A Perfect Coffee Moment

Japanese folks, contrary to stereotypes, love coffee and drink lots of it, despite its high cost (a single cup, no refills, of a high-end blend might run you more than $6.00). Kyoto has had coffee shops for well over a century, and the old ones downtown have exquisite wooden fixtures and tables and silent, almost religious decorum. We love coffee, too, so we’ve visited quite a few shops around town (including our favorite, which advertises a “perfect coffee moment”), but we hadn’t found one close to home that we liked until a couple weeks ago, on a walk, we spotted an odd-looking building a few blocks away, in our residential neighborhood. Modern in form, it had a small sign indicating that it sold coffee and had an art gallery within. Also, it permitted no smoking. Since it happened to be closed that day (we have noted before that Japanese businesses close on apparently randomly chosen weekdays, always the same one day per week per business), we peered through the window and saw a small, high-ceilinged space, wood paneled, with things hanging on the walls, a counter with maybe six seats, and two tables. Both tables were irregularly shaped wood, a small single log seating two and a large solid-top table seating six or seven.
It looked imaginative and fun, so on a bike ride yesterday, I stopped to check it out. As I opened the door, four middle-aged women came out—there was much bowing and apologizing (“forgive us for going first,” “no, forgive me for rudely keeping you waiting,” and so on), and I figured that in our suburban neighborhood, with its commuting men and high incomes, such folks would be the regulars of the shop. I ordered a cup of tea from the solo proprietor (also a middle-aged woman) and prepared to enjoy my book for an hour or so at a cost of around $3.50. The tea arrived, lovingly prepared in a blue and white porcelain cup, with a tiny packet of sugar and an equally tiny pitcher of cream, and I gazed admiringly at the beautifully polished wooden slab of a table at which I sat. It was altogether a satisfying coffee house.
Then the door opened and in walked three old men (at least 70+), in muddy work boots and old grungy clothing, all talking loudly and simultaneously (very not cool in Japan) in thick local dialect. They plonked themselves down at the large table, greeted the (very proper) proprietor in most informal language, and continued their conversation while they waited for their order. I guessed, without hope of verification, that these were fathers and uncles of families who had purchased large lots in the neighborhood and sought to reduce their taxes by having older retired relatives farm their yards (farmland is taxed at a much lower rate in Japan than residential plots)—that is, our local agricultural workers had joined me for a high-end break. They seemed so entirely out of place in that modern, polished-wood space, and yet they did not find themselves incongruous at all. The proprietress brought their tray, accompanied by precisely the same politesse that had brought me mine—three exquisite porcelain cups of steaming hot coffee, each prepared with the same care that I’m sure was lavished on the women who had preceded me. There’s something wonderfully democratic about Japan, at the same time as it is a very status-conscious, keep-up-appearances sort of society, and I hope we spend more time in that coffee house in the coming month. I was so intrigued by my fellow customers that I never even looked at the art on the walls.