What were we eating back then? (Comon Japanese eating habits from the late 1950s to the early 1960s) 3 Drinks, Fruits

 I'd like to write about some of drinks, and fruits from the late 1950s to the early 60s in Japan that I remember most vividly.

First, there were drinkis that were rare and popular back then, though not commonly seen now: coffee milk, fruit milk, and, although not a drink, bottled yogurt as a dairy product.
Like other houses around my neighborhood, we had bottled milk delivered to our home. (Nowadays we call it　"takuhai", that is home delivery, but that term wasn't common back then.)
Coffee milk and fruit milk are now a staple at public bathhouses, often enjoyed by men with their hands on their hips after a bath, but back then, those drinks were something children received as a special treat. Both were quite sweet, but coffee milk had a subtle, fragrant coffee aroma, and fruit milk had a rich, slightly tart fruit flavor—both beloved by children. I was quite shocked when I first tasted both as a child.
Then there was bottled yogurt, which I think was still quite expensive as a standalone item. As far as I remember, I only ate it once or twice during that period, when someone shared it with me. But I think I was slightly shocked when I took a bite. The sweet and slightly sour taste was so unique that I wondered if such a thing even existed.
As an aside, a common feature of these three items is that, like regular bottled milk, they all had a round piece of cardboard with a small, colored, square piece of plastic underneath that served as a lid. Children would collect these bottle caps and use them to play menko (a traditional Japanese card game).

Let me write more about drinks. Back then, cola wasn't common yet and was considered a luxury item. The first time I drank cola, I thought it was like a medicine to put on throat.
I drank cider relatively often. The fizzy sensation felt like it was pricking my throat, and I thought it was a drink for adults. There was a drink similar to cider called "ramune". It was a drink in a strange container with a marble as a bottle cap, but I don't remember drinking it much except at festivals or similar occasions. It might not have been the kind of drink a mother would buy for her child.

And then there was powdered juice that you dissolve in water, which is not seen much these days but was surprisingly popular among children. I would drink it while humming the catchy jingle from the TV commercials that aired during children's cartoons. This might be an example of how television advertising could successfully boost sales at that time.

And then there was Calpis, which enjoyed exceptional popularity among children during this period. My family never bought it in stores; I think it was often given as a mid-year gift (probably not a year-end gift...). I remember that the mid-year gifts came with a cup and stirrer featuring Calpis's polka-dot pattern. I think these were wonderful items that made us feel that they were rare and new. The Calpis that came as a mid-year gift wasn't just the regular kind; there were also orange and grape tastes and flavors, which gave a special feel. Such special drinks were reserved for special occasions.

A more familiar drink that wasn't so special was homemade barley tea. Surprisingly, we sometimes dissolved sugar in it and drank it. Unlike juice, I didn't feel like drinking many glasses of this.
The overwhelming majority of what we drank was tap water. Children often bent their necks and drank directly from the tap. Of course, adults didn't like, but in a way it was helpful that they didn't use cups to wash, so while drinking directly from the tap was forbidden, drinking from a short distance away was barely acceptable.
　
I'd like to write a little about fruit here. Back then, fruit was something special. My family ate strawberries and summer oranges relatively often, as a dessert after dinner. The way we ate strawberries back then was unique: we'd put the strawberries in a small glass bowl, add milk and sugar, crush the strawberries with the back of a spoon, and then eat them. I don't see this way of eating anymore, and I don't do it myself, but I still believe it's the best way to eat them.
Similarly, we peeled the thin skin off summer oranges, which were extremely sour, put them in a bowl, sprinkled them with sugar, and ate them.

As I've been writing this, I've realized that refrigerators weren't common in ordinary households until the early 1960s. That was certainly the case in my home. So, most drinks and fruits were kept and served at room temperature.
At my house, we once tried to cool a whole watermelon—the kind sold in a net woven with plastic string—by running it through the washing machine's water current. I have absolutely no memory of whether it actually cooled it down, but that practice was discontinued once refrigerators became common.
Adults that time were seriously doing that, but I wonder if it really did cool it down.
Children would sit on the veranda, engrossed in spitting out watermelon seeds, wondering if they would sprout and grow into watermelons.