CAFÉ/COFFEE SHOP

Cafés first appeared in Japan in the late 19th century as places for social/cultural exchange. Most of the early ones were privately-run chic cafés until the mid-1990s when global coffee giants began opening stores with stylish interiors. New types of café are also emerging, such as manga-kissa (manga cafés) where the customers are free to read as many manga as they like, neko-café for interacting with cats, and third-wave coffee shops where the baristas grind coffee beans and hand-drip each cup of coffee in front of the guest. It’s a little-known fact that the founder got the idea from old-style Japanese cafés.