Relevant to my interests – sake and coffee

The Shokuhin Sangyo Shimbunsha Co., Ltd (Food Industry Newspaper Company) has an article about two of my favourite things – sake and coffee.

The story is about a new collaboration between Maruyama Coffee in Tokyo and Asahi Shuzō in Niigata, makers of Kubota (Not the other Asahi Shuzō in Yamaguchi, makers of Dassai).

The Niigata brewery will have a coffee cocktail set for sale in the Isetan Shinjuku Food Collection between 6-12 April 2022. The set for two cocktails will retail for JPY 2,200 (including tax) as part of the store’s “Restorative, Fragrant, the Aroma of Coffee” event (癒し、芳し、珈琲の香り).

The concept on Asahi Shuzō’s side was that making your everday coffee more delicious will in turn make every day more enjoyable. So they teamed up with the similarly-minded Maruyama Coffee to create a luxury product aimed at transforming the everyday into something special.

In the first cocktail, the spectacular fragrance and substantial flavours of Kubota Manju combine with Maruyama’s classic blend to create an Irish coffee. The flavours of the sake and coffee are still detectable, but combine perfectly to produce chocolate-like aromas, accompanied by deep, complex flavours. 

The second cocktail sees Kubota junmai daiginjo, with its perfect balance of aroma, sweetness and short finish, combined with single original Ethiopian filter coffee to create a simple style of cocktail. The rich aromas of the coffee are enhanced, and deeper flavours with sweetness and acidity unfold.

The cocktails were developed in partnership with Maruyama Coffee barista Miki Suzuki, who placed second in the 2017 World Barista Championship.

Creating a drink made from coffee and other ingredients is a required stage in the barista championships, and it is crucial that the combination is more than the sum of its parts. Asashi Shuzo and Maruyama Coffee comment that in the development of this cocktail, the aim was to understand the characterstics of different Kubota sake and pair them with specific coffees to produce particular flavours. The flavours of the sake and coffee blend together in perfect harmony, making the characteristics of the coffee even fresher and more enjoyable.

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Links

• Original article (Japanese, Shokuhin Sangyo Shinbunsha, 10 March 2022)
• Asahi Shuzō (Niigata, makers of Kubota) (English)
• Maruyama Coffee (English)