Bama Le Live Coffee Shop on the Street of Ginza

Wang Xiaopeng

Top international fashion brands can be seen everywhere on Ginza, Japan's busiest commercial street. Walking along Ginza's bustling street to the area of Rochome, turning into a small road, a black shop with bamboo curtains appeared in front of you, which seemed a little out of place with the dizzy fashion colors around it.

That's why even office workers hurrying past with briefcases can't help but stand outside for a few minutes to find out.

The English signboard at the door shows that this is a Lohuo coffee shop with hemp seeds, sesame oil and other health ingredients as raw materials in Bama Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi, China. Pushing open the door, waiters dressed in traditional Yao costumes greeted him with smiles. Old Chinese tables and chairs, old wooden bars and handfuls of dried hemp leaves hanging from the roof seem to immediately bring people into the Bama village full of strong original ecological flavor.

On November 1, 1991, the 13th meeting of the International Society of Natural Medicine held in Tokyo recognized Bama, Guangxi, China as the "hometown of longevity in the world". Nearly 20 years later, Bama longevity culture quietly appeared in the first commercial street of this international city with the carrier of "Bama Happy Coffee Shop", adding a different color to it.

The chief chef of Bama Le Huo Coffee Shop said that they not only provide healthy food, but also convey the wisdom of "health preservation" in Chinese food culture. In Bama, from children to the elderly, people often drink porridge made with hemp seeds or vegetables fried with sesame oil.

Japanese hemp research expert Akasaka Rongzhi said that hemp is mainly known to everyone in Japan in the form of seasoning, but it is the first coffee shop to use it as a cooking material. Akasaka said that using sesame oil and hemp seeds for dishes and desserts seems to conflict with Japanese cuisine based on the principle of using less oil, but it is also an opportunity to change people's habits. Eating more sesame oil can prolong life. Studies have shown that more than 80% of sesame oil ingredients are essential fatty acids that cannot be synthesized by the human body. Regular consumption can moisten intestines and reduce blood lipids; hemp seeds contain a large amount of anti-acidification substances, which can resist oxidation and anti-aging.

The coffee shop serves morning tea from 9 a.m., featuring hemp porridge, hemp radish cake, hemp bean bag, etc.; in the lunch set, sesame oil soup with seasonal vegetables and desserts, so that Chinese health dishes incorporate elements of Japanese cuisine; and dinner menu, hot and sour hemp soup, hemp steamed egg soup and hemp roast chicken and other dishes are pure Chinese elements.

Open kitchen, let busy chef also become a scenery. In the lazy afternoon time, order a sesame oil soup, the hemp leaves on the head let people trance, the whole person seems to escape back to rural life.

In Bama, man and nature are inseparable, and the harmonious and unified picture scroll makes visitors admire it. The Bama birthday stars who live in this landscape not only drink hemp soup, but also insist on working every day. The owners of bama coffee shop want to spread this idea of "living", that is, healthy and sustainable lifestyle, and use this opportunity to put bama on the world stage.