MILTON COFFEE ROASTERY with Daisuke Tanaka in Shunan, Japan
MILTON COFFEE ROASTERY
with Daisuke Tanaka in Shunan, Japan
Continuing where I left off during my journey down the length of Japan, early 2016, fully embracing the speed and efficiency of the Shinkansen, I had one very important stop to make in the lesser-known town of Shunan in Yamaguchi. My friend, Jef Van de Graaf from Canada had chosen to post up here for a while and had developed quite the community. Conveniently, one of his connections included a specialty coffee roaster and café to add to my research, and in the morning, we got up early to grab a coffee and a chat with Daisuke himself of Milton Coffee Roastery.
As the story goes, Daisuke had lived in Australia as a student from the age of 15 to 25, as you might have been able to guess at this point. It was during this time, while studying Rural Industry and International business that he developed his passion for good coffee and appreciation for the diverse yet calm atmosphere of a café.
“Milton is actually the name of a suburb in Brisbane. There’s a famous road called Park Road with restaurants, cafés, shops. This place inspired me to want to start a ‘fancy café’ someday.”
By this point, his roastery has been opened for about 10 years, but the café, now adjoined to the roastery, open only since July 2015. Daisuke mentioned that wholesale was only about 10% of the sales, so it was mostly the keen individuals of the area buying beans, and there was always take-away coffee as well.
His reason for starting a café is quite interesting as well. Originally, with the grand idea of being his own boss, he began by thinking about what he could do to make that happen.
“I put together a list of different skills and interests, like 10 to 15 things, and started to make links between them. I realized that most of them linked back to coffee somehow, and so that’s what I chose. It became clear.”
At the time I spoke with him, he was roasting beans from Colombia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
“Every year, I visit these countries and build strong connections. I like to work directly with several farms in each country because I can get more information, and I’m able to tell the story better. It’s a lot of work, but I needed the story.”
Daisuke went on to explain how Japanese people really tend to connect with the Story behind something. The depth of the relationship takes longer, but once you get there, it’s strong.
“Even if the bean is rated slightly less, but it has a cool story, they would buy it.”
He’s now supplying beans to some local restaurants, and sometimes participates in street events by serving cold brew, but on a very minimal level. In terms of future plans, he mentioned that he wanted to start selling green beans because the growers want to sell more and it increases their motivation to produce more. He also wants to help more local roasters to serve good coffee, and this is one effective way of doing that.
Jef and I had the privilege of joining Daisuke for a quick tour of the roastery next door, and even for a car ride over to their other café on the other side of town which has been open for a bit longer. Everyone involved in this small town operation was super excited to meet us, and made another great example of how inclusive and welcoming the coffee scene is, global and local.
On that note, Daisuke’s time on the international jury for the Cup of Excellence, he developed some crucial coffee tasting tips to leave us with:
"When cupping and scoring different coffees, using water to 'cleanse your palette' between sips actually cancels your taste memory of the coffee and should NOT be done."
Huge thanks again to Daisuke for opening up his café and his schedule to give us the true taste of Shunan.
