Following its opening in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, a downtown area of Tokyo, Blue Bottle Coffee has already opened its second Japanese store in the fashion district of Aoyama. The brand was founded in Oakland, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in 2002. Starting with a permanent coffee kiosk in a garage, the brand now operates 16 stores in the three metropolitan areas of San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. Its founder, James Freeman, a former clarinetist with an unusual background, carefully selects fresh green beans, roasts them in-house, and strictly adheres to using them all within 48 hours. Each cup is carefully hand-brewed by a barista upon receiving an order. Their "quality-first" approach to pursuing the perfect cup has earned them acclaim, and the founders of Google and Twitter, who admired their business style, have invested in them. Known as the "Apple of the coffee world," the brand has experienced rapid growth across the United States. Their first store in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, which opened in February of this year, has proven so popular that lines form daily. Similarly, in Aoyama, there was a queue before the store even opened, and the 70-seat store was already full, showing the huge response.
-- In the second part, we explain, "What's different about third wave coffee?"
