Coffee Life in Japan (California Studies in Food and Culture Book 36)
₹2,228.70
This fascinating book—part ethnography, part memoir—traces Japan’s vibrant café society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan’s coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White’s book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the café in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality , dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in public.
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Coffee Life in Japan (California Studies in Food and Culture Book 36)
₹2,228.70
EdM. –
Excellent reading material for those who are interested in the history of coffee and/or Japan. The focus is on the story of coffee and its impact in Japan and the evolution of the cafe, coffee shop. The first few chapters give a good overview of the 1930s cafes as well as the introduction of the beverage to Japan in the late seventeen hundreds. The Japanese took coffee and made it a national drink that is unique to the country. The post war period saw the proliferation of the coffee shop and different varieties such as jazz or theme cafes. The modern coffee shop ( from the seventies to today) offer even more variations even though the the small traditional cafe seems to be the first choice for most. Corporate coffee chains like Starbucks find out what matters to the Japanese consumer is good quality coffee and the blends of different varieties of bean as well as the individual atmosphere of a Japanese cafe. The most interesting chapter is the one concerning Japan and its influence on the international coffee market. The best coffee from Brazil is purchased by the Japanese coffee companies and the price paid influences the second tier price for other beans that are bought by other countries. The book is interesting for history readers also as the author manages to convey a distinct tone for the chronicle of the role of coffee and the coffee shop in twentieth century Japan. The future is bright for the coffee consumer and the cafe proprietor. Note: the Japanese style coffee shop now has come to America in NYC and San Francisco.
Lawrence B –
I have been to Japan a number of time and while I appreciate the effort of the author writing this book, there is really nothing interesting for the common person. There is thick cloud of academic jargon covering everything she writes about. Japanese coffee life is lively and has been actually doing very well since almost 100 years. Most of the innovation and filter coffee trends have been perfectioned in Japan. When Italy developed their espresso culture Japan specialised in pour overs. If you love coffee and you are not a poor university student in need of passing an exam about this theme I recommend you to read the “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee” by James Freeman as an introduction and perhaps the Drift magazine Japan edition (now difficult to find)
SMartinez –
Acheté pour un compte rendu de lecture à rendre, il m’a finalement agréable surprise. Il dépicte l’influence du café ( lieu et espace) sur les relations, les habitudes,ainsi que l’urbain. Il montrz bien que ces cafés sont une vitrine des changements sociétaux, c’est très bien expliqué et facile à lire ! L’auteure fait partie du mouvement comparatiste, vous aurez-donc droit à une vue sur les autres pays d’Europe, ce n’est pas exclusivement sur le Japon, même si elle ne s’en écarte pas si longtemps.
y_tambe –
Coffee and cafe were introduced in Japan from Europe and the United States. Since the linguistic and cultural barriers had prevented the inflow of the foreign coffee culture, it had developed in Japan independently from the Euro-American style. This is the first book that introduced the coffee culture in Japan to the world. The historic-cultural analysis like this book is rarely published even in Japan. I appreciate the author’s “discovery of coffee life in Japan” and this publication.
In this book, however, the golden era of the Japanese coffee is not, nearly not at all elucidated. It was the largest boom in Japan occured during 1970’s-early 80’s. The number of “kissa-ten (cafe in Japan)” was increased more than 120,000 in 1985, and diminished gradually until the bubble burst in 1991 (independently-operated cafes are generally increased associated with hiring slump during economic slowdown and are decreased in good time in Japan). The competition among cafes increased the importance of the discrimination strategy, and it was the driving power for the development of “Jika-baisen-ten (roastery cafe in Japan)”, the cafes specialized to coffee with unique roasting and brewing systems. The lack of the author’s viewpoint on this period is critical, and rather strange. A strangeness is, e.g., that the author introduces Maruyama coffee as the “traditional” cafe in Japan. Maruyama coffee, however, was founded in 1991, the early period of the cafe’-boom after bubble burst, and is usually considered in Japan as the standard-bearer of the new-wave which import the SCAA-related coffee culture. Another strangeness is, e.g., that the author does not mention about Bach Kaffee, which is one of the top-leading of the roastery cafe in Japan founded 1968. Mamoru Taguchi, the founder of Bach Kaffee, is just an owner of a cafe in the downtown in Tokyo, but his theory and instruction for the coffee preparation and cafe management are so spread with his books that he is now (2012-13) the president of SCAJ, the specialty coffee association of Japan. The complete neglect about him is strange as much as if someone would rule out Alfred Peet from the history of coffee in US. I’m afraid the advisers in Japan, not the author herself, may be biased or may have conflict of interests. –Or maybe, simply, the author had captivated by the appearance of the cafes.
Despite the problems, this book is a very good start to understand the unique coffee culture and technology in Japan. This may also give some hints for business to the coffee persons in US, Europe, and so on. I want to see the sequel(s), if the author will publish.
Jay Harper-Levitt –
Great book. Interesting read used for an academic investigation into coffee culture in Japan.