During the Meiji era, many coffee shops and restaurants roasted their own coffee beans in-house, a practice we now call "house roasting." This was because, compared to today, coffee drinking was not a common practice, coffee establishments were few, and there was little demand for coffee beans.

However, starting around 1911, the number of establishments serving coffee gradually increased, leading to a rise in demand for coffee bean roasting services.

How was coffee roasting carried out during the Belle Époque in Europe, which supported Japan's early coffee shop culture?

Before 1920, there were almost no "specialized coffee roasters" like we have today in Japan.

At the time, it was common for coffee shops to roast their own beans (in-house roasting) or for import food stores and tea merchants to roast them in-store.

People in Japan began drinking coffee after the late 1800s.

Until then, the custom of drinking tea was common, but not coffee.

Japanese coffee shop culture is a "lifestyle culture of enjoying tea and coffee" that developed uniquely in Japan, blending the spirit of the tea ceremony with Western cafe culture.

In 1888, "Kaho Tea House" opened in Ueno, Tokyo, marking Japan's first authentic coffee shop.

Blue Bottle Coffee's product lineup is divided into three categories: standard drinks, beans (blends and single beans), and food, sweets, seasonal and collaboration items.

Standard Coffee Drinks

Cafe locations offer a clearly organized menu organized by brewing method.

Espresso: Espresso, Americano, Macchiato, Gibraltar, Cappuccino, Latte, etc. (Names and quantities vary slightly depending on the location).

Hand-Drip: Blends, single-origin coffees, decaf coffees, and more, ground and brewed one cup at a time after the order is placed.

Blue Bottle Coffee founder James Freeman's immediate interest in Japanese coffee shop culture was sparked by a 2008 tour of Tokyo coffee shops accompanied by a friend who worked at UCC in San Francisco.

He credits his visit to coffee shops such as "Chatei Hatou" in Shibuya, "Cafe de Rambre" in Ginza, and "Daibo Coffee Shop" in Omotesando, which he visited with his friend, who also worked at UCC in San Francisco, as a turning point for him.

The third wave movement gained momentum in the 1990s, but Blue Bottle Coffee, founded after 2000, is another pioneering third wave coffee shop committed to transparency in its origins, and has now become a global phenomenon.

Blue Bottle Coffee was founded in 2002 in Oakland, California, by freelance clarinetist James Freeman.

Freeman began his business by roasting small batches in a 186-square-foot (approximately 17 square meters) flower shed and delivering the beans to local customers by bicycle.

Around the time Portland, Stumptown, and Chicago's Intelligentsia were being established, the third wave of coffee was also emerging in Durham, North Carolina.

Counterculture Coffee is a specialty coffee roasting company based there. Since its founding in 1995, the company has been known for its commitment to education and sustainability. Operating as a wholesale-only roasting company with a nationwide network of training centers, it has become a leading brand in the US specialty coffee industry.

Like Stumptown, Intelligentsia is a company known for pioneering the US coffee third wave movement.

Intelligentsia Coffee was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1995 and specializes in high-quality, freshly roasted specialty coffee.

Intelligentsia was founded by Doug Zell and Emily Manzi, who moved to Chicago from San Francisco.

The founders were frustrated by the lack of freshly roasted coffee in the city. They opened their first coffee bar on Broadway in the Lakeview neighborhood, selling beans roasted in-house in a vintage Probat roaster to ensure freshness.

In the 1990s, Starbucks became a place that offered a "third place," with Frappuccinos and cappuccinos taking center stage, and espresso and blended coffees becoming ingredients on the menu rather than the main focus.

At the same time, specialty coffee culture, a reaction against commodity coffee, was beginning to spread in the United States. A genre known as the "third wave" was born, offering carefully crafted specialty coffee in a format similar to the coffee bars that Starbucks' Howard Schultz was initially inspired by in Italy.

In the early 1990s, Starbucks stores in California—especially during hot summers—began experimenting on their own.

Baristas blended coffee, ice, milk, and flavor syrups.

Inspired partly by blended iced drinks popular in the region

One of them was a Frappuccino from a company called Coffee Connection.

The drink concept and the name “Frappuccino” came from Boston-based chain Coffee Connection, where owner George Howell and his team created a blended coffee, milk, sugar, and ice drink in the early 1990s.