7 best small-batch coffee roasters in Tokyo

There’s a bright and sunny demeanour to Little Darling Coffee Roasters, making it feel like you’ve been transported to California. This spacious café and roastery is part of the Share Green Minami Aoyama retail and event space, whose beautiful grounds feature repurposed warehouses and a manicured lawn adorned with lush greenery courtesy of the neighbouring florist and nursery, Solso Park.

Head barista Naoya Akagawa, who was a Coffee Fest Latte Art World Championship Open finalist, handpicks five beans and roasts them on-site two to three times a week, after which they are packaged into 100g and 200g bags. The house blend, with the twee name ‘My Bestfriend’s Crush’, is a medium to dark roast of beans from Brazil, Ethiopia, Laos and Colombia. If you’re drinking in, you can choose your preferred brewing method, whether it’s American press or filter.

For snacks, the Chinese-inspired bao sandwiches with a variety of fillings are a crowd-pleaser; otherwise, there’s also coffee soft-serve and pastries (including a selection from Beaver Bread in Nihonbashi).

Switch Coffee has expanded with locations in both Yoyogi-Hachiman and K5 in Nihonbashi, but all the roasting is still done at its original Meguro outlet. Beans are sourced from farmers in Honduras, Kenya and the like while roasting is done about four times a week to turn out approximately five single-origin roasts and a seasonal espresso blend (on our visit, it was a full-bodied Brazil and El Salvador mix).

The setup is rather basic with not much seating except for a bench outside, and that’s because the owners believe that with the right beans, home-brewed coffee can be just as good. In fact, Switch’s single-origin beans are made especially for the home, and the staff are more than happy to provide brewing tips and guidance.

If you’re looking to drink on the spot, you can choose from five hot and cold beverages: drip coffee, latte, cappuccino and two specials, an espresso tonic and a coffeespirit mix, which is usually iced coffee with rum in summer and a warm latte spiked with rum during the cooler months. Switch also offers a coffee bean subscription, so if you’re living in Japan, you can get a bag of the featured beans delivered to your door for just ¥2,800 a month.

Out of Coffee Wrights’ two Tokyo locations, the main roastery and café in Kuramae is the most unassuming. While it may not look as polished as its sister outlet on first impression, the factory-like ground floor space has a pragmatic setup that puts the focus on the roasting process. Here the beans are roasted every two to three days, resulting in an ever-changing selection of six single-origin roasts and a Brazilian decaf, which carries toasty, caramelly notes reminiscent of almonds and dark chocolate.

The second floor space, however, is a different story. While downstairs is all business, the upstairs café is about enjoying the fruit of the roast. All decked out in wood finishing, its minimalist cool vibe is made for lingering over coffee, pastries (we love the seasonal mango tart in summer) and free wi-fi.

In this quiet corner of Shibuya, Heart’s Light Coffee has found a home in a clean, modern space and suffused it with great music courtesy of an extensive vinyl collection. The copper-plated roaster is particularly eye-catching; it comes from Turkey and is one of a kind in Japan.

While the shop roasts its beans roughly four times a week, it also lends out the roaster as a community service to other cafés. One of the two owners also handmade a spinning coffee dripper, making it that much easier for the baristas to make pour-overs.

The house blend is the lightly roasted Heart’s Merge, a mix of Panama and Papua New Guinea that carries hints of berry jam, almonds and hazelnuts, and it’s perfectly suited for drip coffee. Heart’s Light Coffee also does interesting twists on milky coffee. There’s a banana latte and also an ‘iced’ latte that contains no ice. It’s simply cold milk topped with a shot of espresso, creating a photogenic layer effect with the black coffee floating on top of the white milk.

Good news for music lovers: if you buy 200g of coffee beans, the shop lets you pick out a complimentary record from the collection to take home with you. Cool, eh?

Hidden down the backstreets of Ebisu, this charming space is everything you hope for from a quaint little neighbourhood coffee shop. It’s reassuringly homely, set in a remodelled house whose entrance is almost entirely covered up by lush leafy plants. It’s the perfect place to stay idle over coffee and cake (the gorgonzola cheesecake is a winner), but make sure to check out the second-floor gallery for its selection of handbags, jewellery and ceramics by local designers.

Drip Bar started out as a retail shop in Aoyama with a small coffee counter before moving to its current Ebisu hideout to focus on the beans. The four-person team deals directly with farmers mostly in Africa and South America, while the roasting happens weekly at another location near Kichijoji, which sells beans but doesn’t serve coffee.

With a focus on single-origin varieties, Drip Bar roasts its beans in small batches to maintain greater control over quality while minimising waste. Each cup of coffee is handdripped to order, using exclusive drippers made to fit just 15g of ground coffee at a time. The dual-language menu is straightforward, with six bean options organised from the lightest to the darkest roast.

This Sydney transplant has been in the coffee business since 2003 before deciding to set up an outpost in Tokyo’s sumo heartland, Ryogoku, in 2014 on the cusp of the coffee boom in Japan. Single O prides itself on securing ethically-sourced coffee, which it roasts three times a week from Tuesday to Thursday. The tasting bar, however, is only open Saturday and Sunday, meaning it only serves coffee on those days.

Single O’s roasting style is very measured; it’s always about highlighting the beans’ natural flavours. The vibrant Reservoir house blend of Costa Rican and Ethiopian beans is a winner, producing an acidic brew that’s bright with citrus notes.

The packaging for the 1kg bags is just as interesting – it’s used to showcase works by local artists, and its design changes every three months. Used bags brought back by customers are recycled into trendy little pouches and sold online.

Situated in Ryogoku, Leaves Coffee Roasters is a modern retreat in Tokyo's old school 'sumo town'. The shop is only open three days a week (leaving the rest of the week for roasting, packing and delivery), but it's worth the trip for the store's smooth brews and cool atmosphere.

Carefully curated beans are sourced from Ethiopia, Kenya and other South American countries, and are all roasted in-house through a German roasting machine. Coffee aficionados can buy bags of beans or opt for a fresh brewed coffee or espresso, which you can enjoy at the stylish indoor and outdoor seating.