STRONG BREW
THE SMELL OF apple pie and roasting coffee beans fills the air inside Café Bach, a 51-year-old coffee shop in Tokyo’s rough-and-tumble Minami-Senju neighborhood. Café Bach is what many young Tokyoites might describe as “Shōwa.” Japan’s Shōwa era (1926–1989) was marked by a penchant for imported concepts and non-Japanese decor. At Café Bach, staff in mint-green shirts serve customers who sit, quietly sipping, in bulky leather-and-wood chairs, surrounded by dark wood wainscoting, as classical music plays in the background.
I’m here this morning to meet James Freeman, the founder of
