82 AFAR SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
Taguchi makes
regular pilgrimages
to coffee plantations
around the world.
His menu is a veri-
table United Nations
of beans, from dark
Sumatran to light,
floral Peruvian and
Malawian, all roasted in-house.
“Suntan!” he says with a smile as
he rolls up his sleeve, his tan a
badge of honor from his recent
time in sunnier climates.
While Japan’s kissaten rep-
resent a bygone era—and don’t“Kissaten embody
the idea of omote-
nashi—Japanese-style
hospitality,” Freeman
explains. You could
say the kissaten is to
the Japanese what
the terrace table is
to the French—tem-
porary real estate to catch up on
your thoughts, but over coffee
instead of pastis. “Customers pay
to occupy the space as much as
they do for the expert sourcing
and preparation of beans,” Free-
man adds.
typically serve espresso drinks—
in recent years, a wave of new
coffee entrepreneurs has arrived.
Their cafés retain the spirit of
hospitality that make kissaten so
inviting but have introduced more
modern design, creative spaces,
and yes, espresso.
Switch Coffee Tokyo, the next
stop on our tour, is one such place.
Switch is everything Café Bach
is not. Located on a relaxed side
street in Tokyo’s Meguro neigh-
borhood, it’s more kiosk than café,
with a bench and a chalkboard
menu on the sidewalk.
“I don’t usually drink lattes,
but Masahiro-san makes the best,”
says Freeman, drinking his from
a tempered glass tumbler. Owner
Masahiro Onishi prepares my latte
himself while talking about livingin Melbourne, where he studied
latte art and coffee culture.
Fully caffeinated, we make our
way to one of Tokyo’s newest Blue
Bottle Coffees just before lunch-
time. We enter and Freeman is
immediately recognized by the
staff, who respectfully bow.
Blue Bottle has a devoted cult
following because it tapped into
the kissaten mentality early on—
focusing both on craft and on a
pleasing space for people to linger
over their lattes—and lines at the
company’s 12 (and growing) Tokyo
shops are not unusual.connect feast
Clockwise from top
left: one of Blue Bot-
tle’s 12 cafés in Japan;
Café Bach barista Koi-
chi Yamada; a Switch
Coffee latte; Café
Bach’s original roaster;
Café Bach beans;
prepping espresso at
Switch Coffee.