UCC, Good Coffee Smile =)

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.

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.

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.    

Exhibition room 4: Roasting
Roasting is a very substantial process of producing coffee’s aroma, color and flavor. Blending and grinding process will be explained, beside roasting. We could also find many model of machines, such as roasting, blending and grinding machines.

Exhibition room 5: Extraction

In this room, you will be taught how to make 20 types of delicious coffee drinks. 

Exhibition room 6: Culture

 

Coffee, surely, makes a lot of impacts and reaches world’s culture. This room will show you how coffee has lighten up life of ages through music, novel, stamps etc. Luckily, We found this Indonesia’s stamp. Indonesia is the third biggest coffee producing country.

After we finished exploring all those and back to first floor, finally tasting time!!!

Tasting corner has a theme for every month. For March 2015, they served two little cups of Guatemala coffee with ribbons on. Blue one and pink one. Blue ribbon means coffee that is planted on lower area while pink is on higher area. According to Footy, blue cup tasted a bit plain and sour. Pink cup tasted bitter, similar like espresso.   

 Coffee Quiz Q&A Corner is a must-try area. Answer 5 questions and you’ll get Coffee Doctor Certificate with your photo on it. The questions are serious one, testing your knowledge after visiting exhibition rooms but it's truly fun. Even if you don't answer all questions right, you still can get certificate, post card and also questionnaire. They provide the quiz in both Japanese and English.
For souvenirs and to enjoy various types of coffee beans which the plantations are managed by UCC, they also provide shop and cafe in ground floor.

Check this list first before you get there:

Opening hours                 : 10AM to 5PM (last entry at 4.30PM)

Opening hours (for cafe): 10AM to 6PM (last order at 5.30PM)

Holiday                           : Mondays (following day in case Monday is holiday)

                                         The beginning and the end of the year

Admission fee                : Adults (high school students and above): 300 yen

                                        Groups (min. 20 people)                          : 240 yen

                                        Seniors (min. 65 years old)                     : 150 yen

                                        Middle School Students and under         : free

                                        Disabled people(may be accompanied      : 150 yen

                                        by 1 care provider)     

*senior and disabled people must show proper documents

Tadao Ueshima did cool mission, staffs are friendly, design is unique, audio exhibition guide technology is superb, coffee is delicious. Have a great fun here. Thanks!

We eat, we walk, we talk

FoodyFooty2

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