Japan drinks a lot of coffee. You may think it’s a tea-drinking country, but coffee consumption is off the charts. In 2021, Japan consumed 433 million tons of coffee and “only” 100 thousand tons of tea! Japan is the third largest coffee market in the world after the United States and Germany. This includes kissaten (traditional coffee houses), popular chains, canned coffee and, of course, convenience stores.
In the last 10 years, konbini (as they’re known in Japan) have become a real player in the coffee market. As they’ve raised the quality of their beans and expanded drink options, they’ve given more established coffee sectors a run for their money—and helped increase coffee consumption overall.
So how did konbini coffee get so good? The story starts more than 300 years ago.
Cool Beans: Japan’s Coffee History
Coffee first arrived on Japanese shores in 1700, but it wasn’t until kissaten, or Japanese coffee houses, began to appear during the Meiji era (1868-1912) that a coffee culture would start to develop. Things really picked up steam when the first coffee company of note, Ueshima Tadao Shoten, was founded in Kobe in 1933. Recovering from a ban on coffee during World War 2, it restructured into Ueshima Coffee Company, or UCC, in 1951.
Coffee consumption really took off in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks in no small part to the invention of canned coffee. In 1969, UCC debuted the world’s first canned coffee, UCC Coffee With Milk, kicking off a canned coffee boom. Suddenly, coffee drinkers could get their caffeine fix on the go—and, thanks to the many drink vending machines appearing around the country, they didn’t even have to go to the store to buy one.
Japan’s love for coffee grew even bolder in the 1980s when flush with cash from the Bubble Era; coffee lovers began flocking to not only local kissa (slang for coffee shops in Japan) but also coffee franchises. Japan’s homegrown coffee chain, Doutor, opened its first store in Harajuku in 1980. Starbucks followed suit in Ginza in 1996.
Convenience Stores Up Their Game
With coffee consumption increasing in the 1980s, Japanese convenience stores began installing countertop coffee machines. However, the beans on offer were by no means premium, and it had little impact on overall coffee drink sales. It was just another place to get a mediocre cup of coffee.
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7 Comments
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Mark
I'll take 7-11 coffee over Starbucks anytime, the taste is is even better, the volume is the same comparably , easier to get with so many locations around, and the price is 1/3 of what Starbucks charges, some "Konbini" are even offering a place to sit and drink your coffee.
virusrex
I am a firm believer the quality of canned coffee can also be improved in the same way, It is much more convenient to have it on a vending machine, but unfortunately the taste is usually bad to mediocre.
InYourEye
Yes. I prefer to have my canned coffee on a vending machine as well.
Patricia Yarrow
The links do not take me to the rest of the article. Really tired of this!!! Please fix this, JT.
Moderator
The link works.
falseflagsteve
I also find the 7-11 coffees rather decent, I usually go for cafe latte, though it’s only a few times a year really. The canned coffees tend to give me a belly ache you see, so I avoid them.
I remember a while back that McDonalds coffee, yucky wucky. It was absolutely vile. Not been to a McDonalds for sooo long, everything seems cheap and nasty.
Tamarama
I'm a pretty regular combini coffee drinker. It's not amazing, but perfectly serviceable and very good value.