Now let’s take a trip to the heart of Tainan’s old city to visit a nostalgic cafe. Tucked in an alleyway is a Japanese-style coffee shop run by specialty coffee master Rika Tanaka. The coffee roaster began the business in 2017, and sells beans all over Taiwan and as far afield as Hong Kong. She originally came to Taiwan just for a holiday, but once she met her Taiwanese husband-to-be, everything changed. We spoke to Tanaka about how to brew a serious cup of coffee.
This small but perfectly formed coffee shop is nestled in an alleyway in Tainan’s oldest district. When Tanaka is roasting beans, just the smell is enough to make you stop in your tracks to take a deep sniff. Here she is in her element.
Rika Tanaka swiftly sifts through the beans, deftly picking out any impurities, and ensuring that no bad beans are left to spoil the brew.
Rika Tanaka
Specialty coffee roaster
Coffee is rather sensitive. So we manage the temperature of the flame, the air and the time. The flavor of the coffee totally changes. So you have to take care.
Tanaka is a certified premium coffee master with the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan. She specializes in dark roast and French roast coffee. In 2017, she moved to be with her husband, and began her roasting and delivery business. Her beans attracted high praise. Then the couple decided to convert Tanaka’s husband’s old family home into a retro, Japanese-style cafe.
Rika Tanaka
Specialty coffee roaster
You have to let the coffee beans rest for three or four days after roasting, before you can drink them. My method is to rinse them approximately three or four times, and then see how they look on top, how the bubbles are doing, and the speed at which the coffee is running out. Each bean has a different degree of freshness, so I decide based on the situation on the top.
Tanaka observes the bubbles in the coffee and the speed of the flow to adjust her brewing technique. She’s making Japanese pineapple bread, a popular sweet treat at the cafe. Cantaloupe ice cream soda is a nostalgic drink served in classic Japanese cafes. Even the decorations adorning the cafe have been brought here from Japan, creating an irresistibly nostalgic mood of olden days Japan, in the heart of old Taiwan.
This story was provided by the program “We Are Family”
Funded by the New Immigrant Development Fund