TBBAT – Okinawa Japan Nakayama Coffee Farm – Umikaji Light Roast – Coffee Break With Drake
Hey everybody, we are back from Japan and with my trusty sidekick Sopia who will be working uh the behind the side of the camera sometimes. We are going to do our first review on some coffee since we’ve been back. So to start everything off, let me just reiterate if you have not already seen my other reviews or you don’t know anything about Japan, it is extremely expensive. Like ridiculously expensive. So everything over there costs a lot of money. Everything from the hotel rooms to the food, it’s expensive. So when I’m going to do the next few coffee reviews on things in Japan, uh you will hear me go on about that. So without further ado, when I decided to go to Japan, one of the places I picked was Okinawa. Why Okinawa? Well, because it is the only place in Japan, one of the only places in Japan that produces coffee. So, I thought, wow, crossover episode, um, that big bearded American tourist and coffee breakage rake goes to Okinawa to visit one of the coffee plantations. So, that was the original thought. I couldn’t do too much organizing ahead of time because um, they don’t really speak English and it’s very difficult to get in touch with them. There’s actually a few different locations and a few different coffee farms. So, I didn’t do any um I didn’t do a lot of research ahead of time. There was just nothing I could do. So, when I got there, I just picked one uh that was basically closest and seemed to be good, had good reviews and stuff like that. What I settled on was the Nakiyama Coffee Farm, which is a beautiful little privatelyowned uh coffee farm in Okinawa. And what I’m going to go over and explain and the coffee I’m going to review is important uh if you want to learn anything about Japanese coffee production in Japan uh and uh my experience there. So, let’s get right down to it. I’m going to be doing a review on the coffee I purchased there. Uh this is from Okinawa. And I will go into the specifics in a second, but if you take a close look, you’ll understand right off the bat why I’m like it might not be worth going to Okinawa to visit the coffee farms. All right. So, let’s start off by explaining that um Okinawa does not produce a lot of coffee. So, in my quest to go to different locations and try different coffees in their uh original environment, I was very excited to get to try Japanese coffee. Japanese coffee is not like well-known and there’s a reason for it. Again, it’s only produced in very few areas, one of which being Okinawa. So, we traveled to, as I mentioned, the Makiyama coffee farm, and it is a beautiful little location. We pulled up. We were the only ones there at first. Um, that changed pretty quickly. It was a kind of an odd thing cuz it was in the middle of nowhere. We get in there and uh we see, and there will be a review on the actual coffee farm as well coming up in the future. This is basically on the coffee um that it’s a very small shop. There’s only two people there. which is fine. But right off the bat, I realized like, okay, so we were they don’t just do tours. You have to sign up for them ahead of time. Fine, no problem. We were not going to be able to do the tour. Uh well, actually, we could. It was like an hour wait, but it turned up it was like $40 each for this tour and it was coffee roasting basically, which I had done before, so I didn’t want to do that. It was very expensive for uh something I’d already done, and it would have been $80 for the two of us. So, we just decided to have coffee and buy some coffee. So, right off the bat, we found some very bit disappointing news. And this is where you’re going to want to pay attention. Okinawa uh does not produce a lot of coffee. There’s just not a lot of production. There’s not a lot of trees. There’s the weather, I guess, isn’t always favorable. So, this last year and potentially maybe even beyond the year, it does not do a lot of coffee production. So that is not necessarily problematic. But because they’re trying to sell their coffee, they blend it with other coffees, which again, I don’t want the blend. I want the straight up Okinawa coffee so I can sample it and taste it. So unfortunately, um, they don’t have it. I was not able to sample a cup of just Okinawa coffee, and I was not able to buy any Okinawa coffee. I couldn’t even like barter with them and say, “Hey, what if I paid you extra? I want to just try.” There was just no way to do it. At least at this place, and I think it’s standard across the entire Okinawa uh island. So, what I got here was the best I could find. It is build as Okinawa coffee, light taste, yumiki, um natural process, and the region is Okinawa, Japan, but they also put in Ethiopia, Colombia, and Rwanda. So, it’s like what? It’s not exactly Japanese. Um, so we’re going to give this a try and hopefully we’ll be able to pick out some notes from Japan. I don’t know. I mean, we tried the other coffees. We’ll see. I doubt it, but uh this is roasted on um June May 15th, 2025. So, it’s a a recent roast. Um, to save some time in my coffee reviews, I’m going to try doing what I just did now and pre- grind and pre make the coffee. So, it’s just ready to go and cooled down just a little bit. It smells very, very nice. Um, as it should. Now, before we do this, let’s go into cost. Dude, this is stupid expensive. This is only 100 gram which works out to um three and change ounces and this cost almost $17. So what this means is every ounce of this is 4.7 ounces and I can $4.7 which is stupid super super stupid. That’s super stupid expensive for coffee. Not even worth it when you’re considering the fact you’re if you’re just trying to get the Okanawa coffee. I could get a blend anywhere. Who cares? So $4.74 as of today per ounce for this coffee. And 100 grams does not get you a lot. This is only be about three or four cups at most. So let’s go into Oh, look at this. It’s a Hello Kitty mug. How sweet. Smells very nice. Again, I drink my coffee black to try to get the full effect. So here we go. I’ll give them this. That is a nice cup of coffee. Very nice. Fruity. It’s a little earthy, light roast. No, very fruity. And there’s no bitterness to it. They did a good job with this blend. Um I’m not getting any like um sour. Well, a little bit of sour on the aftertaste. Not really any bitterness because it’s not really a a heavily roasted coffee. Very fruity. Yeah. No, I like it. Very good. And um if you have the chance to try Japanese coffee, try it. If it’s pure Japanese coffee, Okinawa coffee, try it. Uh cuz it’s very rare and hard to find as far as I could tell. if it’s just being marketed as Okinawa. You might be able to go into a coffee shop and buy it, but I would be 100% sure and ask if it’s a blend or not. You’re gonna have a hard time with the these in Japan, they don’t really speak a lot of uh English in the shops, so you have to be careful about that. Um, but as far as the Nakayyama coffee farm, light taste um, which is very specific and obviously uh, only relevant specifically if you’re going to go to Okinawa to the specific place. Um, but um, the natural process from Okinawa, Ethiopia, Colombia, Rwanda blend is very good. Very expensive, not a daily drinker, and I’m not going to recommend it for that reason. But if you go there, you go to the island and you’re able to get a light Okinawa blend, definitely go for it. Um, it’s a rare opportunity to go to places that don’t do heavy production and aren’t well known for their coffees and get to try their coffees is a rare treat. Um, all that being said, I would have done my Japanese tour differently if I had known this ahead of time, which we’ll go into more in other things. Um, I based Okinawa almost 100% on 75% on the fact we get to go to a coffee plantation tour, which we did end up getting to do. and that we get to try pure Okinawa coffee, which we didn’t end up getting to do either. So, all that being said, I’m Drake. Hope you enjoyed this first Japanese review. I have a few more coming up. And if you’re watching them out of order, check out the other ones, too. See you in the next one. And be good. [Music]
I traveled all the way to Japan then took another plane to Okinawa to visit the Nakayama Coffee Farm and have some authentic Japanese Coffee. What I found surprised me a lot. Was it worth it? Find out now
AloJapan.com