Blue Bottle ~ Aoyama

There are decent coffee shops everywhere in Japan, traditionally.  Japan has been the center of coffee culture for a long time, small coffee shops, like cafe, serves Nel-drips, Siphons, paper drips and so on.  Some are individually roasted, developed their own roasting techniques such as far infrared roasting using hard wood charcoal called Binchō-tan.  Japanese style cafe, so called "Kissa ten" , are every corner in town, sometimes middle, of course, not difficult to find.  Certainly, Japan is one of many countries welcomed Starbucks invasion since mid 1990s.  Although the company moved quick and powerful to expand its domination, there are few area they find hard to find strategies and benefits to open the stores due to strongly localized and exclusive "Kissa ten" culture.  

With this story behind, somewhat the third wavers find opportunities to come in to Japan.  In 2015, San Francisco's leading coffee roaster, "Blue Bottle" opens its first rostery & cafe in Kiyosumi-shirakawa, historical part of Tokyo.  People in Tokyo welcomed Blue Bottle open-handed, there were line over line to have a cup of coffee when the cafe opened.  Some says, "waited for 2hrs just for a cup".  
Within a year, they had plan to open the next one in Aoyama, March 2015, then third in Shinjyuku.  

This Aoyama cafe is located cozy, quiet part of Aoyama, near Omote-sando Station, at the second floor of "Cabane de zucca".  Within 3 min distance, there are Shozo Coffee Kiosk, where you may find fine quality Scones and madeleines.  
The layout of Aoyama cafe reminds me of the one in Oakland, W.C. Morse, although W.C. Morse is more spacey and has more natural lights.  Unlike Mint Plaza, unlike Hayes Valley, interior of Blue Bottle seems to have settled with this plane, white and stainless look.  Somewhat this reminds me of a cooking studio, which might be part of their concepts.

I am not yet ready to taste Blue Bottle in Japan.  For me, flavor of Blue Bottle Coffee is made of James Freeman's passion and obsession with coffee.  I still remember flavor of his coffee and his smile.  Personally, I wonder, is there still James' DNA breathing any of new cafes.  It is business, certainly.  However, we still need to keep it in our mind that Tokyo is the town which welcomed "The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf" by lining up hours and hours when it opened in Nihon-Bashi.