Coffee & Sweets Awaya

This old-school coffee shop right by Oimachi Station turned things around drastically a few years back and now carries only one kind of beans: the Toarco variety from Indonesia’s Toraja, a renowned growing region where production ground to a halt due to World War II before being revived by Japan’s Key Coffee in the ’70s. In addition to the tasty hand-drip Joe, which is slightly sweet, powerfully acidic and exudes a fine fruit aroma, Awaya’s mouth-watering cake gallery is also well worth a look – we found the cognac-powered gateau chocolat particularly hard to resist. All this is not to say that the shop’s renewal has been a complete success: the interior is now about as charming as that of a Doutor and smoking is allowed throughout the seating area. On sunny days, consider take-out.