Japan's Coffee & Kissaten

About this book

Tokyo had a coffee house in 1888. Nagoya taught coffee to bring breakfast. Kobe put it in a can. This book is the complete guide to the world those facts built.

200 entries in eight parts, each in one fixed format — Origins & Story, Taste & Technique, Where & When, and Manners & Enjoyment. The jun-kissa room itself: velvet chairs, chosen cups, the master behind the counter. The crafts: flannel nel drip, the siphon's theatre, charcoal roasting, aged beans. The two great menus: Napolitan, thick toast and the morning set; firm pudding, parfait architecture and the green flash of cream soda. Then the regions — Ginza and the jazz rooms, the Nagoya morning heartland, Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, the snow country, the deep south, Okinawa's own coffee farms — and the new wave: canned coffee, vending machines, the hundred-yen revolution, and the young masters reopening Showa rooms.

The 200 entries are items of coffee culture, not shop reviews: no shop is ranked and no shop's prices or hours are asserted — shops change them; cultures endure. A glossary and an index by part and theme close the book, so you can plan a journey by coffee instead of by map.