I was in Japan for a short holiday with my wife just a week ago. We made two visits to specialty cafes as side-trips despite the fact that it is easy to get freshly brewed coffee in Tokyo. You can get freshly machine brewed coffer for as low as ¥100 from 7-Eleven and even buy freshly roasted beans from shops located within some train stations in Tokyo! There are also plenty of shops serving freshly brewed handcrafted drip coffee, however, it is not as easy to find good handcrafted espresso-based coffee.

About Life Coffee Brewer is located about 10-min walk away from Shibuya station. It is a little coffee stand in the corner of the building started by OniBus coffee which is also a coffee roaster.

On arrival, we were greeted by two friendly baristas, V60 drippers, La Marzocco espresso machine, two grinders and the strong aroma!

The indoor standing space gives customer good view of the meticulous effort they put in to prepare those delicious cup of coffee! When I was there, I noticed the World Barista Champion’s approved “EK43” grinder which is used for drip coffee, and a large weighing scale for dosing the drip and espresso coffee.

The menu shows more options for drip coffee which is typical in most cafes. I ordered a drip coffee brewed with OniBus’s Ethiopia beans, and a cafe latte brewed with OniBus’s espresso blend. The lady barista was kind enough to share with me the characteristics of the beans they serve for drip coffee.

Since they operate like coffee stand, coffee is served in take-away cup. The “W” on the cup stands for “White” which is the cafe latte we ordered, and “F” stands for “Filtered” which is the drip coffee.

I enjoyed the drip coffee which had a mellow strawberry taste and hint of flora. If I were to visit again, I’d try drip coffee brewed with other beans as well just for the experience since there are quite a number of options.

I was expecting the cafe latte to taste too milky since I usually prefer less milk. I wouldn’t order flatwhite or cappuccino if its not on the menu. To my surprise, the nutty and fruity tastes were quite distinct. OniBus’s espresso blend consist of beans from Brazil, Guatemala and Ethiopia.

Espresso blend with this combinations can also be found in Singapore (Terra Firma from Papa Palheta, B.S.G 316 from Coffee Nowhere). There are also many variables such as the ratio of bean types in the mix and the origin of farms which would produce different taste, hence I brought home 200g of beans. Yes I love this blend! What are the differences compared to the Brazil, Guatemala and Ethiopia blend mix available in Singapore? I’ll leave that for another post.

The beans for drip coffee were readily for sale on their shelf. Though they don’t usually sell OniBus’s espresso blend in About Life Coffee Brewer. The barista was really kind to prepare them in these bags for us 🙂

About Life Coffee Brewers operates daily from 830AM to  830PM. Check out their webpage @ http://www.about-life.coffee/