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Japanese coffee culture, the symbol of Japanese coffee culture

Published: 2024-11-08 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2024/11/08, The coffee shop in Kyoto is quite charming. After coming out of the Yinge Temple, you can climb a few street corners and climb into the mountains for 20 minutes. There is a Maomao hidden in the mountains, which is a secret shop spread by word of mouth of coffee maniacs. In Shu Guozhi's book "A layman's Kyoto", there is an article "sitting in a Cafe in Kyoto", which mentions cafes in the ancient capital, some of which have been in operation for decades, while others hide in the corners of historic buildings.

Follow the caf é (Wechat official account vdailycom) and found that Beautiful Cafe opened a small shop of its own.

The coffee shop in Kyoto is quite charming. After coming out of the Yinge Temple, you can walk across a few street corners and climb into the mountains for 20 minutes. There is a Maomao hiding in the mountains, which is a "secret shop" spread by the word of mouth of coffee maniacs. In Shu Guozhi's book "A layman's Kyoto," there is an article, "sitting in a Cafe in Kyoto," which mentions cafes in the ancient capital, some of which have been operated for decades, while others hide in the corners of historic buildings, adding some coffee aroma to the ancient capital.

Is Japanese coffee special? Or is it just the coffee shop that is special?

They are all very special, especially when they become the subject of academic research. Merry White, an anthropologist at Boston University in the United States, wrote a book called Coffee Life in Japan.

Why is Merry White interested in Japanese coffee? She pointed out several surprising facts:

1. Japan has the third largest coffee consumption in the world (after the United States and Germany)

2. Brazil, currently the world's largest coffee producer, is actually the result of cooperation between Japan and Brazil in the 19th century.

3. It is common for Japanese to drink coffee not before Starbucks was introduced, but 100 years ago. The first coffee chain in the world was born in Japan.

4.100 years ago, coffee shops have become an important living space in Japan, promoting and creating the modern era of Japanese culture.

If you are not surprised by all this, one more point is that the first cafe opened in Japan has something to do with Taiwan.

The first coffee shop in Japan

Zheng Chenggong, who opposed the Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty, had a younger brother in Japan who had worked as a general manager (translator) in Nagasaki for generations, and his family was very important to the development of Chinese education in Japan. In the mid-18th century, Zheng Yongning, then an interpreter of the shogunate, already knew that the situation was changing. They knew that not only Chinese but also English and French were important foreign languages.

Zheng Yongning has three sons: Zheng Yongbang, Zheng Yongchang and Zheng Yongqing. Cheng Yung-pang participated in the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the cession of Taiwan; Cheng Yung-chang was also in charge of foreign affairs; and Cheng Yung-ching opened Japan's first coffee shop "whether or not Teahouse" in Tokyo in the 21st year of Meiji (1888).

When he was young, Zheng Yongqing first went to study in the United States, enrolled at Yale University, then went to London, and once studied French in Paris. Instead of taking over the family's translation career, the young Zheng Yongqing took a different path, transplanting the cafes he saw in the West to Japan.

At that time, cafes in the West gathered many intellectuals to discuss and share new knowledge. Zheng Yung-ching tried to create a new cultural space in Japan, putting a lot of books, newspapers and magazines in the teahouse, as well as displaying novelty from the West, but the atmosphere at that time was not open, and he was not good at management, and eventually went bankrupt.

The Japanese actually came into contact with coffee earlier than Zheng Yung-ching opened a cafe, but in the past coffee was used as a drug. The earliest record of coffee was the appearance of business books with the Dutch at the end of the eighteenth century. At first, people didn't know how to translate "koffie". They found the words "can", "Ke Fei", "Gu Fei", "Gu Xi" and "Jiaxi". Finally, the Japanese Chinese character was written as "Jiaqing". Later, Chinese adopted a similar usage.

Although Zheng Yung-ching did not succeed, coffee shops in Japan gradually became popular more than ten years after the closure of the teahouse. From the late Meiji era to the early Taisho era, that is, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, cafes sprang up in early westernized cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Kobe.

The first coffee chain in the world

The world's first coffee chain was not Starbucks in Seattle, but the Old S ã o Paulo Cafe (Cafe Paulista) opened by Mizuyolong in 1909. Mizuno was the first generation of Japanese immigrants to Brazil. At that time, Japanese immigrants mainly went to North America to help reclaim wasteland in the west. The diligence of Japanese immigrants spread to the ears of the Brazilian government, hoping to introduce Japanese immigrants to Brazil to reclaim wasteland.

About 10,000 Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in the late 19th century, when the price of Brazilian coffee plummeted, and Shuiyolong seized the opportunity of the times and advised the Brazilian government to promote beans to Japan.

Shuiye Dragon got a large number of free coffee beans from the Brazilian government and opened the first "Old S ã o Paulo Cafe" in Badingmu, Ginza. Because the coffee beans are quite cheap, the coffee is not expensive, attracting many college students and young intellectuals to discuss and stay here.

The coffee shop is not only a gathering place for men at this time. In addition to serving as waiters, educated female literati also go in and out of the coffee shop with men. There is also a hostess department on the second floor of the Old S ã o Paulo Cafe, where the editorial meeting of Qingta, Japan's first feminist literary magazine, was often held in 1911.

Old S ã o Paulo Cafe later opened branches in major cities in Japan, becoming the world's first coffee chain. Due to the opening of the Japanese market, on the one hand, the price of coffee in Brazil has rebounded, saving the coffee industry in Brazil; on the other hand, coffee beans in Brazil are no longer controlled by Western powers, and Japan also has a stable source of coffee beans.

Before World War II, with the increase of coffee population, not only coffee shops, but also the drinks of the general public also added coffee options, and large coffee companies, such as Key Coffee and the internationally renowned Ueshima Coffee Company,UCC Coffee, were also set up in the 1930s. UCC coffee was founded in 1933, has a history of more than 80 years, from the import of raw beans to roasting processing, and later mastered the production chain, directly into the producing area, to adjust the cultivation of tree species, picking process and price management. UCC also invented instant coffee and canned coffee, which affected the drinking habit of international coffee.

Coffee drinking in Japan can be said to be infected by the whole people, from nearby vending machines to supermarkets, although it is not a national movement, the fact that the island countries of East Asia are the third largest market for coffee consumption in the world is surprising in itself. Among Tokyo's population of more than 8 million, there are more than 80, 000 cafes, with a number of cafes on almost every street corner.