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There is not a single better place in the world right now to feed a low-key coffee addiction.
You could forgive Kyoto a degree of second city syndrome, if it had it. Kyoto, after all, has a third of the land area of Tokyo, one-sixth its population, and one one-hundredth the number of bright, loud, perfect, ridiculous, flashing things as there are in Japan’s sprawling capital. The thing is, though, it’s the rare kid-brother city that seems to function in a vacuum of its own legitimacy, completely unaffected by the overachieving neighbor a bullet-train-ride away. Maybe that’s because it’s less a kid brother than a much older one—and itself a former imperial capital. As one local put it to me, “People from Kyoto are really proud of the fact that they’re from Kyoto. No one leaves.”
For a demitasse-sized taste of the root of that pride, go out and grab a cup of coffee. While there are plenty of hip and otherwise excellent coffee bars spread out over the endless maze of Tokyo, a walk around the low-lying grid of Kyoto reveals a city not only chock-full of them, but manageably so. You can, for instance, stay for three or four days and traverse much of the city’s core; on each outing, regardless of where you end up, you’ll never be more than a short stroll away from a damn-fine espresso.
I’m a two-a-day espresso drinker, the result of not just a feedback loop of early-thirties anxiety, but several years, in college and immediately after, of paying the bills by working the machine at a fancy third wave roaster. So I say this with both credentials and a decade-plus of market research: There is not a single better place in the world right now to feed a low-key coffee addiction. Here, in no particular order, are the five best places in Kyoto to grab a cup.
Ichikawaya Coffee
You’ll start here, at family-owned Ichikawa-ya, on a backstreet on the east side of the Kamo River. The small shop, dim but for light pouring in from its courtyard, roasts its own beans, and offers three house blends: the bright, medium-bodied Ichikawa-ya blend; the refreshing Sieji blend, and the full, strong, punch-in-the-palate Umamachi blend. Also of note is a house iced coffee and–dangerously–a menu-wide policy ofits across- the- board discounted refills.
Vermillion
On a crooked alley-sized street near the Fushimi Inari Shrine (those are the orange gates you see all over Instagram), the Fukakusa Kaidoguchicho location of Vermillion (there’s another, smaller one nearby) is a chill, unpretentious respite from the hoards of picture-taking crowds just around the corner. Vermillion sources from Weekenders across town (and also on this list), but the effort saved on roasting goes right back into brewing. An outrageous matcha latte completes the menu; doors opening to a lush backyard complete the living room-like space.
% Arabica
Head out to the western edge of Kyoto–the area of the city frequented by both bamboo forest gawkers and tourists trekking up the mountain to feed apples to macaques–and you’ll find, in a teeny, tiny building near the river, the Arashiyama location of % Arabica. It seems crazy that the spot can fit, simultaneously, baristas and customers and a roasting machine, but somehow it manages–at peak hours, the overflow spills into a line out the door. % Arabica has the branding thing down pat; it would be the best designed coffee brand in any American city, and also maybe one of the best tasting. That it’s here, in three locations in Kyoto (plus two in Hong Kong and six outposts in the Middle East), surrounded by the worthy competition of the other spots on this list, is pretty much just not fair.
Weekenders
By all accounts, Weekenders was on the leading edge of the Kyoto coffee craze when a husband-and-wife team opened their shop in 2006. Their coffee bar sits at the very back of a parking lot wedged between two office buildings, but it is, despite that, one of the most picturesque little retreats in town: a light wood bar opened up to a small, leafy patio, ivy running up the white walls. It’s as if a house was flung via storm from some mythical espresso-worshipping land very far away. Despite being one of the first shops to bring coffee culture to Kyoto, Weekenders is still making moves: they started doing their own roasting here last year.
