Japanesse Coffee is 🤯
I used to absolutely hate coffee.
I used to absolutely hate coffee.
One of the coffees that changed my life... to a forever caffeinated one
I have parents who prept the coffee machine the night before, so they wouldn’t waste any time in the morning. You’d think because they were obsessed with getting their morning cup, that it was great quality coffee, prepared with care but it wasn't. My household drank Cafe Bustelo. My grandmother used to give my mother cafe con leche in her baby bottle.
I never thought coffee was delicious but I always found the smell intoxicating! I liked coffee flavored candy and ice cream but never had an actual cup until Jubilee market, in downtown Manhattan, where I worked one Summer. I had to wake up at 4:30am on the weekends to get ready and on to the E train to the World Trade Center in order to be at the store by 6am to brew the coffee.
I remember having to pour Hazelnut coffee for customers and it smelled out of this world. So, I finally tried it. I made an iced hazelnut coffee, with 5 pumps of extra hazelnut syrup, and 80% of it was skim milk… it was delicious, so sweet, and definitely not coffee 🤣.
As I got older and started seeing the world, I realized that the coffee I grew up with wasn’t the only coffee in the world. I tasted dark, gritty, and strong Turkish coffee. The instant coffees in South Korea. I mean had the cat poop coffee in Bali. I've had better quality coffees too but they were still really gross to me.
Then, in the Spring of 2018 I went to Japan with my coffee aficionado boyfriend. Of course I built the food based itinerary, but he had his own “to do” list, it was filled with places to try coffee. Apparently the Japanese are doing some truly remarkable “third wave” coffee so we had to check them out.
The first place we went to was this small, standing room only, minimalist coffee shop called Koffee Mameya. It was on a really quiet street near Harajuku, across from the shop was an open plot of land with tall grass.
The shop had a menu that was designed in a grid pattern with a brown gradient from lightest coffees to darkest roasts, I assume. They asked my travel companion what he wanted but he wasn’t sure, so he asked them questions, they asked him questions, and finally came to an agreement. Then they asked what I wanted and I answered “Oh, no thank you. I’m a tea person.” they replied with “we have a coffee for that”.
It took quite a long time for the coffee to be made but we didn’t mind. It was nice to hear the soft chatter in Japanese. The space was both very dark and bright, really small but felt spacious. It felt luxurious with the Ikebana feel and arrangements… but most of Japan feels like this.
Then our brews showed up, we breathed in our cups, and I took a sip of my coffee and
h o o o l y y y y s s s h i i i i t ! This tiny bit that I sipped into my mouth felt like an explosion of flavors, sensations, and even colors. It felt like a psychedelic experience! I could taste all of the notes spread out across my tongue, I’m pretty positive I could taste on the roof of my mouth too.
This experience was so emotional that I teared up and got chills. That actually happened a few times during this trip with all the coffee tasting we had.
One of the most truly remarkable experiences we had was on the outskirts of Osaka, in a quiet residential neighborhood where an 80 something year old man turned his home/motorcycle repair shop into a coffee shop. At MĂśNCH, this man sells a coffee that was brewed 25 years ago. The story that we gathered was that he left barrels of coffee in the back of his fridge for 2 years, forgot about them, went to toss them but shared it with his friends and he decided to sell it. This coffee was a syrup at this point and took 15 mins to pour.
Now, the experience wasn't just about the coffee (which was $900, and an absolutely insane concept), it was about the experience, IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE! This man welcomed us into his home/cafe, we were the only people there for 2 hours, we had to communicate with each other through poor translation technology, but that was ok because what we understood were the smiles and hospitality. He even let my boyfriend rev up his motorcycle (because they shared that passion).
You can watch the Buzzfeed: WORTH IT guys drink his coffee in Japan.
Japanese cuisine is world renown because they learn to master things. There are people who spend their whole life making sushi rice or broth for ramen. There are people doing this with coffee too, so if you love coffee here in the states, imagine what it would be like in Japan.
This is why I designed a coffee fueled itinerary for Japan for this November and I’m bringing founder of Redbay Coffee, Keba Konte as our co-host.
There is no other trip like this. It’s a one of a kind adventure with a focus on coffee and a drizzle of tea, sake, and whiskey. This is an 8 night itinerary that takes us through the back streets of Tokyo, hip and modern Kyoto, with a day trip to Osaka.
Check out the itinerary here.