Ohayou
June 2024
To go to the old Samurai house in Kanazawa that I particularly like I have set my itinerary at 東 出, the 木 佐 店 where I take my morning coffee this year. The place is really beautiful, a dark wooden bar behind which are active five see six people for a maximum of thirty customers thus respecting the usual proportion of Japanese establishments.
東出
Higashide – come from the East.木佐店
Kisaten – tea and coffee shop.
The coffee is really amazing even if I will find it even better afterwards. It is made the old way, the hot water gently poured by making small regular circles around the flared filter placed on the cup. Everything is delicate, it takes five to ten minutes for the coffee to be prepared, depending on the world, but a freshly ground coffee made by hand without a machine certainly deserves this expectation; it is part of the pleasure in reality.
I come alone and I’m sitting at the bar. I have become a regular, I come every day and I am allowed to go home the employees leave for lunch and that the Higashide is paused between noon. Only those who are already installed remain and can enter only the regulars, with staff reduced to two people who take turns.
Speaking a little Japanese, saying hello, thanking, greeting and consuming opens so many doors in this country. It is easy to get access to the kindness of the Japanese, just be yourself kind and polite, follow the tacit or explicit rules, show that every gesture is appreciated, show that what you are served is exquisite. No need to force yourself, everything is true.
They roast their own coffee and frankly it’s the best of the impressive list of coffees from all over the world that they offer. It is strong, structured, perfectly balanced between bitterness and taste, and yet it comes second only to the coffee of Mr. Hora that he serves in the very small 懷 古 洞 珈 琲, I do not know how it is pronounced but it means something like “The nostalgic coffee retreat”. I call it the nostalgic coffee of Mr. Hora.
Mr. Hora is over eighty, perhaps more than ninety and he makes the best coffee I have ever had in my life. He roasts it himself, he grinds it with a hundred years old tool like I’ve never seen. He proudly shows me the ground coffee, just by its almost golden brown color it is obvious that it is a nectar unique in its kind. Mr. Hora is proud of his coffee and when I drink it, the pleasure I take makes him happy. His coffee is Mozart like the music he listens to.
Unique moment, time travel. I order a toast, half with butter and half with jam and ask for a second coffee because it is incredibly good but also because I want to review the ritual of its creation which is crystal clear precision, a diamond served for me alone. The culmination of this five-dimensional film projected in an almost religious darkness, an old lady in kimono also comes to drink her coffee.
It is difficult to leave such moments but we must resolve and say with the joy of the prospect that we will return definitely. Mr. Hora gives me a big smile, he sees the happiness I take to be there and it’s his way of thanking me. He speaks a little English and even if I speak to him in Japanese it is in English that he told me, it has been 42 years since I have owned this coffee shop.
