Back in 2013, I saw a video by Jake Davis about a man who started a little coffee shop in Japan using technique and style he’d learnt while living almost 20 years abroad in New York.
I had been to Japan already, through the initial lust for it’s tourism in cities old and new along with the lure of fashion and culture. Immediately after that trip I craved more - but in a different way - I wanted dig deeper below surface.
I had already developed the habit of drinking coffee. Not for effects on the body, but for the assault on my senses - the sounds of the filter snapping in to the handle, the big aroma of the freshly blitzed beans and the little mountain that forms, the tension when the tamp slots in to pack the coffee into that ‘just right’ dense solid state. The whole process is brilliant, delicate… but at the same time so simple and engaging.
After I saw that video I always knew I would go there - meet Katsu-San, try his 'Angel Stain' coffee, live that life.
But how could I stop at just one? No way… I decided to try as many as I could.
To be clear, this wasn’t a comparison of coffee shops in Japan - It was just a journey for the senses.
This map shows all the coffee shops by marker - take a look around and select a shop to see it's details.
