Comment by criddell
8 months ago
I recently heard Craig Mod[1] in an interview. He has walked thousands of miles in Japan and has produced books that document some of what he has seen. The photographs he has published online are beautiful, but I've never seen any of his books so I can't comment on those.
Anyway, in the interview, he talked about places that sound like what you are describing in the first paragraph but he called them kissas.
I'm working on this[0] 2 hr 52 minute interview with Craig about his new book. He makes the point national health care is a big part of what makes this work. There is a safety net, so people are empowered to take more financial risks.
[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/...
Cheap housing surely also contributes. Iirc, apartments in most of Japan are incredibly cheap as a result of a diminishing population and National government level zoning reform.
Here in Australia, we have an incredibly robust system of Public Healthcare, just like japan, but taking financial risks is downright suicidal with our house prices.
Exactly this.
On kissaten - 店 ten is the kanji for "store", though you might also learn 屋 (ya, lit. roof). kissa means consume tea (喫茶), more or less. I didn't notice them on my first visit, I wasn't into coffee then, but they're everywhere and a really nice way to get breakfast (egg toast + siphon filter for a few hundred yen). Not necessarily the best coffee in Japan if you don't like dark roast, but it's often made to order and not out of an urn.
Izakaya I would associate more with drinking and small plates of food, but not necessarily a catch-all for bars.
YMMV I guess, but I found the best coffee at kissatens, and I hate dark roasts. Lots of great, sometimes super tiny, third-wave pourover types, too. But I guess Japanese coffee culture is more about evening consumption since there were many that were open at 10PM or later, but very few open before 10AM.
I can see espresso cafe culture spreading a bit through Japan, with australian style cafes offering great espresso and mixed cuisine on the menu. I think japan/australian cafe culture colliding has been an incredible thing. It's happening in Australia too, where the Japenese aspects of small inexpensive foods are mixing into Japan influenced cafes here.
I think Australia and Japan have a surprisingly symbiotic cafe culture that's betting blurred together.
I recommend Glitch in Tokyo Jinbocho.
I think it's the only place I've been in my life where the coffee actually tastes like the tasting notes say it does. Even when they say "mojito", which was surprising.
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For reference, I’m fairly certain that kissa a shortened version of 喫茶店 (kissaten).
That said, I’m guessing the “jazz izakaya” that gp mentioned would probably just be called a bar or izakaya, possibly with a thematic adjective added.
Yeah "jazz kissa" is an established term. A dying trend, of course, as with all kissas.
Oh, my. I'm scratching my head wondering how this is the first time I have ever heard the word kissas. [0]
[0] https://xkcd.com/1053/
I was aware of Manga Kissas[0], which are a bit more famous in general, I assummed it was a generic extension of the term
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_cafe
"Kissa" just means café, but when you'd use the word is complex.
Basically in Japan Japanese words feel retro or else appropriate for personal and family life, while English words feel clean and modern/corporate/business-y.
So a Japanese word like kissaten gives the impression of somewhere from the 60s that's full of old people and you can't breathe because of all the cigarette smoke. But it also specifically means a coffee shop and not a bar I think, so there wouldn't be alcohol.
I’m fairly certain that it’s a shortened version of 喫茶店 (kissaten).