Coffee Culture Boom In Japan And Why?
When you travel to Japan you will notice the many coffee shops around the larger areas and towns. Have you ever seen all those fancy latte art designs trending on social media for the past years? There is a huge boom for these shops where tea once clearly dominated the hot beverage market.
Japan is one of the biggest global consumers of coffee at 3rd most in the world where coffee was never a tradition on old Japan. Why is that?
Coffee has been around Japan for centuries and consumed mainly for its caffeine and energy effects. It was brought over by Dutch merchants whom were the only consumers of it. After the Meiji period (1900s) and the openness to foreigners, import of coffee surged. It hit a massive boom after world war2.
The boom has only been recent and whenever Japan’s adopt any kind of non-tradition Japanese food or product, they always embrace and makes it Japanese.
It is the philosophy in discipline of the Japanese, and the consistency of high quality in the foods they create is basically a by-product of this discipline.
This discipline also means Coffee can be brewed in many different ways with slight improvements over a period of time. A good example is the technique of making Tempura in which it was brought over by the Portuguese in the 1600s. Today, Tempura is uniquely Japanese where the process of centuries of improvements has enhance the flavors & techniques and where each region of Japan having their own style.
