Journal from Japan No. 1 - Coffee In: Tokyo.
There are cities, and then there is Tokyo. There are coffee scenes, and then there is Tokyo’s coffee scene. Given the things I saw, the people I met, and the motivation I felt to keep exploring, I was so impressed by all of it. From my first sip to my last I felt as if I was participating in something too good to be true. Everywhere I went I felt as if I was meeting the most passionate roasters and baristas there are, but they just kept getting better and better. There is a commitment to the craft in Tokyo that supersedes even the best places in coffee powerhouses like Seattle, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Berlin or Amsterdam. That’s not a slight on any coffee professionals in these cities, the industry standards are well represented there, but we could all learn a thing or two from Tokyo.
Coffee, or kohi in Japanese, first made its way to Japan in the early 1700s, via a rare trade agreement Japan had with the Dutch. The first coffee shop to open was in fact in Tokyo. It was called Kahiichakan and it opened in 1888. It took a while for a coffee shop to open in Japan because the idea of coffee service wasn’t something that existed in the country given Japan’s isolationist policy for much of its history. But in the late 19th century, the nation began to open up and become more influenced by the outside world. The thing which makes Tokyo’s coffee scene unique is the same thing that makes the city unique: the sheer size of it and abundance of good options. New York City’s coffee scene gets lauded for the number of world-class coffee joints you can find in the city. Well, Tokyo dwarfs that number. While I had researched specific cafés and roasteries to visit prior to the trip, I found myself stopping on nearly every corner to at least peek into cafés I passed. I ended up drinking more coffee than I intended, but I sure am glad I did. Having so many options is one thing. But having so many options and almost all of them having a great product to offer is truly magical. I say this because another element of Tokyo’s coffee scene is that no matter the café or style being served, all workers are trained to not only be competent in the barista craft but are also taught the functions of the rest of the industry. I thought perhaps this was just the case in the places I was going, so I tested the theory by going to a train station café serving generic coffee and asking where their coffee is from. It took me a little bit to find one where they spoke English, but eventually did. I asked, they knew the brand, but didn’t know precisely the origins. However, they told me that 40% of the global coffee trade comes from Brazil so there is a good chance that the blend is mostly Brazilian coffee. Even that is more insightful than I’ve gotten in generic coffee places back home and shows that having at least a surface level knowledge base of the product you are serving is possible even if you aren’t working in specialty or craft coffee. Very often in the United States you’ll encounter café workers who are unaware of the origins of the coffee they are about to serve you, or just uninformed about the landscape of the industry they are working in. Café owners often feel that understanding the industry isn’t essential for the person they hired to do their job serving coffee (in this sense it’s rarely the workers fault as higher ups tell them to focus on selling, rather than knowing, the product). Such an approach is flawed as part of a barista’s job should be to know about all the hands the coffee they are serving has passed through before being put through their grinders. This ensures a level of coffee service that honors the all the labor that goes into coffee, including the barista’s own labor. The coffee industry is at a point where we need to focus more on ethics, given the exploitative climate that has existed since the dawn of its trade.
Another thing which showcases the difference of coffee’s place in Japanese society versus that of the US is most cafés open pretty late. The most common start time is 10am, with some places opening at 11am or even noon. 9am or earlier openings are few and far between and considered early-bird spots. This signals that rather than being just a caffeine fix, as is the most common reason cited for drinking coffee in the West, coffee serves a purpose beyond that. Coffee is meant to be drunk throughout the day. It’s meant to be shared at any hour, and it isn’t confined to a morning ritual.
Now that you have some context, I want to take you through the cafés that stood out to me. If you’re following along on Instagram, you may have already seen pictures of these. If you haven't, head over to @thecoffeeplug on Instagram for a visual of a few of these places. I’ve attached some photos here, but there are a lot more on my profile. I’ll be referencing where these cafés are in Tokyo, specifically which “city” they’re in. If you’re not familiar with how Tokyo is laid out, think of it as 26 small cities that make up the metropolis. These are denoted with the ending “-ku”, which translates basically to “city”. You can think of them as similar to neighborhoods or boroughs if that is helpful.
My first stop was at Berth Coffee Roasters “Haru” café, located in Sumida-ku not far from Tokyo’s famous “Skytree”. I’m very glad I went here first, the folks were very happy to let me hang out for a while and let me sit in on a few batches of roasts. Despite the language barrier, I was able to find out a little bit about what it takes to run a small-batch coffee company in Japan. They asked me about my project and promised to visit Chicago one day to check out the city’s coffee scene. Before leaving I bought a bag of beans from them, which I’ve been brewing now that I’m in my apartment in Kyoto. I felt like I was building community connecting with the baristas here, who are now following my project as well. This is precisely what coffee is meant to be all about.
After the visit, I headed over to Skytree tower, the world’s tallest satellite tower, to get an astonishing view of the city from its observatory deck. If you’re in need of coffee at Skytree, head over to Be A Good Neighbor Coffee Kiosk. It’s a small pop-up in one of the tower complex’s many lobbies, and a great spot to pick up a pour over and maybe a waffle.
Let’s head across town to Shibuya-ku, the heart of Tokyo and its commercial center. Step out of Shibuya station, the world’s busiest train station, at any hour of the day and you walk into a bustling town square filled with people. I had never seen anything like it before. It made Manhattan’s Time Square look like a suburban intersection. Shibuya is home to many of the cafés and roasteries I had my eye on. There were four that really captivated me, all within walking distance of one another. The first one I want to highlight is About Life Coffee Brewers. This is a shop owned and operated by Onibus Coffee, a roaster out of Tokyo which also has cafés in a handful of other Japanese cities as well as Bangkok, Thailand and in Taipei, Taiwan. About Life in Shibuya is our focus though. The café itself is a bigger space than most Japanese cafés, with a large seating area that could fit 15-20 customers. They share the space with a wonderful beer brewery out of Copenhagen, Mikkeller. It’s one of three taprooms they have in Tokyo. I was unaware of this when I was headed to About Life, so I was pleasantly surprised to find Mikkeller there as they are one of my favorites. About Life opens at 9am, with just the café running until noon at which point Mikkeller opens. They operate at the same time until 6pm, then About Life closes and the space is devoted to beer until midnight. A pretty neat set up.
Mikkeller, if you’re unfamiliar with the brewery, has long been interconnected with the coffee industry, so it’s no surprise they are partnering with cafés. To my knowledge, they are one of, if not the first, breweries to extensively incorporate coffee profiles in their beers. In 2006, shortly after they started brewing, they made a coffee beer called “Beer Geek Breakfast”, which soon started winning awards in stout categories at competitions around the world. It was originally an oatmeal stout with French pressed coffee added.
Next up, Shozo Café & Grocery. Showing that it is in fact possible to operate a café and grocery store in a non-pretentious manner, Shozo maintains a certain level of fancifulness but isn’t overbearingly flashy. With a simple interior design and uncomplicated affordable selection of products, the vibe here is more casual than showy. I appreciated that because similar places in the US tend to be “doing too much” and are often very overpriced for the actual product you receive. Shozo is executing this concept really well in this location, and I think that’s also down to the fact that not all of their locations are also grocery stores, it seems to be just this one. They operate a number of various other café concepts. For example, their Shozo 04 Store in Nasu sells branded fashion items. So, it’s an interesting business model owner Shozo Kikuchi (the business is named after him) has set up as he is dabbling in many interests and combining them in approachable ways. It’s been working for him ever since he opened Café Shozo back in 1988 in Kuroiso.
Koffee Mameya is the next, and probably most famous, coffee company I’ll cover. At this point they have grown into a bit of a small chain with a handful of locations in Japan as well as Hong Kong, but when Eiichi Kunitomo started the business in 2011 as Omotesando Koffee it was a small coffee stand. Koffee Mameya has gone through a bit of a tumultuous journey to get to where it is today. It operated as Omotesando until 2015, but then the building it was in was destroyed. Rebranded as Koffee Mameya, the new iteration of the company began operations in 2017 on the same plot of land, in the building that was built in place of the old one. I say chain, but it’s not exactly that. I know negative connotations can be associated with the word, which wouldn’t be fair because those kinds of things should have no association with Koffee Mameya. They are an international multi-roaster, and “coffee experience” is probably the perfect way to describe what’s going on here. A visit to Koffee Mameya is by reservation only so I suggest being more prepared when planning a stop here. When you walk in, you’re presented with a 5x5 coffee grid organized by roast level. I’m not sure how many different roasteries were featured when I went in, but I want to say it was 7-10, including my favorite roaster, Friedhats from Amsterdam. The baristas guide you through every step of the journey as you select various coffees to try.
To wrap up this part on coffee in Shibuya, I’ve saved what I think is the best for last. The Roastery by Nozy Coffee is the place that impressed me most of all. I loved their setup, with a large island bar in the center of the shop, and the roasting space in the back. But the incredible part was what was happening in the roaster. A coffee program like no other, this is a must-visit spot for any coffee lover, and definitely for any coffee professional working in the industry. World-class coffees on rotation, which included five Cup of Excellence winners during my visit. They also had delicious pastries and teas. All of which were served by deeply knowledgeable baristas with decades of combined experience and a passion for their craft. Spending time at this spot gave me a lot of inspiration. There are elements of The Roastery I would want to see emulated in any café. Having a roasting catalog of this magnitude and being so open with it by having the roastery in the café is an admirable thing. Nozy Coffee, as is their intention in their mission statement, is making huge strides in initiating the next wave of coffee. Since 2010 they have been trend setters, always adapting to be one step ahead, and they’ll continue to do that here in Japan. But the effects will be felt across the industry worldwide.
Going a few kilometers over to Shinjuku-ku, next up is All Seasons Coffee. Located near by an equally busy train station as Shibuya, All Seasons is much more muted than its surroundings. This spot is exceptionally unique among the cafes discussed here. The seating arrangement forces everyone in the café to face each other, which is a fun social experiment. There is a delightful assortment of desserts, which are made in-house, and you can watch the baristas make them. This one seemed the homiest of all the cafés I went to. I felt they did a good job of creating an atmosphere which felt like a living room café at one of your friend’s apartments. I definitely spent more time here than I intended simply because it’s a very welcoming and comfortable place. Couple all that with the fantastic pour-overs and cold brews being served here, and you’ve got a place worth not only visiting, but spending long passages of time in.
To wrap up this portion of the Ramble, allow me to introduce you to Coffee Wrights. Wrights in this case comes from old English where it means “people who do/make”. This roastery is starting to make a name for itself across Japan; one of my local cafés here in Kyoto is Coffee Wrights. Like Onibus Coffee’s About Life Coffee Brewers, they also share the space with Mikkeller, who have their Kyoto taproom popped up in Coffee Wrights’ café. In Tokyo, Coffee Wrights has two locations. Their roastery in Kuramae, which is where I visited, and a café/donut shop in Shibuya, partnering with Higuma Donuts. Higuma rounds out the Kyoto café as well to create an irresistible trifecta that will probably drain my bank account by the time I leave in six weeks. Single origins and blends. Lights, mediums, darks. Coffee Wrights roasts it all. It’s a wide-ranging coffee program they have, creating a place where it’s easy for anyone to find a coffee they like.
Coffee is my point of focus, but I would be remised if I didn’t mention the tea culture. After all, before coffee took the country by storm, Japan was a tea drinking nation. Part of the reason I came to Japan is to gain insight into the world of tea, so be prepared for some discussions about tea in these Journals from Japan. Starting with this story of a tea ceremony.
Maikoya Tea Ceremony
During my time in Tokyo, I had the privilege of partaking in Chanoyu, a traditional matcha ceremony. I put my tourist cap on and headed to a historic Japanese townhouse where a company called Maikoya holds traditional tea ceremonies. It was all very ritualistic, and the whole process adhered to a centuries-old, time-honored tradition of a matcha ceremony. I got to rent a kimono, the famous Japanese garment, and I learned the ins and outs of serving matcha in accordance with Japanese custom dating back to the 9th century. The ceremony lasted about an hour. It took place in a room padded with soft mats called tatami. There were eight other people with me in the ceremony plus the teishu (the ceremony host) and we were placed in a circle, facing each other whilst kneeling. We were taught the technique for brewing matcha, from how much water needed to be used to the form for properly whisking the matcha with the chasen, a bamboo whisk. The tool is cut from one piece of bamboo and split into 80-100 bristles. It was a quaint experience, but also very eye-opening as it began spinning the gears in my head about tea.
Unlimited Coffee Bar and Barista Training Lab
To end this on a coffee note, let's swing back over to where we began in Sumida-ku and talk about Unlimited Coffee Bar and Barista Training Lab. Located across the street from Skytree, I found Unlimited entirely by chance, and I am so glad I did. The first floor is the café, and on the second floor they have the training lab. Equipped with a multitude of training programs and classes, including SCA certification, there is something for any barista at any stage of their career and skill-level. I was impressed not only by the coffee, but also by the equipment. I counted four three-group espresso machines in the training lab, six or seven grinders, as well as two modern-day roasters and a roaster I’d imagine is from the early 20th century. In the café there is a wall mount of ten tampers of varying builds and styles plus a hatful of different steaming pitchers. Coffee and equipment aside, this place is run by some of the best baristas in the world. It was a pleasure sharing the room with them. Participating in barista training is part of the reason I wanted to come to Japan for my study abroad program. You’ll definitely find me at more labs like this one over the course of the next several weeks.
It’s safe to say, like the city itself, Tokyo’s coffee scene is rather astonishing, but also a lot to take on in such a small window of time. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to coffee in Japan than my five days in Tokyo, though. I’ll be immersing myself in the scene in Kyoto, where I’ll be based for the next few weeks. But the idea is to explore coffee in cities like Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, and many others. Also, part of my focus here will be to study tea. It’s an aspect of café service I have somewhat neglected up until now, but I am excited to learn and intend to visit some tea farms while I’m out here. Japan’s tea history is fascinating, so I’ll definitely be writing a bit about it in future Journals from Japan. For now though, given the sheer size of Tokyo and the quality of the coffee it has to offer, I’ll need some time to digest it all, both literally and figuratively.
