【5 things to enjoy Kyoto】 vol.2 Kyomachiya reborn from an overseas perspective and exclusive things you can do there.

With the autumn leaves changing colors, Kyoto is in the throes of fall. Compact and easy to get around, with historical buildings, old and new stores, and abundant nature just a short distance away, Kyoto is the perfect place for a trip. This time, we will focus on Kyomachiya arranged from an international perspective. We will introduce an exclusive experience that can only be had at a physical store.

Photo_Kai Naito
Text_Shinri Kobayashi
Edit_Shuhei Wakiyama

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Craftsmanship and respect for Japanese culture.

Speaking of things that can only be experienced in Kyoto, Le Labo Kyoto Machiya is just that. The store design itself, a renovated machiya that was once a sake brewery and is now a designated Important Landscape Architectural Monument of Kyoto City, is special in its own right, and is packed with all the fun of a physical store.

For example, there are no tiles or rose wallpaper familiar from Le Labo stores, nor is there a wooden floor permeated with fragrance. Instead, you are greeted by the building's unique design, which has been nurtured by its long history, and by the copper pipes, vintage furniture, and plants that seem to have been there for a long time. The garden and café in the back of the building and the clear shades of the machiya-style townhouse are also something to see with your own eyes.

The perfumes sold are also exclusive. Osmanthus 19 (OSMANTHUS 19), a Kyoto fragrance that joined the City Exclusive line dedicated to cities around the world in October, is sold only at two stores in Kyoto, including this one. osmanthus means "golden osmanthus" in Japanese. From the first impression of incense and lavender, the uplifting, creamy scent is centered on an uplifting, woody tone.

The events that can be experienced in the tatami rooms on the second floor are unique to Kyoto, which has many craftsmen and artisans who have inherited traditional techniques. Craftsmen and artists are invited on an irregular basis to demonstrate their skills right in front of you. For example, the calligraphy on the store's hanging scrolls, such as "Shori-ba-ri," "Shin-shin-ichiryo," and "Mushin," were created by these calligraphers. The calligraphy on the shop's hanging scrolls, such as "Mori-ha-Ri," "Shin-Shin-Ichiyou," and "Mushin," were created by these calligraphers. Seeing the process of how things are made is a valuable learning experience that will deepen your understanding and resolution of things.

Kyoto is the only place in Japan, if not the whole of Japan, where people lead modern lives and where historical buildings and traditional culture exist so close by as a matter of course. Scent and history are both invisible. It is precisely because we are inundated with visual information today that immersing oneself in the world of fragrance to the fullest in a machiya, a townhouse with a rich history, evokes new sensations.

A full course of coffee, Blue Bottle Coffee style.

Kyoto is a city where many coffee lovers still visit coffee shops. Blue Bottle Coffee, which says it was influenced by Japanese coffee shop culture, is offering a special experience at Blue Bottle Studio Kyoto that could be called a full-course coffee experience in this city. This special experience is only available in Kyoto, Japan, for a limited time only, and is limited to five people each time.

Blue Bottle Studio was created by founder James Freeman as a place to express what he considers to be the best coffee experience today. Although it has now spread around the world, it originated on the second floor of the Blue Bottle Coffee Kyoto Cafe.

Blue Bottle Coffee Kyoto Cafe is a very popular restaurant in a renovated 100-year-old traditional Kyoto machiya, but once you step into the second floor of the building, you will feel as if you are in a different world. The extremely exclusive experience offered in this space, where all reservations are required, will transport you to another world for about 90 minutes.

The course now offers six drinks and two sweets to give you a taste of the many faces of coffee.

The service begins with a tea made from ingredients other than coffee beans such as leaves, flowers, and fruits from the coffee tree, and continues with a set of drinks brewed in a special way to bring out the individual characteristics of the beans, a rich cup made from a large quantity of beans dripped slowly drop by drop like a water-dripping method, and finally, an alcoholic drink. The coffee is served one after another, each one unique, including the type of bean and the brewing method.

This season, Blue Bottle Coffee also introduces its original instant coffee called "soluble," which is made from extremely rare beans. This is a special kind of instant coffee that is not sold in stores or online.

The sweetness of the pastry by Tangentes, a pastry unit with a deep knowledge of French pastries, is also an outstanding achievement. Sometimes a tart palate cleanser, sometimes a rich partner to coffee, they are a delight to the palate.

Of course everything you taste is delicious, but the graceful manners of the specially trained staff in their TANAKA uniforms, the jazz records playing on the high-end players and speakers, and the view in front of you cut into squares by the windows...all of this adds up to a world in which you can strongly experience a new possibility of enjoying coffee in all five senses, Here is a world where you can strongly experience new possibilities of coffee that can truly be enjoyed with all five senses.

What I felt here is that this is a special service that should be experienced only by those who have enjoyed coffee for many years and who make coffee at home as a matter of course. It will destroy those stereotypes in a good way.