Chatei Hatou coffee, Tokyo

At first glance, Chatei Hatou might seem more European than Japanese – the entryway is very Swiss chalet and there are enough porcelain teacups lining the walls to make an English granny proud.  And it’s a coffee shop, not exactly the first beverage you think of in Japan.

But there’s quite a coffee culture in Japan – a visit to Chatei Hatou helped inspire the founder of Oakland’s Blue Bottle Coffee – and it’s much more focused on drip coffee rather than espressos.

Here, the ritual of making a perfect cup of drip coffee is nearly as formalized as a tea ceremony: the barista mounds the ground coffee in the filter over a carafe, then very slowly pours just enough hot water over to saturate it.  Nothing percolates through, not yet.

He leaves to handle other matters – selecting the perfect cup from the wall behind him and pouring some hot water into it to warm it, or carefully measuring some coffee beans to grind.

Then he’s back, pouring more water over the coffee with great concentration, just enough to cause the grounds to bubble up but not overflow.  Eventually, the first drops of coffee fall into the carafe, and after a long while, at least 10 minutes, the coffee is finished.

For D’s drip coffee, this simply needed to be poured into his cup.  I had ordered a mocha, for which the barista had already prepared some cocoa in a small copper pot.  He added a bit of coffee and a dollop of whipped cream before presenting it to me.

After seeing a cafe au lait being made, with frothed milk and coffee poured together into a cup, I sort of wished I had ordered that instead – but my mocha was very good, dark and creamy with just a hint of coffee.

There isn’t really any English spoken here, and Google Translate failed at interpreting the handwritten menu, so be prepared to order off the cuff.  In addition to drip coffee, mocha, and cafe au lait, you can also order English style tea or a cappuccino, though the latter sounded a bit unusual based on what I read online (grapefruit zest and cinnamon stick?).  If you’re hungry, we saw cake and a flan being prepared.

I’m sure there are more options, including different coffee blends.  But rest assured, even if you stick with the simplest order, you won’t be disappointed.

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Tips on finding it: Take Exit 13a from Shibuya station (elevator), turn left upon reaching the street and then left again.  Chatei Hatou is just a few doors up the alley on your left side. Note that they open at 11am – this is not the place to go for your early morning coffee (most other Japanese coffee shops also open in late morning).