Coffee Tei, Tokyo

Coffee is a night out.

Ikebukuro is the sort of place where you either love it or hate it. There are night clubs, noisy Chinatown restaurants, and some say yakuza types prowling around. The kids are more boisterous here; the drunks more inebriated, if that’s possible. It’s also the home of our favourite ramen shop, so we love it.

Who knew there was great coffee to be found here too? Enter Coffee Tei.

Perhaps a nice brew is just the thing to help us digest our dinner (when ramen is this good, you bet I had the biggest bowl). The coffee bar itself looked less like a café and more like an English pub. German beer is served too, so perhaps there’s a bit of a Bavarian tavern in its nature as well.

There is a beautiful long bar where the baristas make the coffee, and behind them shelves upon shelves of ornate, limited edition teacups that the owner had collected over the years.

So what’s it like, coffee served in a teacup?

We begin with a cup of Kilimanjaro. We don’t often encounter these beans from Tanzania. Honestly, the coffee’s acidity and mouth taste didn’t leave much of an impression on us. Oh, but its aroma!

The fragrance, oh the fragrance!

How did the baristas manage this? Is the rich aroma from the way they roast, using charcoal? Could it be the beans themselves? Perhaps a little of both?

It could well be the way they brew the coffee, using a continuous drip technique. Using this method, the extraction time is about a minute shorter than the average hand drip brew, resulting in a clean and refreshing taste.

Whichever it is, now we have more reason to return to Ikebukuro — ramen and coffee!

在這次東京自由行之前，馬少列了一張咖啡館的單子。
除了Omotesando Koffee是一定要去拜訪的之外，
其他的就看我們剛好走到哪，就喝到哪好了，反正肯定無法都一一拜訪。
而在眾多咖啡館裡頭，我們的第一“泡”是皇琲亭 （Coffee Tei）。
無他，只因它剛好位於池袋區，距離我們的酒店和靚仔拉麵不遠。
吃完了拉麵正好來杯咖啡幫助消化 （笑）。
踏入咖啡館內，最引人注目的是那長長的吧台，
還有吧台后頭一系列五顏六色、五花八門的杯子。
據說那些杯子都是老闆經年累月的收集，每個杯子都不一樣。

皇琲亭的裝潢佈置和一般的咖啡館不同，
無論燈光還是環境氣氛，感覺上都比較像是一家英式酒館（British pub）。
我心裡在嘀咕，這的咖啡會好喝嗎？
不過反正都來了，就點一杯來試試好了。
看了菜單后，我選了生平第一杯吉力馬札羅山（Kilimanjaro）。
這支來自坦桑尼亞的豆子在我們這好像比較不常見。
現在回想起來，咖啡的口感和酸度已經沒什麼印象了，
但入口時那濃郁的香氣卻是我一直念念不忘的。
當我們離開咖啡館，在門外拍攝招牌時才驚覺這竟是一家炭燒咖啡館。
所以那股濃郁的香氣是因為炭燒嗎？
還是豆子本身就帶有這種香氣？還是兩者相乘的結果？
後來在上網找資料時，我又發現了另一件有趣的事；
那就是他們沖咖啡用的手法。
那種不經過燜蒸，不中斷的滴水手法叫粗研磨不斷水法。
萃取的時間約一分鐘，比一般的手滴短，口感方面乾淨清爽。
有興趣的朋友，如果你剛好來到池袋這一帶，
不妨去皇琲亭那試試他們用粗研磨不斷水法煮出來的炭燒咖啡。