coffee news...

Been a while since I last wrote. This week has been really busy with unexpected work appearing from nowhere. However, that is all under control for the time being. Now have to catch up on all my "personal" stuff. So much of it!

Went to an interesting talk on how Tully's was established in Japan. (For those that are unfamilar with "Tully's" - it is a chain similar to Starbucks). The Chairman Mr Suga, gave a pro-active informative speech and chatted about how the young guy (Kouta) first started Tully's. Kouta started the coffee shop in Ginza. Suga happened to have been inspired by an article regarding coffee in a Japanese tabloid newspaper and thought he would go and check Tully's out. Suga is one of those guys that gives those venture capital companies "the gift" (finance) to get started. He mentioned that over the period of a year, he met around 2800 enthusiastic entrepreneurs that wanted Suga to finance their ideas. (Out of them he financed 10 of them in which 7 of them became successful. My thought is, I wonder how much he lost from those 3 other "ventures"...?) Flash presentations, graphically-designed powerpoints, impressive backgrounds were all presented to Suga. He has seen them all. Being a MBA graduate of Harvard he said that the best advice of choosing a successful key person to run a venture company is to really "see the person" for who and what they are and how they work. Honesty, intergrity and passion I believe are the essence words that would describe the people he believes in. Suga believed that Kouta was this type of individual and decided to invest more than 20 million yen into Kouta's newly started business. Now, just after 8 years, there are more than 346 Tully's coffee shops throughout Japan. 130,000 cups of coffee are served each day at Tully's. I liked what Suga had to say about not who you know or the background that you went through but in the end what you are actually about and the strengths and passion you have for life and for your work. Was quite inspiring. So all those out there, do not give up your dream, but hold it high and strive for it. For if you really want it, it will happen!

As for all those cups of coffee being drunk each day, each minute, each second, there sure is a heck of a load of coffee being drunk! I wonder how many cups of coffee Japan drinks on the whole per day? I wonder with those coffee chains, just how much of a dent they have made on the "can coffee" industry over here.

I still love the individual coffee shops and the intimate atmsphere they give out, but with rent being so high as it is in Tokyo (as it is in large cities), it is very hard for the individual owner to be successful. For me, having a barrister knowing your coffee preference and having a bit of a chit chat is great and for those away from our families in Japan, this kind of familarity is greatly appreciated. Not just the usual standard greeting that is portrayed to you in every store. (Although great if you can't be bothered saying anything to anyone!) Back in NZ, I prefer the indiviudal cafe's than the large chains, however, as most cafe's are for smokers in Japan (and me being a non-smoker) the chain stores offer the only option for non-smokers for a smoke-free environment. Japan is still way behind in the smoke laws and wonder just how much longer when restaurants and cafe's will become smoke-free? Not to mention the rent being huge and building owners being skeptical about who they rent their space too. Therefore only very successful chains can lease the best areas for a coffee shop. Personally, some hairdressers have great spots for cafe's and wonder why there aren't more cool cafe's based on the open-air hairdresser's that I see around Tokyo...

A couple more things on coffee (while I remember...)

A company my friend Z is working at has a Starbucks just for the employees. I guess it has been going for around 6 months and seems that they are still going strong, despite the fact that they can make our own coffee for free and there are vending machines that sell coffee for around a third of the price. The business model of an expensive brand coffee within an office building focused at just employees, seems to have worked well. As well as the fact that Japanese just love brands (as you can see in the photo on the right - the Louis V with the Starbucks) and Starbucks is definitely considered a trendy cafe not to mention brand of coffee to be associated with over here.

Nothing happens unless first we dream.
Carl Sandburg