perch woodberry coffee roasters tokyo japan daikanyama cafe sprudge

The Daikanyama area is a home to fashion and high class homes. Along its streets youโ€™ll find a clustered mix of boutiques and stylish storefronts leading towards beautiful residencesย and foreign embassies. Its locationโ€”between Shibuya, Ebisu, and Nakameguroโ€”makes it a busy spot for pedestrian traffic; exactly the reason itโ€™s now home to Woodberry Coffee Roasters’ย newest outpost,ย Perch.

Perch is Woodberryโ€™s third opening in the Tokyo area, and their first foray outside of their home of Yoga. Owner Musashi Kihara told me there was some nervousness at opening in a new location; he said the sheer pace of life hereโ€”busy, hurried, and on the goโ€”is a stark contrast to the relaxed suburban feel of Yoga.

perch woodberry coffee roasters tokyo japan daikanyama cafe sprudge
Musashi Kihara

Kihara says it was during a recent trip to Melbourne that he met Yuta Matsumoto, who worked at ST. ALi and Clement Coffee Roasters. On Kiharaโ€™s travels through the city drinking coffee, he was amazed by the sheer pace of the coffee shops they visitedโ€”sometimes serving 300ย cups a day, and on busy days closer to 700.

When Matsumoto returned to Japan, he and Kihara set up Perchโ€”a place they hope will bring a slice of that busy to-go coffee lifestyle to an equally busy Tokyo location.

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Perch is designed for the cup-on-the-go experience. Kihara says the spaceโ€”built by the Woodberry boys themselvesโ€”is designed for ease and pace of work; theyโ€™re hoping that as people learn about the location, theyโ€™ll start to see it as an easy place to go for a good cup of coffee.

perch woodberry coffee roasters tokyo japan daikanyama cafe sprudge

perch woodberry coffee roasters tokyo japan daikanyama cafe sprudge

Which isnโ€™t to say they want to rush the experience. Woodberry has always been an enterprise run by friends doing what they love, and Kihara says this is true of Perch, too. โ€œCoffee shops are about the people who work at them,โ€ he says, โ€œitโ€™s not the space we want at the forefront, but the people; they bring in customers and create relationships with them.โ€

I sat at the back of the store on a stool, and I asked Kihara about expansion. After all, with Onibus having opened a new roastery location in Nakameguro, Sarutahiko Coffee opening locations all over the city, and Blue Bottle Coffee continuing to expand, it seems as though specialty coffee is slowly becoming a regular part of Tokyo life.

perch woodberry coffee roasters tokyo japan daikanyama cafe sprudge

But Kihara isnโ€™t so sure. He jokes that maybe when they turn Perch into a 700-cup-a-day location, maybe heโ€™ll be able to agree with me. He still wants more people to learn about what coffee is, but for the time being, heโ€™s happy just serving coffee to a new crowd of people.

โ€œEventually we’d like to visit the plantations, and the farms,โ€ he says, โ€œbecause we haven’t done that yet. For now though, we just want to make this place busy.โ€

Perch is located at Ebisuminami, 3-Chome 7-1, Tokyo. Visit their official website and follow them on Instagram.

Hengtee Limย (@Hent03) is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in Tokyo. Read moreย Hengtee Lim on Sprudge.

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