Friday, March 12, 2010

Blue Seal Cafe

I think this is the 5th or 6th posting on coffee. But since I've introduced many coffees that were served at restaurants as well, you might already recognize me as a coffee maniac. But naturally I have a higher expectation for a real coffee shop than restaurants as it would serve a very good coffee that is unique to the shop.

A new shopping mall opened in a bit far neighborhood, and it had this "Blue Seal Cafe". As the exterior and the name of the shop suggest, it would be the best if I come here in the summer, but as a coffee aficionado I wanted to see how good it was.

As you can see, what this shop was mainly offering in this season were those hot cafe latte, espresso, macchiato and so on. But you know, I'm not much of a hot coffee fan, and I doubt I could see the subtle difference between good hot coffees.

It was freezing cold on this day, and I was thinking of having ice cream as well, but since I once thought of changing the title of this blog from "Inside Japan" to "Coffee in Japan," I wanted to focus on the coffee mainly.

As seen in other coffee shops, they sell things that have the shop's logo printed on. I used to buy a mug at a coffee shop, and these ones were also tempting. The middle size mug cost 14 us dollars. What do you think of the price?

The interior seemed to be intended for young people. Some would feel lonesome without other customers, but as for me I don't want many people chatting endlessly over one coffee. Probably this shop would have many people in the summer. 

This was an "iced cafe mocha". I usually avoid a sweet coffee, but when the coffee I show you was always plain black as iced coffee, viewers would get sick of a similar pic. The taste was similar to the Starbucks', but the chocolate syrup was a bit sweeter. 

This year I've introduced mainly Japanese-styled things, but I think you have to know the coffee shops in Japan these days basically try to cater to the need of young people who like something western, so sometimes it's hard to find a shop like Karakuan that I showed you in January. Tourists would enjoy Japanese-styled cafes, but I often see foreign people who may be living in Japan having coffee at Starbucks.