Coffee Life in Japan

California Studies in Food and Culture #36

by Merry White

This fascinating book—part ethnography, part memoir—traces Japan’s vibrant café society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan’s coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White’s book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the café in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality , dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in public.

Genres: Japan, Food, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Urban Studies, Food History, History

237 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2012

Reviews

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason one tends to associate Japan with a tea culture and not coffee. Oh the misleading power of assumption. For those who shared this reviewer's ignorance of Japanese coffee culture, this could be an interesting work to peruse.

Written in an academic style but accessible to a tenacious reader, this book takes a look at the café society in Japan in the past 130 years and how coffee has helped to shape Japanese society in different ways. It might seem far-fetched yet coffee has played a much greater part in 'modern-day' Japan than you could imagine.

As befitting an academic book, the author has clearly done their homework and a multitude of reference sources and notations are provided for the reader's own reference. After a comprehensive introduction to this relatively 'obscure' subject and an interesting overview about Japan's cafés, the next chapter is the curiously-titled 'Modernity and the Passion Factory.' where jazz, modernity, empowerment of women and cultural clashes all enter the mix.

Japan embraced coffee, made its own coffee emperors and started to make a contemporary Japanese coffee and, of course, an entire coffee culture and counter culture at the same time. Rituals were formed, rules developed, traditions strengthened and no doubt Unchangeable things slowly changed. All due to the humble coffee bean and its brew.

Certainly if you have the patience and the interest, this book will certainly give you a lot of food for thought, a lot of new knowledge and maybe a whole new perceptive to Japanese culture as a whole. The book is low on fripperies like colour photographs and infographics but high on information. A book you might need to focus on - which is no bad thing - rather than casually flip through. A book you might want to sit down in a comfy chair with, a cup of tea, oops, coffee at your side and a bit of time…

An interesting book, not everyone's cup of tea (oops, you don't tend to refer to everyone's cup of coffee) perhaps but worthy of a read if you are interested in society changes, history, philosophy, gastronomy or just piling in bits of knowledge to the old grey matter for good measure.

Coffee: Life in Japan, written by Merry White and published by University of California Press. ISBN 9780520271159, 243 pages. Typical price: GBP16. YYYY.


// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this with the expectation of an ethnographic text on coffee and cafes in Japan, and that's pretty much what I got. It is dry and academic at times, but interesting nonetheless. Full disclosure: I found this book in the citations of the Wikipedia article for coffee jelly, and I bought it because I really like Japanese cafes, because they don't necessarily serve espresso (bleh!). It was really interesting to read it and kind of compare it mentally with past experiences in Japan, and also it depresses me because there are no good coffee shops where I live...*sob*

The historical review of cafes and "coffeeways" in Japan was fascinating--spanning from the 1600s, with introduction of coffee from the Dutch and Portuguese, to the opening of the first cafes in the 1880s, the beginning of the Brazilian export trade, and the beautiful thing that is pour-over coffee, which apparently is a trend now in the U.S. It helps to have some familiarity with Japanese history when reading this book, though. I definitely feel that I got more out of it than if I had no prior knowledge, because the author does not go too deeply into events mentioned in passing; the book is fairly short, and it is not the author's intent to write a historical analysis.

There is a short annotated list of cafes after the last chapter, but only for Tokyo and Kyoto. No Osaka ones! I will have to look for at least one of the Kyoto ones then, it's closer to Osaka. It also has an index and a bibliography, both of which are helpful if interested in further reading.

Going to go make coffee jelly now, with gelatin though, because I ran out of kanten (agar).

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and fascinating dive into the world of Japanese culture through the lens of coffee preparation and drinking. Japan is so heavily associate with tea (fairly enough), but this book explores its societal cousin. The author writes as a cultural anthropologist, so it can feel a little repetitive, due to the nature of how proofs are explained in anthropology versus popular science literature. That being said, each section is its own little vignette into different aspects of coffee culture as it developed in Japan. If you like coffee, or the idea of owning a little coffee shop with dedicated regulars, you'd enjoy this book.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a super interesting book. Japan is one of the world's major coffee consumers and has a pretty unique history and culture of coffee.

The author does a good job in covering both this historical and social aspects that make Japan's coffee scene unique as well as how coffee unseated tea as the caffeinated beverage of choice in Japan.

I do think it could have stood to be a little expanded. The book mentions Starbucks quite often but doesn't spend much time on how western chains have fit into Japan's existing coffee landscape.

The second complaint I have is that this book is clearly written by someone who has spent a lot of time in Kyoto. Most cages mentioned are from Kyoto, Tokyo does get a fair bit of time but there is very little from other parts of Japan.

I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in Japanese culture and history or the culture of coffee.

[Richard Janzen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Academic style of writing. Even though I found the topic very interesting, and learned a lot about the coffee history and culture in Japan, I had to work hard to get through the book. I don't think this is the for the casual reader. It was worth the read for me, as it brought back memories of numerous Japanese who meticulously made cups of coffee for me, the most fascinating method was the siphon method. I will look for more interesting cafes in Japan on future visits!

[Annie Arri · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this for thesis research, studying the consumption of coffee in different cultures, went in not knowing much about Japanese coffee culture. I found it fascinating, a bit dense at times, but I think White’s template for analysis of consumption and production will be useful for me.

[Yisu Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

一本研究咖啡如何进入日本当代生活的小书。从东京的第一件咖啡店「可否茶馆」（由一名台湾男子郑永庆创办），到巴西-日本贸易带来的大量咖啡豆，使价格大幅降低，咖啡最终变成了大众饮品；以及咖啡如何塑造公共空间和调和日本的现代性。很多有趣的小知识。缺点当然就是并不深入。我很期待分析日本和巴西关系：移民、种植业、拓殖（日本劳工去到巴西很大程度上填补了废奴之后的劳动力短缺，但为何是咖啡？），这里不太令人满意。第四章对于职人master文化也颇有洞见。总之，很有意思。

[Delfin Labao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Going to Japan in the spring. Kyoto! Besides matcha the coffee culture in Japan is amazing 😉

[AaronL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully evocative and wide-ranging look at cafe culture and history in Japan. Anthropological, celebratory and passionate.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read. I work in a cafe. White was able to accurately point out cafe culture stuff that I've been vaguely aware of. A big compliment.

[Hōkan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good. And, thank goodness for excellent local libraries.

[Colin Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great little read about Japan's history with coffee.
A bit breezy and light with it's cultural ideas, it still presents some interesting insights into the role coffee and cafes play in Japan.
It also describes some fascinating cafes, which will be useful to anyone who loves coffee and is heading to Japan.

[GustafR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense and fascinating anthropological study of coffee culture in Japan, and how the various locations/cafes to consume coffee is formed by the context and needs of the surrounding society. Have implications far beyond either Japan or coffee. I'm still thinking about it regularly, three years after first reading it. Highly recommended!

[Santiago Giraldo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on coffee in Japan!

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the topic, but found the writing style a bit of a slog.

[Robert Hudder · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was interesting and made me think about my relationship to cafes.