Coffee Shops in Japan -Trends and Franchises

Sipping coffee has been a Japanese favorite pastime for a half century. There are, in my view, a few different types of coffee places you'll run across in Japan.

Kissaten / 喫茶店 (Tea-Sipping Shop)

"Kissaten" is a classic old style coffee shop. It used to be that this type of establishment was about the only place to have a cup of coffee in Japan. At this shop they mainly serve coffee and soft drinks, and some classic lunch-like dishes such as Spaghetti Neapolitan, omuraisu (omelet over flavored rice), sandwiches and maybe a simple ice cream sundae.

Actually, the term "kissaten" is rather old and unfashionable now, though these coffee shops are still around. What you will likely see in a place like this is a guy sitting by himself reading the sports pages or a manga magazine, a couple of mid-aged neighbors, or a taxi driver taking a break. It is a low key, down to earth, nothing special atmosphere.

Being old and unfashionable, recently this type is revived similar to visiting the Showa (the era before current "Heisei") ruins. The photo is outside of Oka in Ueno, Tokyo. We used to go to these places as juveniles, acting like 20+ when we were 15 or so!! It was our place to hang out those days. To me these kissaten impose an image of those "acting 20+" are still there although they are way older than 20+ now, meaning you don't expect a contemporary "atmosphere" but it may still be interesting. Their coffee and foods may be good and the price range of a cup of coffee may be around 400~500 yen.

Cafe / カフェ

A "cafe" in Japan is just like a cafe in France, Italy or the States. Lately, "Cafe" likely means a fashionable coffee place people intentionally visit. This photo is of the Canal Cafe in Tokyo. There is a quite similar cafe here in Chicago by the river. They serve coffee and other soft drinks, sweets and lunch, brunch and dinner. It all depends on the individual business but many serve Western dishes.

A recent trend is for cafes to be established at a countryside location or in a remodeled traditional house. At a Countryside Cafe 田舎カフェ, which you will find (obviously) in a rural area, drinks and foods made with local products are served. Using a remodeled traditional house for a cafe (or other business) is common in the preserved historical areas but also in big cities.

Here is a photo of the Koguma Cafe こぐまカフェ near the brand new Sky Tree Tower. It is in a small area near the Sky Tree where was not burned out by the Tokyo Air Raid on 3/20/1945. I haven't been in the area for a long time so I don't know what it looks like now, but it seems they still have buildings standing from the pre-WWII. Most areas in central Tokyo were all burned down, common people's houses older than 1945 were not very common even 50 years ago. Anyway, this neighborhood near Sky Tree survived; some houses pre-1945 are still there today. This cafe used to be one of those old residences.

These cafes are the places you go for the atmosphere in addition to your cup of coffee, which means the price isn't so cheap. This Canal Cafe by the river serves a cup of coffee for 500 yen.

Franchise Coffee Shops
The franchise coffee shop is where you go for some coffee plain and simple. The reasonable ones are, like in the US, are fast food franchises. You may be lucky and find McDonald's selling you a coffee for 100 yen while a promotion, though the regular price of their M (medium) size is 200+ yen.

If you like Starbucks, here's good news: they are all over in Japan. The cup sizes are smaller and they have a smaller size we don't have in the US. Pricing and menu items are reasonably close to their counterparts in the US.

I've never been in Starbucks in Japan so I can't tell how they are like but I often use these franchise shops of either Dotor Coffee ドトールコーヒー (doe-tor-kohee. Coffee is pronuced "Ko-hee" in Japanese), the price range for a cup of regular coffee is 200~300 yen; or Pronto or Exelcior Caffe'. Exelcior Coffe' is a division of Dotor mainly serve Italian capcino, it seems a bit more expensive than Dotor and Pronto.

Another franchise you find everywhere is Ko:hi:kan 珈琲館 (kohee-kan, Coffee-kan). It was an early coffee shop franchise, actually around during the kissaten era. They were focused on taste or different beans of coffee even in that time. They changed the business style and now they are close to the lower price coffee shop franchises. However, the prices are a bit higher and remain in the Kissaten range.

One of these franchises can usually be found around major train stations and city areas. There are similar low-priced local coffee shops mostly inside or near train stations. A great thing about these franchise coffee shops is that they serve snacks (pastries and sandwiches, both Japanese style and Western style) and even breakfast meals.

Lately, another type, a so-called Nagoya style of coffee shop, is becoming popular. At this kind of coffee shop they serve coffee with some kind of snack or sweet for the coffee price, the service is called "Mo-ningu モーニング (morning)". So mainly it's coffee (or soft drink) with a snack or sweet offered during breakfast hours. So the trend of this type came to be. A franchise "Komeda Coffee コメダ珈琲" is the major one so far. But as far as I remember, all kissaten in Tokyo had the Morning Service. It is the same as the Nagoya style, I think so I don't know why they use the word Nagoya for the service.

Another reasonable off shoot of the coffee shop is the family restaurant, ファミレス (fami-resu) is its nickname in Japan. The style is similar to an American diner. Actually, Denny's was an early one and is still one of the dominating fami-resu franchise chains in Japan. What you expect in a fami-resu isn't much different from a family restaurant in the US. They give you the menu with big photos (but the dishes are Japanese style). The layout of the tables and chairs are quite similar to the ones in the US. However, they offer something unique and nice: a self-service "dorinku baa ドリンクバー (drink bar)". You can have any kind of soft drinks, coffee and tea, as much as you want.

Some fami-resu places set a time limit for orders to prevent customers hanging around too long. Some of my friends bring their work to those fami-resu; they drink coffee while working on their PC, finish the work, have a casual meeting with clients, and eat dinner then go home. I wouldn't recommend this as an everyday practice, but it's not a bad idea! The space is bigger or convenient than a hotel room.

The drink bar service is also common in internet-cafes or manga-cafes. Japanese net cafes are usually small rooms or bays with a PC. The individual rooms are very small. I'm not big even by Japanese standards but I can't sit comfortably in that small confined space for too long. Usually, these net-cafe places carry tons of manga books. People read mangas or use a PC as needed, and are charged by the hour. Some manga cafes or the manga areas in net cafes are more open space than the rooms with a PC. In these places, you can use a PC or read manga (in Japanese though) and have access to the drink bar. Some places have a good coffee machine. In fact their coffee aren't bad for the service and price.

The above video is a commercial guide of a net cafe near Himeji City, a typical layout for a net/manga cafe.

Old School "Slow Coffee" Brewing New Interest

In Japan, like pretty much everywhere else around the globe, people love their coffee. In the big city, in the small village, at train stations and in department stores, coffee shops are all over the place in Japan. There are slick new ones, chain shops, express coffee lanes, coffee and dessert places, foreign-inspired shops, and specialty establishments like the Robot Station Café pictured here.

My favorite is probably the neighborhood coffee shop, where the space is intimate, the décor is charming and the signs are handmade.

It’s the personal touch, a one of a kind vibe they have that makes me feel special and appreciated. I might know the place well, or I might be stopping by for the first time. I love how they greet me as if they know me and have been waiting for me to come in, drop my shopping bag, and take a moment to just relax in their coffee-infused oasis.

I will always remember this experience. Once I walked into an Osaka coffee shop on a busy street corner, and was surprised to see what looked like a coffee bar. About ten mini personal sized decanters were lined up in a row, each with a ceramic cone filter positioned over it, a coffee filter inside that, and freshly ground coffee inside that. The barrista wore a white apron as if he was a chef. I took a seat and watched him slowly pour steaming hot water from a kettle into each filter. When the decanter was full, he poured the fresh brew into a coffee cup and served a customer. The smell of coffee filled the room. It was heavenly. That afternoon I sipped the best cup of coffee I may have ever tasted in my life! And the caffeine buzz! I recall seeing stars and patterns while being amped up on that coffee…

Life in the big city usually means going for a quick cup of coffee. Starbucks, Tully’s, Doutor, Caffé Veloce, and others exist to make your visit (and your coffee) quick and efficient. The “slow coffee” shops I didn’t have time to look for. I think they are usually tucked away down a side street or easily passed over because they are usually not flashy places. But they are around! I have never tried it but during my next visit to Japan will ask the locals where such a coffee place can be found. I am sure someone will be glad to let me know.

Those filters they used in the neighborhood coffee shops in Japan were always curious to me. A few months ago I decided to would be fun to recreate that super fresh just-brewed coffee experience – even though I have two electric coffee makers. The coffee made by my machines taste great, due to the good organic coffee I buy, but there is still something unique and different about coffee that is freshly brewed by hand, not brewed by a machine. So I searched on the internet for some photos, and found a few. Some filters (or drippers as they call them) are glass, others are ceramic none are plastic...).

I discovered an item called the Hario V60 Dripper. Sounded good! Maybe it was old school, but with a high tech, modern design. (It looks like NASA designed it) Even with all the fancy electric coffee makers out there, this manual coffee maker is selling well today. That's interesting. Reviewers on Amazon.com rave about it. I almost ordered one on Amazon but elected instead to place an online order from Intelligensia Coffee in Chicago. (I ordered some of their whole bean coffee at the same time). The Hario white ceramic filter cost US$ 23.00.

My Hario arrived in the mail a few days later. I was so surprised. I hadn’t seen the box before. Made in Japan! Not only that, my Hario came directly from Japan.

Japanese is written all over the box, and my filter even has a Japanese bar code on it! The genuine article!

Exactly what I needed to have my own Japanese neighborhood coffee moment at home. It works beautifully. So now anytime I want to, I use this to make myself some amplified super coffee.

Seems there is much Japanese engineering that goes into the design of this filter. Now if I could only learn to make the cool designs with frothy milk…