Alright! Hi guys! It is time to share the first ever Specialty Coffee Shop from my hometown 'Gunma'!! I know none of you has never heard of the name and has no idea where I am talking about! Don't worry Im not even gonna get offended by that! It is evidently not the popular prefecture even you ask Japanese people about this place, some of them might not know the whereabouts. But geographically speaking, it is located just two prefectures above Tokyo toward he North! There is Tokyo, and Saitama ( which is another prefecture between Tokyo and Gunma) and then here we are my hometown 'Gunma'!! So it is actually not that remote to Tokyo!! It will only take you a couple hours by train!! It's bearable right?? Anyways that is a wrap of me explaining a bit of my hometown. Let's jump back into the main topic, so where i was born, I was already aware there wasn't much specialty coffee culture developed. In a place like Brighton where I use to live before, the number of coffee shops was hugely different! People here are still stuck with Starbucks or big chain which is fine and I am hoping this appreciation of specialty grade coffee will be prevailed soon!! However, there is this one little local coffee shop that is in Maebashi!. It is a city and I live in this town since baby, It is called ' 13 Coffee Roasters'!! I noticed this place when I was still in Brighton, I was searching some good coffee shops back in my hometown, so once I get back, I still enjoy high quality coffee that meets my standard!! haha Then I checked this place on Google Map and I was like ' Yes!! ' coz it is actually not too far from our house!! So one day I came down here to check their coffee!! Look at the first pic! That is the coffee shop look from outside! It looks really cool!! It is all white based painted all around the wall. And it is hard to see, but this shop is really tiny, you could almost say it is a bigger version of coffee stand. In fact, there is one counter table with a couple of seatings and a long chair outside, that is all! Nice and small scale which I quite like about. As soon as you stepped in, what you see in front of you is the selections of several single origins, their house blends named after the some famous mountains we have in Gunma, Akagi, Haruna, Myogi. I this it is a cool idea to take the name from those aspect!! They offer each one of the coffee brewed with french press for tester! You get to try whichever the one you fancy that you would like to give a taste. Also those beans are freshly roasted on-site as you can see in the picture and the name of the shop! In this small scale shop, it also roasts coffee within the site which is crazy! it has got small scale roaster, so it doesn't produce large batch size but seems to be big enough!!! At the back of the shop, there is a storage room where the green beans are kept at the ideal temperature just like a wine seller so that the beans are in the goof condition to be roasted each time!! The staffs seem to be really passionated with what they do and it is great for me as I can ask questions if I have. Surprising enough of me though, I haven't stayed there to drink a coffee yet! One, it is small and interactive and all, but sometimes you just wanna chill out. haha ! I will have a go one day! But I did buy a single origin coffee from there and brewed it at home with V60 it was quite good coffee! I haven't got to try many coffees since I am back in Japan, but id say this is one of the best one I tried! And I am glad that there is a decent coffee shop nearby and also does professional roasting!!! It's not really a place where I can highly recommend coz its quite far unless you start living in Gunma, but it might still be worth coming to Gunma I can show you around maybe!! lol Right, that is all for this ! I hope to put something up soon again ! Cheers!! Y
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Well, well well, I am back here again share another good coffee shop I visited the other day. It was a different time to the last post when I was in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago, I went to this one last weekend when I also had a chance to visit Tokyo I had loads of hours to kill before seeing my friends from the UK. So I jumped on the train to tokyo and after a few hours of journey, I got to this area called, 'Kiyosumi Shirakawa'. It was alright journey but bit of complicated train, tubes. It was super confusing as I haven't used it for ages, but managed to make it to the nearest station. I was gonna chill out at the blue bottle coffee in the same are before this, but it was temporarily closed for new look! I had to come to this shop straight which is fine after all since I wanted to come here so bad. It is called ' All Press Espresso' in Tokyo. I have been planning to visit this place, so I am so glad I finally had a chance!! When I was in Brighton, I had a day out to London for coffee trip quite a while ago, there was allpress in London as well, but I didn't get to go! That also means this coffee shop doesn't only exist in Japan, it was founded in New Zealand which I am so interested to go to find coffee scenes. Since then, it got really successful until today, ended up stepping into Tokyo, London and some other countries, too!! The success they made is really impressive!! I saw the story of how they found this location on the website, it says it took them over 2 years just to find the right location for the business before cracking on with anything!! I could obviously see that as soon as I had it in my eyes, this place couldn't be any more right!! Literally the perfect spot for what they try to offer. It is located in sort of a resident area and this wooden warehouse looking building all of sudden pops out!! It is an absolutely beautiful outside look of the shop!! Once you stepped into the shop, it was an amazing atmosphere, friendly environment. The wooden base wall makes the whole place really warm and welcoming. Coffee retail is one the left side of the stop on the way to the roaster. It is a roastery as well, so they told me if I remember right, roast every Tuesday and Friday! I was so intrigued by the roaster they have. It looks so gorgeous!!!! For the work station, it separates espresso bar and till area where they prepare food for customers as well!! Well-organised, clean coffee area. Espresso machine ; La Marzocco Linea PB 2 groups Grinder ; Victoria Arduino Mythos I obviously ordered a flat white just standard typical coffee choice. Well, the flat white was a classic taste, I would say light chocolate and nutty notes with a balanced acidity there and smooth mouthfeel! I felt like paid more money that I would do if i order the same coffee in London, but clearly the price in Tokyo must be more expensive then! haha But it was really worth it and I wanted to have another one but I saved it for another coffee shop! Anyways, it means I will introduce a new one to you all in the next post! so Please keep your eyes on it!! Cheers!! Y |
アーカイブズ
10月 2019
カテゴリ |