Coffee Life in Japan

This deeper exploration of coffee culture in Japan, a place we all associate with tea, is an interesting and surprising read. The author’s time in Japan serves as the backbone for exploring aspects of gender, perfectionism, and how the cafe in Japan helps people stay punctual.

While one probably associates tea drinking with Japan more than coffee, Japan is now the third-largest coffee-consuming country in the world, surpassed only by the USA and Germany. Written by an anthropologist, White’s book serves as both an ethnography and a history of coffee life in modern Japan. Coffee came later to Japan than it did to Europe, being introduced only in the later nineteenth century. Here you will learn how coffee came to be associated with global modernity in Japan as well as how Japanese cafés came to serve a key role as centers of urban sociability and for… show more.