TAFU, a long-established tea seller in Osaka, Japan, opened its first U.S. branch in New York City offering premium tea and confectionaries. The venue features a line of specialty teas brewed using the authentic, traditional Japanese technique in a modern Asia-chic setting.

The veteran tea company’s New York flagship opened in the heart of Manhattan on September 25th on the ground floor of the Doubletree Hotel in Midtown East. The 540-square-foot teahouse, finished warmly with dark blonde counters and aged metal tone flooring, serves freshly brewed teas for $2.50 a cup and caters primarily to take-out customers. The selection, available in both hot and iced versions, includes sencha (natural green leaf tea), hojicha (roasted tea), genmaicha (green tea with roasted brown rice), and matcha (powdered green tea) Although not “traditional” in the old school sense, sweet offerings provide a truly Japanese flavor to the experience and range from tea-flavored cheesecakes to green tea chocolates to daifuku (soft rice cakes with sweet filling)—a Japanese favorite. Gift sets are also available.

The company also sells an assortment of uniquely packaged naturally aromatic tealeaves to businesses and directly to consumers. As for the wholesale side of its operation, TAFU is putting effort into promoting Japanese tea as a featured ingredient in processed foods, planning a robust marketing push toward manufacturers such as bakeries and ice creameries. The company has set a monthly sales goal of $ 110,000 for the entire New York operation.

Established in Osaka, the second largest city in Japan, TAFU has been catering tea to both consumers and businesses for over one hundred years. Under the leadership of Ken Inoue, who became TAFU’s sixth president in 2004, the company began a vigorous expansion and launched a chain of cafes featuring green teas and sweets.

Inoue decided on the move into New York City in May 2007 when he was strategizing ways to penetrate the Tokyo market: “I thought, why not shift our perspective and expand into New York City first to re-import our brand into Tokyo,” he recalls. “If we can catch the heart of New Yorkers, the most discriminating customers in the world, we will surely be successful in Tokyo.” Five months later, TAFU opened its doors in the Big Apple.

While currently working on developing new businesses across Japan including Osaka and Tokyo, Inoue is also enthusiastic about building more presence around the world. His company has already received inquiries from India and Thailand about opening a branch or providing technical assistance, which came on the heels of an article in The NIKKEI on September 19th featuring their New York opening.

“I decided that my mission as a tea purveyor is to spread knowledge about the true value of Japanese tea to as many people as possible,” Inoue said in his speech at the pre-opening reception inviting Japanese media and restaurant representatives. “I want people to know its genuine taste and health benefits. I want the whole world to enjoy Japanese tea. Opening the New York flagship is our fist step to achieve that goal.”

TAFU’s key selling point, Inoue explains, is the authentic taste and solid quality of Japanese tea prepared in the age-old, authentic technique. Among the established brewing principles are the close monitoring of water temperature, steeping time, and in the case of hojicha, the roasting of the tea leaves in a ceramic pan just before serving. Such “proper” methods are known to draw out the full aroma and flavor of the tea. He adds that the resulting brew affords higher health benefits. Inoue goes on to talk about the various tea manufacturing processes, such as how matcha is made by stone-grinding a particular type of tea called “tencha,” which is produced by steaming and drying the specially shade-grown tea leaves before removing all the stems and veins. When providing teas to U.S. customers, he wants to familiarize them with these tea facts and the history of Japanese tea, which are not very well known even in Japan.

In a display of its environmental commitment, TAFU also encourages its customers to use refill mugs. The shop sells its original, Zojirushi-made stainless steel thermos called “Tuff Mugs” so that the patrons can use them (in addition to any other vessels of their choice) to get refills for $1.50 a cup instead of $2.50.

TAFU New York’s Sept. 26 debut was well received, judging from its customer traffic. About half the visitors were native Japanese, TAFU estimates. At the storefront, free tissue packs printed with the TAFU name—a ubiquitous advertising technique in Japan—did attract the attention of the passing New Yorkers, who gave a curious look to the setup, some picking up the tissue packs to examine them.

Japanese green tea is among the central players in the Japanese food “boom” in the U.S. According to the Japanese customs statistics, Japan’s export of green tea to the U.S. jumped from 31 million yen in 2001 to 1.47 billion yen in 2006. Its success, it has been explained, is due to the growing recognition by the American public of the reported health benefits of green tea. Another factor may well be the rigorous marketing efforts by the industry players such as ITO EN, a Japanese tea giant who established a subsidiary in New York in 2001 to manufacture and market its tea products.

Today more Americans seek a richer variety of higher quality food and drinks from Japan. Take, for example, sake. According to a brewer who has been exporting to the U.S. for the past ten years, his customers nowadays are quite picky about their sake, ordering specific styles such as sweet, dry, ginjo, daiginjo, honjozo, while 10 years ago a single term “sake” did the job. Fueled by the market’s demand, businesses on both sides of the Pacific are driven to offer more, further enriching the Japanese food scene in the U.S. Now at the beginning of the maturing stage, the trend seems to be embracing TAFU. “I hear people say there’s a Japanese food boom going on,” says Inoue. “I don’t want it to end up a fad. I want people to enjoy the authentic taste of Japanese tea as part of their lives.”

Written by Makoto Yamauchi
Edited and Translated by Hitomi Meya