The First Coffeeshop in Japan

Yokohama City view, sometime in the late 19th century

During the Meiji restoration, a young member of the Zheng family[1], Tei Eikei (鄭永慶 Zheng Yongqing), had plans to follow in his family’s footsteps of cosmopolitan diplomacy, but in a modern way. His family sent him to Yale University along with a cohort of Japanese students seeking training in the Western education system. However, he was very sickly, and due to prolonged illness, returned to Japan before he could graduate. Due to his interrupted education, he was unable to ascend to the same positions that his classmates had once they returned with their degrees. Many of them set up academies and universities upon their return, and one of them employed Tei as an instructor.

              He was disappointed with this existence. His friends and classmates were all becoming prominent influences in building modern Japan, but he was just a teacher. He had lofty dreams of ushering in this new era and found that it was a shame that, due to a lack of credentials, he was to be excluded from this. He had a small inheritance from his family, an income from their landholdings, so in 1888, he gathered a sum of money together to open a business, the Kahi Chakan 可否茶館,  that would be the site of the flourishing of modern Japan. Although he called it a coffeeshop, it was to combine multiple European-style institutions under one roof: there was a café and restaurant on one floor, a health club with a tennis court and billiards, a literary salon where people could gather, a study room with newspapers on loan, desks, and writing paper. It was a club house for members, but there was a public area where anyone could come. The coffeeshop was advertised in the prominent literary magazines of the time.

              As expected, this business went deeply into debt immediately. Tei sold all of his family’s landholdings, borrowed money so that he could gamble in the stock market in order to get ahead of his debts, lost everything again, and even reached the point where he planned to commit suicide to escape his creditors. During the time he had been working as an instructor at his friend’s college, he had earned the admiration of many students who remained close to him. One of those students happened to find his suicide note, and realizing that it was only the debts that were driving him to such an extreme measure, told him that he would help him escape the country instead. His student got him passage on a ship that was heading to Seattle and introduced him to a friend of his who was studying there.

              Tei moved to Seattle, but having no skills to be able to provide for himself there properly and very limited connections, he began working as a dishwasher. Already having a very weak constitution, the life of poverty was too much for his body to bear, so before a few years had passed, he died, around age 35. He was buried in the Lake View Cemetery in Seattle (where, years later, Bruce Lee was buried).

              The site of his coffeeshop in Ueno, Tokyo, now hosts a memorial to the location at 1-1-10 Ueno, Taito-ku, Tokyo (near the Ueno Hirokoji intersection).

              One thing I find really fascinating about his concept is how ahead of its time it is and how successful it could have been if it had opened now. It’s tragic that a person died believing he had failed when, a century later, so many people can appreciate his vision. The idea of a members-only club for literature and art, with workspaces, places for socializing, and a gym / area for exercise, is a kind of all-in-one approach that is linked to so many new apartment building developments. It’s like a members only social club that caters to the more artistically inclined but then combine that with a gym membership and co-working space, and support for something now nebulously called “community.” It’s actually very surprising how prescient Tei’s vision was, and it’s such a shame that he had to die at such a young age and in so much debt for an idea that has now enriched enormous amounts of property developers. Though I have visited places like social clubs, co-working spaces, gyms and cafes, I never found one that combines every concept together the way that his coffeeshop did. Though it was only open for around five years, the first few years must have been very thrilling for Tei until the walls started closing in. It’s worth crediting him for the attempt.

[1] The direct descendant of Zheng Zhilong, a well-known pirate during Ming Dynasty. His Japanese descendants developed into a well-regarded family of translators and diplomats.