Coffee shops in Itabashi are crowded with unique and well-known coffee shops.

Along with the delicious and aromatic coffee, there is a unique culture and individuality nurtured by the city and its people.

Can the Toei Mita Line and the Tobu Tojo Line, both of which cross Itabashi Ward, each have a color that can be called the culture of their respective lines? What kind of color is it?

It would surely be interesting to visit coffee shops in ITABASHI while thinking about such questions.

A small journey on the "Toei Mita Line", a journey around a cup of coffee, is about to begin.

We want to be your family coffee shop, your go-to coffee shop.

My father, Toshio Iwasaki, worked at a restaurant and then at a well-known coffee shop before joining Doutor Coffee, which was still a small company at the time. As a founding member of the company, I was involved in all aspects of the foundation of the current franchise, including menu development, store development, manual creation, and employee training. Even the popular "Milano Sando A" was developed by me through repeated prototyping. Later, I became the head of the "Doutor Café Management Institute," which was established by Doutor to expand its business. I have trained about 300 people, including managers of Doutor and Cafe Colorado.

I visited farms overseas to observe cultivation, toured cafes in Europe, and studied many other things under the president's order. I wanted to dispel the conventional wisdom of Japanese coffee shops, which are dark, have difficult masters, and require quietness. The concept of a bright, easygoing café on an Italian street corner lives on at Bernini's. The shop opened in 1999, so it has been open 24 hours a day.

You opened the restaurant in 1999, so that makes it 24 years ago. It was really tough in the beginning, but strangely enough, I was not in a hurry. I had been teaching others for a long time, and now it was up to me to do it myself. I was happy that I was able to come this far by putting it into practice myself. I knew that what I had taught them was not wrong.

Kenichi Iwasaki, my son, was busy working for a trading company, but six years ago he made up his mind to join the store. I love coffee, and I wanted to take over the store eventually. Since then, I have studied hard and now I am in charge of roasting, but other than how to operate the machine, I have not been taught anything specific about making coffee taste good or secret recipes. Except for the theme of "making coffee that is uniquely Bernini.

Even now, in my daily conversations with my father, I ask him, "What is Bernini's coffee? What is Bernini coffee? I keep thinking about it every day.

What is a typical Bernini coffee?

It is difficult to put it into a few words, but one of the main concepts is coffee that is easy to drink, that you never get tired of drinking, that is, coffee that is healthy for you, and that you can buy the beans, brew it at home, and drink it at home. If it is not easy to brew and tasty without being a craftsman, people will not be able to drink it at home anymore.

That's why we don't use special equipment to brew coffee in our store. We don't use ordinary paper drip, ordinary drippers, or anything out of the ordinary, and the counter is open and visible so that anyone can see how we brew.

A coffee shop is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and if you are not pleased the first time, you will not be the second or third time. For this reason, the first thing that is important is "good coffee. High-quality beans, proper roasting, and freshness are the three most important things, and they come before whether the coffee tastes good or not. We always work with "good coffee" in mind, and that is what keeps Bernini's quality.

That's why the store is full of professionals. If there is a question there, I will answer anything and I don't hide anything. I don't have anything to hide. I tell anyone to ask me anything. I am sure that I know more about coffee than anyone else.

We work diligently every day and hope to become a store that will eventually become a source of pride for the residents of Itabashi Ward. I want to be able to boast to others that Itabashi has a good coffee shop, even if it is not so well known.

A Shop Owner's Journey Through Coffee Opens Up Possibilities for the Region and Coffee

Ryota Nakagawa (a.k.a. Viva-san)

When I was a child, I used to watch my father grind coffee in the mill and often helped him because it looked so much fun. I would hold the mill between my thighs and turn the handle as hard as I could, and the aroma of freshly ground coffee would waft directly into my nose. That aroma made me love coffee more and more. As I became a junior and senior high school student, I also felt admiration and coolness for coffee in books and movies, so I entered a department of food science at university so that I could study about coffee.

However, when I finally tried coffee after entering the university, I found myself saying, "Hey, what the heck?" (laugh). I couldn't taste it at all, and my health got worse.

I was very depressed because I was confronted with the reality that coffee, which I had longed to try, was not for me. But I couldn't keep looking down, so I gave up on coffee and decided to study tea and milk at university.

Later, after graduating from college, I worked in design-related fields at a publishing company in Jimbocho. There were many coffee shops in Jimbocho, and I had meetings at various coffee shops, but I ordered only "hot milk" because I could not drink coffee. However, the hot milk at one store had a slight aroma of coffee. I asked the owner about it, and he told me that the store prided itself on its coffee, so they put a few drops of coffee in their hot milk as a secret ingredient. It tasted great and I was very impressed. It was the ultimate café au lait for me. After that, every time I went to that store, I asked them to gradually thicken the coffee in the hot milk, and eventually I was able to drink coffee without milk.

That experience opened the door to coffee, which I had always thought I couldn't drink. My love for coffee then overflowed like a flood, and I began to drink coffee all the time. As I began to drink a variety of coffees, I realized that there were coffees that suited my body and coffees that didn't, and that this apparently had something to do with how they tasted.

After that, I decided I wanted to work in a coffee-related field, so I changed jobs at a major coffee company, working in store design and marketing while taking time off in my private life to travel to coffee-producing regions. Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Hawaii, Thailand, etc. 、、、、 Little by little, I began to understand the international issues surrounding coffee, such as the environment and economy, as well as the circumstances and background of coffee plantations. One of the answers to this question was to help spread the word about the value of properly grown coffee, to share the value of coffee, and to give back to the farmers so that they can continue to enjoy delicious coffee for years to come. I began to think that I would like to help spread "sustainable coffee" so that people can enjoy delicious coffee for many years to come. At such a time, I met an advertising agency that considered coffee as a "media" and wanted to work on coffee with an unprecedented idea, and I became involved in coffee as a "coffee creator".

Coffee is often used as a communication tool because of its familiar and everyday existence, but it also demonstrates its ability to connect people to people, people to things, people to companies, people to society, and many other forms of communication through its diversity and low hurdles.

VIVA COFFEE opened in April 2021, in the midst of a declared state of emergency. We mainly sell beans, but you can also enjoy it as a café at the counter or in a small space. That is why we call ourselves "Kakuuchi," meaning "home-roasted coffee shop. Kakuuchi" simply means a space where you can stand and drink at a liquor store, but we coined the term "Coffee Kakuuchi" because we thought it would be interesting if you could enjoy coffee in a familiar atmosphere as if you were at a kakuuchi.

We are often told by customers that it is difficult to reproduce the same taste at home as in a store, so we brew coffee using the "immersion method" so that anyone can easily brew delicious coffee to reproduce the same taste at home as in a store. We will explain the process as needed, so please feel free to ask for help. We hope you will enjoy our coffee easily and deliciously at home.

We have about 10 kinds of coffee beans that are always fresh and roasted to bring out the best in each bean. Although it is a luxury, roasting a small amount of beans in a large roasting machine produces coffee beans that are fluffy and delicious to the core.

In addition, the taste of the same coffee varies depending on the container. This is because the amount of information about the coffee that the receiver (drinker) can catch changes. In order to catch as much of the gentle aroma of coffee as possible, a wine glass with a wide mouth is the best choice. Furthermore, coffee is a warm drink, so the wine glass must be heat-resistant. The element of tasting wine through the sense of smell is very important.

A wooden handle in the shape of a coffee bean is attached to the entrance door of the store. Just as the color of coffee beans changes when they are roasted, we look forward to seeing the bean-shaped handle change in color over time as people's hands touch it.

Coffee salons in Europe attracted a variety of people, including artists, writers, and musicians, and eventually a culture was born and developed. I opened a store in my hometown of Takashimadaira because I wanted to create a place where people from all walks of life could gather naturally, where something could be born, and where I could slowly become a part of the community. I hope that as people come here, they will gradually realize how interesting and deep coffee is.

I want to be the kind of store where a cup of coffee spins various thoughts and feelings.

Yuichi Okada

I was always a tea drinker. I had the impression that coffee was bitter, heavy, and made my stomach hurt. Then one day, on my way home from work in Jimbocho, I happened to walk into a cafe and was shocked. What? This is coffee, too? I thought to myself. It was a very famous roaster who now sells single-origin specialty coffee, and that was my first encounter with "shallow roasted coffee.

That was my first encounter with "shallow roasted coffee," which led me to visit three or four famous cafes on my days off. I visited various shallow roasteries, asked the baristas for their recipes and showed me how they brewed their coffee, and tried it at home. Actually, the Toei Mita Line is home to many cafes that are called famous. After deciding to open my own store, I went to roasting seminars and attended cupping events held by roasters to further study the taste.

Now at the store, we have carefully selected roasters' beans, mainly shallow roasted and deep roasted, and always have about 10 kinds of coffee beans to choose from, including some that are only available for a limited time, and we carefully hand-drip each cup of coffee. Since the taste of coffee varies depending on the production area and plantation, we mainly use single-origin beans. We also have a "Comparison Set" where you can compare beans from the same country of origin but from different farms, different refining methods, and different roasters. We have about three different blends from different roasters.

Many people have a negative image of shallow roasted coffee as sour or bitter to begin with, but we would like to offer a refreshing, fruity, and later sweet specialty coffee experience for those who are not so fond of coffee. We also sell beans at the store, so please feel free to ask us about your preferences.

My wife's homemade pound cakes have also become a popular item. We have about five to six kinds of cakes, including regular cakes and limited-edition cakes using seasonal fruits, and we do not use any flavoring, but rather use natural sweetness.

I can also suggest a coffee pairing to go with the cake you choose. My wife has been tasting my coffee for a long time, so she has become very accurate in pairing it with pound cake.

People often say that relationships have become less personal these days, but I don't think it's true to say that everyone really dislikes the neighborhood as it used to be called in the past. I myself have lived in Azukisawa for nearly 20 years, during which time the number of condominiums has increased and the number of families has grown. I wanted to create a place that would connect long-time local residents with the new generation of residents.

That is why we are particular about the sound of background music with Tannoy speakers that create warmth and brightness with the use of solid cypress wood for the counter, tables, and chairs.

The aisle is wide enough for people with baby strollers and maternity patients to enter easily, so it is difficult to pass each other when there are two people at the counter, but it is nice to see mothers with their children relaxing for a moment with a cup of coffee.

We have provided space for reading sessions and workshops, invited famous roasters and baristas to give lectures on how to make coffee, and even had a workshop participant from the community incorporate it into an extracurricular activity at an elementary school.

Now we have a wide variety of visitors, from elderly people taking a break during a stroll to young mothers who want to have a little time to themselves between shopping and housework. Our activities as a local salon are expanding little by little.

Text and photographs by Tsutomu Ogasawara

The menus, prices, and other information in this article are current at the time of the interview. Please check each restaurant's website for details.

Special feature on coffee shops 《Tobu Tojo Line Edition》 is

here

.