Hello, beautiful everyone. It's Mayumi. I hope you are doing fabulous.
Last weekend, I went to Tokyo Coffee Festival. It was held at United Nations University along with Farmer's Market which they have it every weekends.
Coffee Festival was held in September once. I enjoyed it a lot. The positive feedback for the event was massive so they decided to do one again.
This event is organized by one of the coffee influencers/barista from Glitch (in Jimbocho).
His activity involves not only to make and serve good coffee but to spread the coffee culture in Japan and inspire them to join and enjoy the "true" coffee culture: by "true," he meant "not the third wave coffee."
To spend time at coffee shops doing some work, reading books, chatting, chilling, thinking, studying, and watching people is part of a big culture and lifestyle especially in the US, Scandinavian countries, Australia, and maybe in the UK as far as I know and have experienced.
Before I go straight into my coffee festival experience, I would like to mention a little bit about Japanese coffee culture.
Japan has its own coffee drinking culture called "kissaten (喫茶店)" which literally means smoke and drink (coffee/tea). This is a very different coffee drinking culture from many western cultures. I haven't been to many kissaten but it usually has quite a retro vibe with old salary men in there. Kissaten is still popular in Japan but more and more "modern" style coffee shops are getting popular and accepted especially among young generations.
Some of the differences I notice between kissaten and coffee shops are: the roast, atmosphere and customers. Kissaten often serves thick, rich, dark roasted coffee, while coffee shops I went have more light to medium roast tendency. Atmosphere was also something different I noticed. Coffee shops are more chill and easy to go by myself and sit there for 3 or more hours, while I may not go to kissaten often to do so. When you go in, you will see that there are many salary men doing the "actual" business meeting in kissaten, smoking or you will see regular visitor(grandpa) reading books. It is not something you would see at coffee shops. You see more people on their laptop or people taking Instagram photos just like I do at coffee shops. Quite hipster, yes. There have different customer base, generation wise but one quality content they have in common is: the purpose. People go there not only to enjoy coffee but to do their own thing yet sharing space and moment. Chilling, watching people, studying, doing business, talking to baristas. "Coffee culture" is where people spend their quality time doing whatever they want, with whoever they want, drinking coffee. It is part of their living cycle. I think it's just like brushing teeth, going to work, or cooking. It is part of your lifestyle.
Before I embarrass myself saying something totally stupid, I would stop, and here are some of the photos from the Tokyo Coffee Festival.
This picture below is one of my favorite shots I took. This is exactly what I was saying, "people doing their own thing with coffee."
I didn't eat this curry. It's somebody's. I took a picture because it was there and it looked pretty. *cough cough sorry.
This is Yuji who organizes the Tokyo Coffee Festival. He is a very cool person and inspirational! Thank you for creating such an awesome place for people to get together for coffee and chill.
Art next to art.
Oh my goodness this mug is so cool! It literally says "Fxxk it." I love it. Super hipster. I love hipster everything. It is amazing. I really really want to get a very sarcastic mug. Please do let me know if you know any!
I am truly sorry for talking many photos of you! I don't know who you are but you were rocking it.
They sell 5 mini coffee tasting cups for ¥1000 ($10) so my friends and I got those tickets to try out five different coffee.
I had
▷Trunk Coffee (Nicaragua)
▷Merry Time (Ethiopia)
▷Single Origin Roasters (Kenya)
▷27 Coffee Roasters (90+)
▷PNB Coffee (served by this beautiful human creature so forgot which beans)
Trunk coffee was definitely my favorite one I tried on that day. Maybe it's because Trunk was the first one I tried but it was very good. PNB was also very nice. It had the fruity scent/taste with perfect depth to it in the beginning. I tried 90+ for the first time and it was a new experience to me. I am not good enough to explain the difference in my own words but it was good. haha It was definitely 90+ (it means they only use really good quality beans).
I have to say that my friend and I were on caffein high and we were so happy and excited the whole time. It was a lot of fun.
Have you been to an event like this? Or were you there? :)
If you also love coffee and if you are the ones who enjoys coffee culture, please where your opinion/passion! I would love to hear your coffee story.
Below are a bit extra. After we drained ourselves into coffee, we found this really cute aroma oil pop up shop. They had aroma oil but they also had beautiful jewelry so we had to stop by. The shop is called "Her."
I love his smile! He was so nice and friendly!
My friend and I bought some really special gem earrings :) Not the ones above. They are very unique and creative. Each stones are different and has different meanings. I love those kinds of things. I cannot wait to show you what I got ;)
It went longer than I have planned. But I really hope you enjoyed reading!
How do you think of Tokyo Coffee Festival? Does anyone who read my blog live in Tokyo? If so, tell me your favorite coffee shop <3
Thank you so much for taking your time to read my blog. It really means a lot and makes me happy because this is something I truly enjoy and love doing.
I will see you again soon ;)
Much love,
Mayumi
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