This fascinating book—part ethnography, part memoir—traces Japan’s vibrant café society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan’s coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White’s book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the café in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality , dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in public.

这本引人入胜的书——一部分是民族志，一部分是回忆录——追溯了 130 多年来日本充满活力的咖啡馆社会。 Merry White 追溯了日本从 20 世纪初的咖啡热潮，当时日本帮助启动了巴西咖啡产业，直到今天，在欧洲和美洲，咖啡表面都是日本独有的方式。 怀特的书涉及性别、隐私、完美主义和都市主义等多种主题。 她展示了咖啡和咖啡空间如何成为日本关于公共空间使用、社会变革、现代性和愉悦的观念形成的核心。 怀特描述了日本的咖啡馆，从 1888 年开始，一直是一个在思想、行为、性、着装和品味方面遇到新想法和实验的地方。 这是一个人可以在社交、艺术或哲学上参与或在政治上发声的地方。 重要的是，它也是一个城市绿洲，一个人可以在公共场合保持私密。