeply unpleasant beverage. Slated to expire in exactly 30 days, this coffee had probably aged on some dusty shelf for a good year before entering my (at times simian) life. A crack of the widemouth lid released notes of hazelnut, caramel and amaretto. Not a bad start. The coffee itself was not Elmer's Glue white, as I had feared, but rather a pleasant beige. An expert sip accompanied by a professional smacking of the (huge and rubbery) lips was in order, so that's what happened next. This sip gave rise to many random thoughts that are difficult to parse now that I'm naked and agitated and very, very drunk. The overriding theme, I suppose, of these notions was surprise � surprise at how drinkable it was, surprise at how even though it tasted like a mocha milkshake that had been sitting in the back of a hail-damaged 1983 Mazda GLC for two days, it made me coo and waddle like a chimp in diapers. So in my leathery palm I cradle this can, hopped-up on its contents and gamboling about my apartment, lips peeled back and shrieking for eggs.

-- David Cady

]]>

Wonda "Koku Latte"

While setting out by bicycle ostensibly to buy this coffee*, I discovered that not only is there a river in my neighborhood, but that this modest waterway cuts a verdant, wildflower-choked swath through the seemingly endless grey plain of buildings and concrete that is much of Tokyo. Best of all, the "mighty" Senkawa is obligingly flanked by smooth paths ideal for embarking on trips of discovery on warm spring afternoons accompanied by a 4-year-old with chicken pox and a strong-willed 2-year-old inclined to startle elderly passers-by with operatic cries of "To infinity... and beyond!"

Ten minutes upriver, tooling beneath an all-star lineup of sakura, Japanese maple and flowering dogwood trees and still marveling at my find, an impressive stand of bamboo exploded just ahead. As I pulled even with it, I could make out the gently arcing roof of a Buddhist temple through the riot of segmented trunks up the hillside to my left. Wanting to explore the temple, I pulled off the path at the first available opportunity, finding myself on a steep, narrow road that forced me to get off and push my bike and its two nattering passengers up and up until I crested the hill. Then came another blessed revelation.

The housed parted and gave way to a diminutive forest, complete with meadows and herb gardens. Hanging above a small dirt path leading into this deserted wonderland was a charming wooden sign that said "Mina no Mori (Everyone's Forest)." I unbuckled the boys and set them loose to chase butterflies across the sun-dappled glade. It couldn't have been more rustic had we been at their grandma's house on Flathead Lake. I sat down on a large log and watched the boys get a healthy dose of nature, wishing that it could be like this every day, wondering if I was making the right choice in raising them in Japan. But at least I can take solace in the happy fact that just a 20-minute bike ride from my apartment in bustling Chitose-Funabashi is a little corner of my native Montana.

*I haven't even opened the can yet. It seemed somehow wrong to drink it in the forest, and I'm just not in the mood now. I'll venture a prognostication and say that I'll bet it's really sweet but pleasantly creamy.

-- David Cady

]]>

Roots "Tanzanian Blue"

They called him "Pops" Yoshimura. This guy, well damn if he wasn't just a little bit crazy. A renegade, you might call him. Got his skinny ass kicked out of Honda way back when for being a dreamer. "There's no way those ideas'll fly!" they told him. But I'll tell you what, he went solo and those crazy ideas of his more than flew -- they soared. His innovative muffler and exhaust-pipe technology transmogrified the sport of bike racing overnight. His machines redefined fast, and his name came to mean quality the world over.

Now Pops liked his coffee as much as the next guy, but he was finicky about his brew and often turned down a free cup if he had doubts about the quality. Some called him snooty, an asshole. Truth is, he just knew what he liked, and what he liked, what he loved, was joe made from beans grown on the southeast flanks of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The world's fastest motorbike, the K "Donny Dunn" 6,000, is made with Pops' technology, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what the "K" stands for. Coffee? It fueled Pops' dreams.

To make a long story longer, the folks on the product-development team at Roots weren't stupid, and they knew that if they could find a way to bring together the unique taste of Kilimanjaro beans and the razzle-dazzle of Pops' bikes they'd have a winner. The result of their 7-year search for canned perfection is Tanzanian Blue, a sophisticated coffee made with 100% Kilimanjaro beans that comes with a free miniature racing bike of the Yoshimura persuasion. The combined effect is almost overwhelming. You drink, you look at that sleek little bike, you drink again and -- Boom! -- it's like, "Aw Pops, why'd you have to leave us so soon?" Tears? Hell yes. Regrets? Zip. This is what canned coffee was meant to be.

They called him Pops.

-- David Cady

]]>

Pokka Coffee "Driver"

Q and A with Pokka Coffee "Driver"

Q: What's your full name?

A: Pokka Coffee "Driver" Uehara

Q: Tell us a little about yourself.

A: I'm a brand new fine coffee for all drivers. Bitter, robust and refreshing.

Q: An online translation program describes you as: "Can coffee for driver. It blended the coffee bean of the fragrance high Guatemala product in subject, the bitterness which is clear by the fact that the coffee cream is used it finished in the deep body."

A: That pretty much sums me up.

Q: What are you made of? Your can.

A: I'm 100% steel. And I'm recyclable.

Q: Where were you produced?

A: Nagoya.

Q: How much do you cost?

A: Usually 120 yen, but only 110 yen at the vending machine next to the soba restaurant in Chitose Funabashi.

Q: Your fifth ingredient, right after cream, is grape sugar. Why is that?

A: My guess is that the brewmaster wanted to offset my overriding bitterness with a touch of conciliatory sweetness at the finish.

Q: Tell your precious "brewmaster" he can kiss my ass.

A: Pardon me?

Q: Jokes, jokes. Hey, would it make you feel uncomfortable if I held you? Because, man, I've been on a bit of a losing streak and it would sure feel nice to hold someone right now.

A: To be honest, I'd rather you didn't. I hope you understand.

Q: Oh. Yeah, geez, no problem. No frickin' problem there, cannie.

A: ...

Q: Do you ever feel tired? Just tired of the whole crazy thing, like you want to crack someone over the head really, really hard and just run away?

A: I can't say tha...

Q: Same here. It's like there's all this rage? And I don't know what to do with it?

A: Uh...

Q: I've decided I'm going to hold you.

A: Really, I'd prefer it if you didn't.

Q: Yeah, I'm gonna hold you.

A: Please, no!

Q: Well then you shouldn't go strutting around with "Enjoy the taste!" written in huge, red letters on your label. It makes people grabby.

A: OK. OK. You're absolutely right. I'm wrong. Can you just please leave me alone?

Q: Are you crying? You're crying.

A: Yes, I'm crying. You're scaring me, alright?

Q: Shoot. I always do this. Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you all in a dither. It's me, not you. I'm the problem. Ever since my teeth fell out, I tend to lash out. It's a confidence thing.

A: (sniff) I'm sorry.

Q: God, no. I'm sorry. Look at you, you're shivering.

A: I am not. I'm just a little cold, that's all.

Q: Well I think someone needs a big hug. C'mere, you.

--David Cady

]]>

Fire "Siphon Method -- Mocha Blend"

In the half-lotus position I sit, typing this out and enjoying a lucid dream in which I am being carried upon the "shoulders" of a glinting, dew-speckled mass of Fire "Siphon Method" coffee cans. I am their hero and king, and they thrust me toward the heavens to acknowledge my supremacy. Though mute, they employ a technique known as "hralding" to insert thoughts into my head. Hralding is excruciating to the uninitiated, but I prove resilient. This quality, my stubborn resistance to agony, is one of the reasons I have been annointed king.

A chorus of angelic, if tinny, voices explodes in my auditory cortex: "O handsome king, we have noted and wish to convey our respect for your restraint when riding up escalators behind saucy women. Barely a flicker of the eyes asswards." "I know," I tell them, not yet having learned the art of hralding, "It's exhausting." The voices emerge again, in 700-part harmony: "Master, we are curious. Is it not possible that you are suppressing desires that are wholly natural?" I tilt my head, pondering the question. "So you're telling me I should fix my gaze upon these bottoms without reservation? That it's OK to do so because it's 'natural?' I'm married, you know." The voices chuckle. The chuckling (tittering?) persists for an uncomfortable 45 seconds, maybe a minute. "Let's just say that you won't hear any complaints from us if you happen to allow your eyes to linger on a passing derriere, o tall, strong and smart one. The wife never has to know."

I decide that I don't like these guys. The overly long laugh gave me the collywobbles and set off major alarm bells. And I didn't ask to be their fucking king. This is all wrong. "Put me down," I tell them, trying to sound royal but betrayed by my mobile Adam's apple. "But why ... king?" they reply, the last word heavy with sarcasm and followed by what are definitely titters. Then, with the malice sometimes witnessed among possessed marionnettes, they intone,"Doncha wanna play no more?" in a deep, rumbling hell-baritone. No, as a matter of fact, I don't wanna play no more. Shit, I think they want to kill me. "Put me down, goddammit!" I bleat, my desperation obvious. "Now!" I bellow. The cans part like startled cockroaches and I drop to the ground, cracking my head on the cement floor. When I awaken, I find just one small can in the now-carpeted room, not the hundreds of giant, hralding four-footers of a few moments (hours? days?) ago. Gorilla-like, I lumber over to the overturned container and tentatively prod it with an index finger and emit a short, relieved sob when it doesn't respond. Remembering that I have a deadline to meet for a coffee review, I snap open the can and sample the contents. Though it touts itself as having a "clean, clear" flavor that is enhanced by special syphoning techniques, I can't discern any real difference between it and standard canned brews. In short, it is sweet and creamy. Great design, though.

-- David Cady

]]>

Boss "Rainbow Mountain Blend"

They say you can tell a lot about a man by the type of coffee he drinks. The Greeks, for example, sang epic hymns -- known in some circles as "Thathaseses" -- about how stouthearted men tend to prefer robust coffees. In the U.S. state of Montana, men who drink instant varieties are derided as "shammies" by their elders and "tan raccoons" by a lot of the womenfolk. Famously, the Italians will break out into a kind of jazzy shuffle around men thought to be drinking decaf. This frustrating "dance" typically involves the slackening of the jaw, bowing of the knees, snapping of the fingers and the emission of short, breathy exhalations that never quite evolve into words. It is frightening to behold and can do a 12-year-old's head in.

On the slopes of Guatemala's Rainbow Mountain, arguably the world's most lackluster peak, people have this way of hooting while they drink coffee that is both haunting and irritating. The intensity of the hooting (or huffing, as some biolinguologists have gigglingly characterized it) is apparently directly proportional to the flavor of the coffee, i.e., an excellent brew will yield exceptionally loud hoots. This phenomenon has been documented in Japan among drinkers of Boss "Rainbow Mountain Blend" canned coffee. Ethnotheoriticians posit that the coffee must be "reasonably good" to induce such behavior. Intrigued by such reports, I decided to give it a try. Shortly after my first nip of this creamy elixir, I hooted. It was cathartic.

]]>

Georgia "Sugi ittemiyo!"

Sip 1: Hmm. Smoky notes linger on the tongue.

Sip 2: My goal this week is to naturally insert the word "Panglossian" into a conversation about cat bottoms.

Sip 3: Sweet, but not over the top.

Sip 4: You'd think I was skinny by looking at my face, but I'm actually pretty ripped.

Sip 5: That's why I can't wait for summer. It's gonna be tank top city.

Sip 6: This can is decorated by a picture of an actress dressed as a nurse. She's smiling and jotting something down on a notepad.

Sip 7: I'm starting to feel the effects of the caffeine.

Sip 8: It feels like flaming chimpanzees are crawling under my skin.

Sip 9: Still tasty. I like this coffee. (Affect Scouse accent and say, "We likes it a lot.")

Sip 10: My anterior deltoids are impressive, but you can't just go around telling people that.

Sip 11: There's something embarrassing about being seen buying canned coffee. It's because the observers know that soon, the inside of my mouth will be coated with sugar and smell faintly like an ashtray. I want people to think my mouth is pristine, eminently kissable.

Sip 12: The nurse is writing: "Patient appeared thin at first glance, but closer inspection revealed a well-muscled torso and decidedly non-chickenlike legs. Mouth: eminently kissable."

Sip 13: A haiku about a cat's ass? Now? Not appropriate.

Sip 14: The can is now empty and, like my mouth, smelling faintly of an ashtray.

feline puckerspot
darting and flirtatious
a haughty button

-- David Cady

]]>