- Worth it Japan.
Adam, Andrew, and I are taking on Tokyo.
This is part two of a
three part Japan series.
Today we're doing coffee.
We brought our good
friend, Tasty producer,
bodyguard, translator, Rie McClenny.
- Hi.
- It's really hot here.
(laughs)
- And sweaty boy himself, Andrew Ilnyckyj.
I don't know why I opened my mouth.
Today on Worth it Japan,
we're going to be trying
three coffees at three
drastically different price points
to find out which coffee is
the most worth it at its price.
- Worth it.
- There's a very special
coffee that we found,
that kind of, in some
ways, motivated this trip,
that we're going to get
to a little bit later,
and here we go.
(upbeat music)
- Why is it important that, as a company,
you are roasting your own beans?
- So what we're having is... there it is.
That and that.
- How do you say cheers in Japanese?
- 'Kanpai'
- Wow
- That is powerful.
- Super strong.
- Yeah, tastes like ambition.
- Bitterness and a
little bit of sweetness.
- Do you usually go for iced coffee?
- Always. I take my beverages very slowly.
Iced coffee, you can
enjoy for a much longer
period of time than a hot cup of coffee.
- You also have the dangerous
game with this where you..
- Oh I'm very familiar
with missing the straw.
I don't know if everybody
does it that way.
I also love how there's
a bunch of people here,
just doing their own work: studying,
starting their own company--
- Dreamers.
You don't know where you're going,
but it all starts with a good cup of...
- R.O.
(laughs)
Jetlag solved, at least for a few hours.
R.O.Star.
- R.O.Star.
- R.O.Star.
- Coffee fact.
- What's up, Adam?
The first coffee shop in Tokyo.
Guess what year it was founded?
- 1887.
- Wait, you did not see my fact did you?
- No, but I made an educated guess.
- That was amazing.
- What year is it?
- 1888.
So we're going to Coffee
Elementary School.
Rie, can you give us some background?
- The barista used to be a teacher.
- What kind of teacher?
- Elementary school teacher.
- Oh.
(laughs)
(upbeat music)
So is your coffee for elementary students?
- It really does smell like chocolate.
- Floral chocolate, it's like
a chocolate of rose petals.
- I love the handmade mug. I
mean, the way they make this
is by going like this on
clay, right? But it does also
mold to the hand very...
- Is this clay?
- It could be. Cheers.
- Kanpai.
- Kanpai.
- If this were a color,
this is like pastel beige.
- Warm in hugging but not aggressive.
- It's crazy how smooth this coffee is.
- It's almost like a coffee
tea. Do you taste blueberries?
- A little bit.
- This is like an episode of Scooby Doo.
There is this blueberry
that pulls off a rubber mask
and it's like, oh my god.
That coffee was a
blueberry this whole time,
and it just blew your mind into berries.
- I am starting to get the coffee jitters.
You know what this coffee
really boils down to?
Ha ha ha, boils.
- Boil.
I don't think it technically boils but--
- You know you put boiling
water over coffee beans?
- It's actually below boiling.
- Just below boiling.
- Anyway, what were you gonna say?
- I don't even remember. Wow
this coffee is hitting me.
This is great. Let's go party.
- Oh, blueberry. It's like
how did you get in here?
(laughs)
- We had the first two locations in Tokyo,
and now to find the most
expensive coffee in Osaka.
Rie told us to pick
these up before we left.
- This is bento box.
- Oh lunch box.
Rie always picks the best
stuff, as you would expect.
- This is my dessert, I
shouldn't have eaten it first.
- Did you know that in
the Kanagawa Prefecture,
there's a unison hot spring theme park
and there you can take
baths in real warm coffee.
- Why do they do it?
- Refresh yourself,
and also it's good for
your skin apparently.
- So instead of drinking
coffee in the morning,
I could just steep myself
in a bath of coffee.
- Yeah, pretty much.
(orchestral music)
- Why did you barrel-age coffee?
- What is so important about making it
and doing it that slowly?
- We have a 100,000 yen cup of
coffee right in front of us.
I have a lot of emotions. I feel weird.
What if I die? I also am excited though.
- Really we started a coffee episode
and we're ending up
somewhere in a wine episode.
This is aged, something you sip,
we're here at night,
we're no longer doing this
the way that coffee is normally consumed.
- Yeah, we went from coffee to cof o'wine.
- Cof o'wine, it's a new pokemon.
- Cof o'wine.
- So we have to take turns obviously,
we can't drink out the
cup at the same time.
Is there a Japanese translation
of rock, paper, scissors?
- Jan-ken-pon
- Aww
- First, we smell. (sniffs)
Holy schmoly, it really
does smell like wine.
- I'm getting chocolate from it too.
- This is the darkest
liquid I've ever seen.
- Should we drink?
- Okay yeah, we should drink.
I'm really nervous. I'm
super nervous actually.
(orchestral music)
Wow. I've never tasted
anything like this before.
- Is it actually good?
- Oh yeah, it's very good.
Ooh, I want a second sip.
But I'll let you have a sip first.
- You really amped this up for me.
I'm scared to lift it too high
because it's gonna look awkward.
(orchestral music)
- Whoa. It's really good.
It's like somebody took a chocolate taser
and just rammed it into my mouth.
- This tastes a lot like a dessert wine.
Instead of making chocolate
milk, it's like you used wine
instead of milk and you
made chocolate wine.
Should I be worried
that this is fermented,
that this is alcoholic? Is
this gonna make me drunk?
Is it okay to drink a whole cup of this?
Are you sure that this is not alcoholic?
'Cause I feel pretty weird right now.
- Here's what I know. This
is absolutely worth trying.
- It's pretty yummy, I'm not gonna lie.
- Come on over, Adam and Rie.
- Okay.
- What's so funny?
(laughs)
- Coffee. Coffee.
- Steven's had a lot of coffee.
- Coffee. Coffee.
Which coffee was the most worth it
and surprise for you guys?
- This one is actually really hard.
There was my favorite one,
Coffee Elementary School.
The guy was so cool, great
location, and possibly the best
tasting cup of coffee I've ever had.
The other two places are things that
you can't really get anywhere else.
My Worth It winner was
the pour over coffee
from Coffee Elementary School.
It might be my favorite
Worth It location ever.
- The Münch. That place,
it's like when you shake
the president's hand.
The feeling of that shake
will resonate with you
for the next 24 hours.
But I gotta say R.O.Star is where it's at.
I'm changing my name to Starvin Lin.
Rie, who's your Worth It winner?
- My Worth It winner is
Coffee Elementary School.
It was a great cup of coffee.
- Adam, who's your Worth It Winner?
I knew all you fancy
kids were gonna say that.
That's okay, 'cause R.O.Star,
you're always going to warm my heart,
'cause you're 100 yen. Okay,
that does it for part two
of three for Japan. Stay tuned
for the next episode which
comes out next week where we
take on Rie's favorite thing.
- Cakes. Right?
