Japan is such an amazing and unique country. Yes, I know, everyone who’s ever been there says the same thing, and you’ve probably heard it a million times before, so I’ll spare you the introduction. Seriously though, you can’t possibly have a bad time there - even without a sophisticated itinerary and after not spending days of cherry-picking /r/JapanTravel, you’re going to have a trip of a lifetime.

Especially, if you are into coffee, and especially if the coffee you are into is so special that some people call it speciality. That, my special friends, is what I would like to chat to you about. In particular - what was it like to be the coffee nerd who needs to ingest snob quality caffeine every couple hours, while enjoying the marvellous scenery.

As a bonus, in the end I’m including some of the great speciality coffee places me and my wife visited while we were in Tokyo and Kyoto. Well, and a bit of Nagoya, since it’s close to Suzuka - wife’s a Formula 1 fan, fast cars go brrrr. By the way, here’s my another post about one of those special places.

Entrance

Table of Contents

Impressions of Speciality Coffee in Japan

Before the trip, I was warned by many of my friends and the internets, that the Japanese exclusively prefer darker roasts, and are generally lagging behind the whole western hipster N-th wave bonanza. They are more into tea anyway, right?

Wrong, as it turned out. And it should not come as a surprise, that Japan - a country with people who were constantly pushing their crafts to the absolute limits throughout the history - would be doing the same thing in coffee, which has been a huge part of their lives for a while.

Is it really just darker roasts?

So, what about that dark-roasts-everywhere thing? First of all, and this is an obvious one, at the moment there are simply no countries (or cities) in the world where the trendy speciality coffee culture would come even remotely close to dominating the market. Even in London, where if you make an effort you can find a decent speciality shop within walking distance from almost any location, the absolute vast majority of places will still be Starbucks and the likes, for obvious reasons. By the way, I’m not being a snob about it (please don’t judge me), I’m perfectly happy with that, but just something to keep in mind.

Now, if you are ready to make an effort and look for specific places, then you are in luck: it is absolutely ridiculous how many speciality coffee shops of incredible standard are there in Tokyo and Kyoto. And all of them have that sour, I mean acidic, lightly roasted holy grail you were looking for.

Interestingly though, many of these speciality shops still have a surprising amount of medium and dark roasted beans on the menu, next to the fancy lightly roasted Geishas, Sidras, and the lot. And they would tell you as much of a story about them as they would about the latter. Most probably it’s simply to let as many people have a good time as possible by respecting their preferences. Obviously, later, when they are hooked on the “guess the varietal” and “remember the farmer’s last name and his whole family” quizzes - you ambush them with that washed light Kenyan, and there’s no coming back after this.

Filter vs Espresso

In the top speciality shops, they are really into pour-overs, which is not surprising. However, even outside of the speciality realm, pour-over seems to be really popular - seemingly even more popular than espresso, and even espresso-based milky drinks. Additionally, almost anywhere you can get a V60 (at least a dark roast one) served to you, even in the airport. Some may think it’s weird, but it’s a thing in other countries too, especially in quite a few of Mediterranean ones. And they often will have at least some origin information about the beans, which is nice. Overall they are more inclined towards food, atmosphere, etc - the usual stuff normal people who don’t spend too much time at /r/espresso care about (coincidentally, that subreddit has been obsessed with Japan lately).

As for espresso, you can have a great cup in all of the nice places. For obvious reasons of how tricky it is to maintain the dial in, only a few of those places would offer the fanciest coffee lots as espresso. The ones I tried were delicious, though.

Many beans to chose from

Another surprising thing was the enormous beans selection present in most speciality shops. And I mean enormous - up to 30 kinds of beans at a single place.

Places with such astronomical numbers seem to be roasting the beans themselves, which might raise a few questions about how much time they really invest into perfecting each one, but I don’t have enough data samples to judge that. There might be another explanation I’m going to mention below in a minute, however.

Lots of excellent quality beans

After reading the previous point, one might think that those long menus consist mostly of poor quality coffees, but that could not be farther from the truth. On the contrary, the majority of them were basically name dropping: competition winners, top 1…10 Cup of Excellence lots, all the fancy geishas, weird processings, and so on.

Compared to the West, it felt like cafes care a bit more about coffees which are “officially recognised” by some kind of formal ranking system (not talking about Q-grading here). But I didn’t mind, as the taste was phenomenal.

Processing preferences

Now, if your name is Scott Rao and you are reading this chapter - please skip it. That’s it, I’m washing my hands… unlike the beans which were anything but.

Okay, here it goes - the beans selection leans heavily towards funky, or at least natural, processing methods. Some get really dank, like fresh fruit infusion dank (of course I had to try those, no regrets). Some of them are specified as washed, but if you read through the details they turn out to be not quite washed. That last bit is something that’s unfortunately gaining popularity worldwide, and I find it really confusing, but that’s the topic of another conversation.

I might trigger some people by saying this, but with such heavy processing it might be easier to achieve the “wow” effect by brewing coffee which “does not taste like coffee” - without getting too deep into perfecting the roasting. And that’s what might be the reason behind having so many beans on the counter. This is pure speculation, though, because I’m clueless about roasting at the moment. Moreover, I too enjoy the guilty pleasure of can’t-taste-terroir-behind-that-funk every now and then.

Still, there were plenty of clean washed or natural coffees to choose from if you are not feeling adventurous, so no reason to bring your vacuum sealed bag of frozen beans to the coffee shop. Seriously, I’m calling the police if you do.

The Ritual

In the best coffee places, the baristas worked very hard by communicating a lot with each client, regardless of their coffee nerdiness. They would talk to them about what coffee beans are available, where they came from, how they were processed, and so on. Some places would also brew the coffee in front of you, in case you feel like being annoying to the barista by asking a million questions (I neither confirm nor deny my actions in this regard).

Moreover, the beans were usually on display, so you could sniff them all you want in the search of The Holy Smell - before picking the one you’d pay for (sniffing is free, yay!).

Either way, I love the educational aspect of this - the more you expose people to this information, the more enjoyment they will (eventually) have from it. Everyone loves a great story, especially about things like coffee which gives them butterflies, or generally the things they are about to put into their digestive tract. Okay, let’s bring back the romance - I’m definitely appreciating the rituals like this, which make everyday things just a little more magical.

Water

Tap water in Japan is famously soft, with its hardness being below 80 ppm - pretty much a perfect range for coffee brewing. Because of this lucky phenomenon, coffee shops don’t need (and don’t seem) to bother with the whole GH/KH shenanigans, and just use filtered tap water.

As a curious side effect, I wonder if that it also might explain the medium and dark roasts popularity even in speciality shops - as the bitterness from such roasts is less noticeable when brewed with soft water, and it’s the one available by default.

Prices

If you are coming for a special experience, then be prepared to pay special prices. Let me just say that a single cup brewed with the best of the beans (12 g to 15 g dry dose) will cost you up to around 6000 yen in certain places, which is around £33 or $40 at the moment of writing (cries in inflation). But those are obviously (and frankly, ridiculous) outliers — by going a “tier” lower you can get away with paying 2-3 times less than that and still have a really fancy cup to brag about to literally nobody.

If you are just looking for a “daily driver” kind of drink, then fear not, as the prices are in line with the rest of the world and not as scary.

Opening times

For some reason, many speciality coffee shops open surprisingly late in the day. The latest I’ve seen was 11 am, with a lot of them opening at 10 am.

After some thinking and googling, I speculate that it boils down to people not being too keen on spending that much time on coffee during the morning commute or first work hours, so they would rather get something quick in the less fancy places. And it’s not like jet-lagged tourists would come too early as well.

Queues

I could start this with a hot take: no matter how the coffee is, it’s never worth queuing for an hour. But instead, I’ll just lay down the facts and leave this decision to you.

Queuing is one of those stereotypes about Japan which became a stereotype for a reason. I’m talking multiple hour queues in lots of places which for some reason possess attractiveness to the locals and tourists. You know, those tourists who dared to tourist while I was touristing, and when you will tourist, too.

I know you don’t want to hear it, but long queues are not limited to best-in-Tokyo sushi conveyor belt restaurants or funny looking hand-made dessert stands. They also include popular coffee shops. But don’t worry, all is not lost, and here’s why.

Hype

First, queue length in coffee places is not really correlated with coffee quality. At a calculated risk of stating the obvious - much more than quality, it depends on hype. Every now and then you stumble upon another article about the “one of a kind Tokyo coffee experience”, and guess what - you are not the only one who wants to check it out. But the marginal quality increase is not going to be noticeable at all, especially compared to dozens of other places without such queues.

So if you want to have that “magical experience” you were so hyped up for - prepare to queue. And who am I to blame you - I chose that path quite a few times. But remember, that unrealistically high expectations rarely become reality. It’s just a coffee shop, after all (ha-ha, if only that argument ever worked amongst the coffee nerds).

Location

Second, the dependency on location is a bit more nuanced than I thought. It’s not just about “touristy” vs “non-touristy” areas, but also whether the “tourists” can easily notice or find the place. This is another peculiar thing about Japan - there are lots of restaurants with closed (but not locked) doors, no windows, and a humble and barely noticeable Japanese sign, so you really need to know where you are going - in which case you will love it.

Ragequit

Finally, and most importantly - because there are so many places, you always have a choice of not waiting in an hour and just going to another fantastic place nearby, where you’ll have a great time (and coffee) in a few minutes. If you are in a certain coffee-dense area, that is (such as Omotesando), but other areas won’t have queues anyway.

Conclusion

Japan is such an amazing and unique country. Sorry, I’m repeating myself again. But as you might have guessed by now, the coffee experience you can have there is as unique as everything else in it, so enjoy!

Bonus - coffee shops!

Tokyo

  1. Koffee Mameya - see my previous post about it!
  2. Glitch Coffee — after visiting their awesome Nagoya branch, I had to visit their legendary Tokyo one. And here they had even larger selection of great coffees. The queue, however, was almost an hour long… After waiting the process felt a bit rushed, not enough time to thoroughly see what’s available, and I felt a bit awkward because I didn’t want to keep others waiting. As expected, the coffee was very nice. I have to say that the very pricey Panama Geisha was a little less intense than I would hope though, and I wonder if it was proportional to the wait. Still, one of the best places in Tokyo for sure, and the baristas are amazing. Better queue luck next time! Also, since it’s been way too popular on /r/espresso lately, I would expect even longer queues, so brace yourselves.
  3. The Roastery by Nozy Coffee — such a unique looking place with a peculiar layout and steampunk vibe, with espresso machines, brewing equipment, and beans intertwined all over the place. It looks really cool. The space is large with many people but there was no queue. And once again, they have a ridiculously long list of beans available. I went for the No. 1 CoE winning washed Sidra from Equador which smelled out of this world, and the V60 was outstanding. They used a mesh filter so there was some sediment, but I guess it’s hard to screw up this kind of beans 😅.
  4. About Life Coffee Brewers / Onibus — really nice place, lots of beans to choose from, both for filter and espresso. Very friendly barista. I went for the Kenyan washed espresso and it was top notch, vibrant and dried-fruity. No queue at all, quick, and the atmosphere is simple and cozy.
  5. Wavy Coffee Roasters — located on the second floor in the lively Shibuya area, it’s such a hidden gem, and they have no queues as a consequence. They have like 20 or 30 types beans available, all self-roasted, and many of them are of the excellent quality (top 10 CoE etc). And all of them can be brewed as filter or espresso. I picked one out of three dank, sorry, infused coffees they had for espresso, and it was super dank 😂 with lots of strawberry. They also have a P100 like me, so I’m biased.
  6. Hat Coffee — forget the speciality snobbery, this is the super cute 3D foam latte art place that you absolutely have to visit! I’ve made a video demonstrating this in more detail 😍. Another similar place is Cafe Reissue, where the founder of Hat Coffee used to work before starting his own thing. Remember, it’s not about fancy beans and delicate notes, you are there for the cute milk foam Pomeranians, and you are going to love every minute of it.
  7. Coffee Wrights (x Higuma Doughnuts) — located next to Mameya, so this is your chance if you don’t want to queue for an hour in unlucky times🙃. The pour over coffee (Honduras natural typica) was fairly good, a bit bitter to my taste even though it’s supposed to be lightly roasted. The ice cream doughnut was all-wright! No queue, enough space to sit down.
  8. Unlimited Coffee Bar — it’s right next to the Tokyo Skytree which is a cool viewpoint. Not a touristy area though, so I was the only lucky customer! I liked the pour over, and the barista was friendly and knowledgeable.
  9. Fuglen Asakusa — they make nice aero press, and sell Norwegian waffles. A bit of a queue since Asakusa is a touristy area, but not too long. Many seats inside, I liked the atmosphere.
  10. Cokuun - sadly I did not visit this one because it was fully booked, but I would really love to visit them some day. Apparently, they do a next-level private coffee experience, and from the reviews it looks very special indeed.

Kyoto

  1. Kurasu - great filter, and a lot of brewing equipment for sale. I feel strong for not buying one of those Origamis!
  2. Blue Bottle in Kyamachi - great filter.
  3. Cafe bibliotic Hello! — many beans to choose from, fantastic food options, the cosiest library-like atmosphere.
  4. Astrea Coffee - amazing latte (and latte art) and waffles, pretty good filter.
  5. Goodman Roaster - really good filter and espresso.
  6. here.kyoto - nice classic style espresso (no filter), great looking and tasting matcha omelette. Convenient touristy location.
  7. Elephant Factory Coffee - the beans (for osmotic flow V60) are fairly dark roasted, which is the only one in the list, but it’s quiet and cozy inside so I’d still include it.

Nagoya

  1. Glitch Coffee Nagoya - Glitch again! And again, insane selection of beans for superb filter (some get very expensive), really good latte.

Stop talking, show me the pics!





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