[caption caption="Little Coffee Tree"][/caption]
Based on Footy's request who loves drinking coffee, we decided to come to UCC Coffee Company (UCCコーヒー 博物館) in Chuo-ku, Kobe. UCC Group was founded by Tadao Ueshima, that is known as ‘a father of coffee in Japan’. His products of coffee have become hands of sharing the amazing coffee taste as his mission is. We came from Osaka after spent two nights there. We took train to Kobe and got off at Sannomiya Station. After that, we got on Port Liner, and finally arrived at Minamikoen Station. The museum is near enough from Minamikoen Station, just by walking a bit. When you find a bridge and super big IKEA store, you’ll know that you are so close with this cool stuff.
[caption caption="UCC Coffee Museum"]
The design of UCC Coffee Museum is definitely unique and this uniqueness makes it easy to be recognized. Watch out! No parking lot here. So if you went here by car, try to find nearest paid parking. After we paid the admission fee (adult = 300 yen/person), we got brochure, Q & A quiz card number and tasting coffee voucher. This museum provides Wi-Fi, so you could have an audio exhibition guide by browsing on www.ucc.jp/museum/sp/en/103.html.
First of all, get the escalator to reach the exhibition room 1. There are 6 exhibition rooms in this museum that will explain to us all details about its each subject. You can see all rooms by descending a gentle slope until you reach the ground floor.
Exhibition room 1: Origin
You’ll get a magnificent history of coffee when it was first discovered in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, the citizen used coffee for Kariomon coffee ceremony . ‘Kari’ means ‘coffee’ and ‘Omon’ means ‘being together’. Then coffee was spreaded to Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Europe and all around world nowadays. Coffee became popular in Japan since Meiji Period (as a yearning for western culture) and now Japan has become the world’s fourth largest coffee consumer. Museum provides a digital library if you would like to know more.
[caption caption="Kariomon"]
Exhibition room 2: Cultivation
You could see a complete explaination of coffee cultivation. It started from seed to coffee cherry, from harvesting and development to green beans. They provided large model of coffee cherry to make customer understand well.
Exhibition room 3: Classification
UCC Coffee Museum showed us the high standard of classification that refers to world’s largest coffee producer, Brazil. Brazillian classifiers (known as classificadors) used the excellent senses of taste and smell to evaluate green coffee beans. These professionals had a strict grading system and focus in the size of the beans, number of defects, aroma and flavor.
