The Story
Koffee Mameya emerged from the vision of Eiichi Kunitomo, whose journey into coffee began not with passion but necessity in the late 1990s. While struggling to find work in the restaurant industry, he became captivated by the idea of crafting something truly unique. At the time, specialty coffee was virtually unknown in Tokyo, and he became determined to change that.
Before becoming known as the “Godfather of Japanese Coffee,” Kunitomo was living in Osaka and interested in espresso. Served by a German barista, he loved the coffee so much that he began working for that shop. He trained in the Naples region of Italy and started his career with coffee in Osaka in 2001, opening an Italian bar by 2003.
Kunitomo began his career two decades ago pulling espressos in Osaka. He refined his technique in a Neapolitan coffee shop, and when he returned from Italy, the specialty coffee scene was starting to bubble. Omotesando Koffee opened at the right time, in the perfect place, to play a key role.
Many of Tokyo’s coffee loving crowd had been lamenting the demise of Kunitomo’s legendary Omotesando Koffee, which served what probably was the best latté in town until it closed at the end of 2015.
However, in January 2017 it was reborn when Kunitomo opened Koffee Mameya in the ground floor of the replacement building at exactly the same location as the old Omotesando Koffee.
Sourcing & Relationships
Koffee Mameya doesn’t roast coffee; instead, it sources its coffee from carefully selected roasters around the world. “Roasting and brewing coffee are two different jobs, and we should both focus on getting our own craft to the highest level,” Kunitomo explains.
This decision reflects his coffee philosophy. By outsourcing roasting to trusted experts, he ensures Koffee Mameya can offer an unparalleled variety of beans from around the globe. He likens this approach to that of a wine sommelier, curating selections from diverse regions to provide the best possible experience. Roasting, he explains, demands focusing on a limited number of beans, which would restrict what he could offer. By remaining a curator rather than a roaster, he keeps the possibilities wide open.
When choosing roasters, a lot of focus is put on the philosophy of the companies in question. “We want to know their background and their story, as we want to share this with our customers when serving the coffee,” says Kunitomo. Building personal and deep relationships in the industry is essential, and Kunitomo’s right hand, Miki Takamasa, travels to join coffee exhibitions and competitions — meeting baristas, roasters and coffee experts from all around the world — to cultivate these important relationships.
The shop works with roasters including La Cabra (Denmark), The Cupping Room (Hong Kong), Code Black (Melbourne) and four Japanese roasters: Unlimited and Bontain (Tokyo), Ogawa (Kyoto) and Tokado (Fukuoka).
Roasting Philosophy
Kunitomo explains: ‘We don’t roast the beans. We select roasters from around the globe and have them roast the beans to our specifications.’ As a professional barista – or ‘coffee sommelier’, as he likes to describe himself – his role is to find the ultimate beans, have them roasted to perfection and then be able to advise customers on which to buy and how to brew the perfect cup.
On his first trip to Japan, one observer discovered that the average, non-speciality roast is very dark, which carries over to the speciality scene, where it’s joined by the lighter roasting styles of third-wave coffee. The result is that Japanese speciality coffee shops probably have the widest range of roast profiles anywhere. This is reflected in Koffee Mameya, where roasts span very light to dark in five gradations.
At the counter, a small glass case displays samples of the current beans on offer in an easy-to-read matrix from light to dark roast on the horizontal axis, and high to low mouth feel on the vertical axis. After inquiring about the customer’s preference, Kunitomo suggests a bean that can either be had by the cup in-situ (brewed to perfection by the staff) or bagged up in 150g packages.
Since Koffee Mameya is all about the taste, there’s no milk here (and definitely no sugar), with the coffee available to try as either pour-over through the Kalita Wave or espresso, using a customised Synesso Hydra built into the counter-top.
What to Try
Koffee Mameya works with seven roasters, four from Japan and one each from Denmark, Hong Kong and Melbourne. There are up to 25 different beans available at any one time (there were 18 choices on offer when I visited) arranged by roast profile from light to dark.
For those craving the taste of Omotesando Koffee, the lowest-cost beans from Ogawa Coffee Roasters are the beans they used to use. No matter how your coffee was prepared last time, just a whiff of the fragrance will be instantly familiar.
Visitors have praised the cold brews as excellent, complex, and unlike anything they’d tasted before.
If buying beans, every customer is asked to fill in a customer form similar to one you would find at your local doctor or dentist. Mameya’s attentive staff note when and what beans were bought. All beans come with a small leaflet with information on the roaster, comments by the barista and a handwritten recipe made to match the customer’s brewing equipment (V60, French press, stove top, etc) detailing grams of coffee, measures of water, extraction time and coarseness of the grind. For the perfect cup of joe, Kunitomo and Koffee Mameya leave nothing to chance.
The Koffee Mameya brand has several branches in Tokyo and beyond, but the Kiyosumi-Shirakawa location is the exclusive home of Mameya’s Kakeru omakase experience. The coffee omakase experience currently offers three different courses, starting at 5,000 JPY ($35 USD). Surrounded by the sleek interior and guided directly by a professional barista, guests can delight in sampling a range of roasts, prepared as cold brew, pour-over, and in a series of innovative cocktails and zero-proof signature drinks.