Hello, my name is Shiota. I am the curator of MOSHI MOSHI BOX Harajuku Information Center.

Ebisu is an area that tops my chart in “the area in which I want to reside.” I visited Ebisu, an area where many fashionable and food-loving people gather with one of my center staff, Ellie.

In this article, I will introduce to you the special coffee shop, “Sarutahiko Coffee” Ebisu Main Store which is gathering much attention nowadays.

The interior the shop has a warm atmosphere.

The inside of the store is small but it has a cozy atmosphere. The interior’s color coordination is very fashionable.

And the charm point of this shop is that the staff are all very friendly. They are not pushy with their customers but are very kind and thus the atmosphere of the shop is very good. I can tell that they are relating with their coffee and customers with love. I visited the shop before, privately and at that time I stayed in the shop for a long time.

Tomoyuki Otsuka – the head of the shop.

He used to be an actor but changed his job and started to sell coffee.

He studied about coffee very hard and has lots of knowledge about coffee.

He did not have enough money to install a counter when he first started the shop, so he made the counter himself. He said he sanded the planks used in his shop himself using sandpaper!

Official coffee shop of Sarutahiko Shrine in Ise

Many coffee shops in Japan have an English name but Sarutahiko Coffee uses Kanji characters for the shop’s name (猿田彦珈琲).The name “Sarutahiko” was officially bestowed by Sarutahiko Shrine in Ise.

So, the shop is officially approved by the shrine. They also sell souvenirs other than coffee. The shrine enshrines “Michihiraki” so the souvenirs are popular as gifts at wedding parties.

Michihiraki blend (5 packs) (959 yen, tax included)

Menu items which make you want to drink many cups of coffee

Sarutahiko Coffee offers hand-dripped coffee. It feels good to watch the staff making your coffee. Sarutahiko Coffee is a coffee shop which promotes the culture of “hand dripped coffee.” Before they started offering hand dripped coffee, such coffee was thought to be the “wrong” way to make coffee.

Classic French Short (399 yen, tax included)

The deep dripped hand dripped coffee is more bitter than other coffees. It has less sourness and it is easy to drink.

Caramel Flappe Short (529 yen, tax included)

This drink is not too sweet and has a strong coffee flavor. It is recommended for those of you who love sweet desserts and do not drink coffee so often. The ice melts tenderly inside your mouth so you won’t get a headache.

Coffee of the day, Sarutahiko French (300 yen, tax included)

When we see “coffee of the day,” it makes us think that we will only be able to drink this coffee today, so we had better not miss this chance.

The “coffee of the day” offered on the day I visited the shop was “Sarutahiko French,” a standard coffee of the shop which is bitter but fresh at the same time.

The Japanese-style design of the cup is very cute.

By the way, did you notice that the prices of the menu items noted above are cheaper than the usual prices in other shops? Very reasonable indeed!

This is because the head of the shop wants to create a community-based shop.

“I want my customers to visit my shop several times per day and feel that the shop is a part of their daily lives.”

The head of the shop is surely a passionate person who loves his coffee, customers and the local area he resides in.

I became a fan of Sarutahiko Coffee through this visit.

Currently, there are seven branches of Sarutahiko Coffee inside Tokyo. Let’s visit one of their shops and have a real good coffee!