Coffee in Tokyo: single serving brews

Tokyo is definitely not hurting for its share of coffee shops. There's a Starbucks or two or three (or five or six) strategically placed around the busiest train stations. Even if you can't find one, there are the look-alikes. I like to call them that because the logo is similar to Starbucks in that there is a circle and the name of the shop and the sign is always perpendicular to the building so that as you are walking by on the street, your eyes can't fail to see the coffee shop sign. I'll have to do a special blog on coffee shop signage because it's just so weird to see. I'll have to go back to a strip of street that has 3 or 4 coffee shops in a row where you can see them all together in one photo.

Other shops that I patronize because I know that they have soy milk that I can drink include: Tulley's, Dean & Deluca. I have tried a few other coffee shops but with no soy milk, I have been relegated to having only a plain cup of coffee. I try to avoid those as much as possible.

In this post's accompanying video, I had a plain cup of coffee. I wasn't at one of the cornerstore coffee houses described above, but actually it was New Year's time here in Japan and only the larger restaurants, or the ones located strategically in tourist like places, are open. This happened to be a Teppanyaki place (more in another post) and after the main course, they move you to a dining area away from the chef and the grill. For the dessert course, they seat you at a regular table, with no chef to watch. At this venue, the waitress actually prepared our coffees in front of us. We watched it fresh brew into single serving cup sizes literally right under our noses. This seems to be a popular style of serving coffee here as the patrons can see how fresh the coffee actually is.

After this experience, I noticed in the grocery stores that they sell packages of coffee grinds in single serving, disposable funnels and strainer. The brands I like are Key Coffee and Mon Cafe. These days, I prefer this style since usually, I am only making coffee for one at home. I used to have a cafeterre stove top coffee making contraption from Montreal until I left it on the stove a little too long on an emergency run to the grocery store and came back to the super strong, bitter scent of roasted coffee grinds. Now, I can't get rid of the smell and the coffee it produces doesn't taste as good. I haven't been able to get back to Montreal to replace it. Now, I may just leave it as a relic from my university days and keep buying these single serving coffee grinds with funnel and strainer. It's so convenient and there's nothing to clean up afterwards. I recycle both the grinds and the funnel paper.

Regular Business Hours

Ever Since arriving in Tokyo last year, one of the biggest inconveniences I am finding, is that shops don't actually open until 11 am. That's right, most reputable places of business do not open their shop doors until just before the lunch hour. Most gyms don't open until 9 or 10 am. Although, there is one in downtown Tokyo that is open at 7 am I believe - The Club at Yebisu Garden. But this convenience will cost you. Bigtime. Think - "an arm and a leg". The sign-up administration fee alone may shock you into next week; it may be wise to have a de-fib device at hand just in case. Most mornings in the Ropponggi/Hiroo area (an area of Tokyo brimming with Expats), you see gaijin stay-at-moms/dads in track suits just waiting for their sports club of choice to open by sitting at a Starbucks or other Starbucks-like cafe.

I find this somewhat amusing. By "this", I mean the situation where for all their work ethic and international reputation for working long hours, one of the simplest Western expectations for a good morning working, cannot be fulfilled by early rising Japanese. However, "this" may also be construed as the situation whereby gym-goers, supposed health nuts, are sitting around having coffee while they lay waiting for their morning routine trot on the tread mill.

Other than gyms, most shopping cannot be completed before 11 am either. You have to wait for the department stores and many smaller businesses to open at 11 am or rush back home after a long day at the office to make it before their doors close at 8 pm. The exception to this would be the konbini's and other strategically located businesses near train stations. There are other exceptions but not nearly enough.

Just one of my many idle observations...