If you ever learned Japanese in University or in a language school, you will probably remember about the word “kissaten” from the textbook Minna No Nihongo, which was used to refer to a café or a coffee shop… It made my Japanese friends literally laugh to tears when I used it in a casual conversation… This word which I used to refer to a Starbucks or any other trendy café (and also my way too much polite grammar learned with my cute Japanese teachers) actually made quite a running joke among my friends.
Hopefully for me, my Japanese skills improved since that time but I still use the word “kissaten”… Actually, I use it A LOT and in the right context. A kissaten is literally a coffee lounge/tea room, which is here, a kind of old and traditional coffee shop. Think woodworks, dim lights and velvet… I will let you imagine how far it could be from a Starbucks or a super trendy café like Blue Bottle Coffee…

My deep love for kissaten began in a rainy afternoon of July 2011 (or more exactly a tsuyu rainy afternoon), in Jimbocho, the Tokyo’s used bookstores district. Trying to find a shelter, I get into a small street, looking for a café… Any café would have been fine, I just wanted to keep myself dry a little bit and rest. I ran into a small building, drowned with green foliage. In front of the small entrance, a big Tiki stood guard. I couldn’t read the name in hiragana but I realized it was a cafe and I just got inside. I entered there to find out a completely different world, it wasn’t like anything I encountered in Japan until that time.
I ordered the only thing I could ask at the time, a « ko-hi » (coffee) but I almost got an headache from all the incomprehensible words of the waitress. A man was sitting on a table next to mine and shouted across to her in Japanese. After few words she slightly bowed and left. Few minutes later, my drink arrived: a big glass of a blue beverage with a scoop of ice cream on the top…Absolutely not the coffee I ordered. I started to panic, thinking I couldn’t speak enough Japanese to explain to the waitress that it wasn’t my order, but the man sitting on the next table explained to me in english that he ordered this drink for me instead of a coffee. He told me that it was a pity to come here and not trying that drink. He invited me to his table and I spent a long time, chatting in English with this man in his late fifties wearing small cute round glasses. I didn’t know his name, I didn’t ask. He didn’t ask mine either, even if he was extremely curious about where I came from and what I was doing in Japan.
A long time after this day, every time I came to visit Japan again, I went to this place, hopping to see him again, to talk to him again. A long time after this day, I went there thinking that maybe I’ll meet him again and have the chance to thank him. A long time after this day, I went there regularly with the hope to meet him and tell him about all the places I found thanks to our first encounter. I never saw him again. But I’m still hoping meeting him again one day…

Finally, he will never know that this afternoon we met for the first and only time, when he told me about « kissaten », « junkissa » (« real coffee shop » or « pure coffee shop », I’m not sure how to translate it in English actually…) and history of japanese coffee culture, he opened for me a door on a wonderful world full of leather chairs smoothen by time and fluffy velvet bench, strong coffee, and old woodworks.
At this time my Japanese skills were really limited and I couldn’t find much information on internet in English so I started to hunt for retro cafe every time I traveled in Japan, identifying them by their distinctive front window or entrance and by their outside signs with the few hiragana and katakana I could memorize… The first kanji I actually learned was 珈琲 (coffee) and I was literally trying to find it everywhere!
I groped for kissaten a lot, finding some mostly by chance. If a place looked like a kissaten to me, I would just get inside. I crossed path with a bunch of salarymen, a lot of ojisan and obasan too, and sometimes younger people as well, probably nostalgic of their grand parents’ time. People always get extremely surprised to see me there and I drank way too much of « hotto ko-hi » (hot coffee), as I couldn’t order anything else, not being able of reading a menu without romaji and obviously no English.

Slowly, my love for kissaten could bloom while I learned Japanese language. It made it easier for me to first, drink something else than hot coffee (I could even order food!) and then, to find new places to try using internet. I could finally discuss a little bit with the owners or with the others customers (and trust me, 99% of them were extremely curious about where I came from and how I ended up in the cafe). I spent hours to write about these places on small notebooks, describing them, immersing myself in this atmosphere.
These old coffee stores are for me very special… There are meeting place with old owners and customers, where I can sometimes talk or sometimes just exchange a knowing smile with a younger person ; but also secret cocoon where I can just take time for myself, thinking and writing.

Coffee enthusiasts coming to Japan should definitely, according to me, give a try to these places full of history and savoir-faire. On Internet you can find a bunch of great blogs and websites talking about trendy and cool places where coffee is brewing in Tokyo. And I love to go there as well! But when it comes to traditional coffee shops, even if you can find few articles in english on internet about the most famous kissaten in Tokyo, it’s mostly about the same ones and a lot of nice places are staying unknown for coffee lovers visiting Japan without speaking japanese. So I made up my mind and decided that I’ll write articles to share with people a lot of nice old cafés in Tokyo I had the chance to visit… After all, these places are the roots of the japanese culture now being worldwide famous, so they are worth a visit.
I’ll not write only about traditional coffee shops of course, but I guess it will be a big part of this blog and I hope it will help coffee enthusiasts and Japan lovers to experience Japan in a slightly different way.

See you soon dear reader for the first traditional coffee shop article!

(Did you notice that I didn’t reveal yet the name of my first kissaten? I’m keeping you in suspense!)