From giant coffee chains to small individual cafés, we can choose our favorite taste, style and experience. According to a booking.com survey, Melbourne, Australia was voted as the world’s best coffee city. We are lucky to live in this city, with good coffee just around the corner.
Around the corner in Japan, there is Starbucks. Starbucks opened their first coffee shop in Ginza, Tokyo in 1996 and now has more than 1,000 cafes throughout Japan. Tottori prefecture gained its first Starbucks last month. There are 47 prefectures in Japan and Tottori was the last prefecture without a Starbucks. Japanese people love to queue. There were more than 1,000 people queuing in front of the new Tottori Starbucks on the morning of its grand opening. The first person in line had been queuing for 18 hours…
In Japan, Starbucks is called "Sutaba" and it is more than a coffee shop or a meeting place. Starbucks has established the first successful coffee merchandising brand in Japan. There, people get excited about limited editions of a tumbler or mug. In Australia, the majority of customers in Starbucks are tourists or Asian students.
The current coffee movement, referred to as the third wave, is about the pursuit of high quality. This quality includes the origin of beans, fair trade, ecology and organic beans. It is not only about the taste but also about the whole experience and the social and environmental impact of drinking coffee.
The history of the Japanese tea ceremony developed over a long period of time. The Japanese tea ceremony is about more than just drinking tea - it is an aesthetic and a spiritual experience.
You might taste coffee differently when you drink it from a different cup.
Coffee is culture. It is evolving.
