Nozawa Onsen's Café Culture

Check out this exhaustive list of amazing café options in Nozawa onsen! Guest article by Peter Douglas, president and representative director, kk Nozawa Hospitality

Nozawa Onsen is the ultimate all-round resort: you don’t have to ski to have a great winter holiday here! But did you know that it’s not just the myriad onsens, picturesque temples and other photo-ops, that the village offers, but an extraordinary café culture too?

There are 30 cafés in the village, all within walking distance of each other. For those days when you don’t feel like being on the mountain, when you just can’t face one more hot bath, or when you just want a read-a-book day, you have an almost endless choice of places to relax with a great coffee or a hot tea, just soaking up the vibe. Just walking from one end of the 100m-long O-yu Dori main street, you’ll pass Jonnobi, Tanuki, St. Anton, and Sol Green, while a few more steps will bring you to the Shizen Collective in one direction and Napa Café in the other.

Most of Nozawa Onsen’s cafes are very happy for you to linger over a lazy coffee, just watching the snow fall outside. Many will do takeaway as well, though a couple (like the village’s only chain outlet, Blue Bottle) are takeaway-only.

Trying to categorise these is hard, and many if not most are downright idiosyncratic reflections on the owner’s tastes (Melia’s skateboard benches, and Sol Green’s resident dog, being great examples). Some are long-standing village favourites, open all year, and as much a place for the owner’s friends to hang out, as commercial ventures. Carté is a classic example, with exquisitely prepared coffee, an expansive collection of quixotic chopstick rests, and an oasis of old-school peace in the centre of the village.

Many, like Coffee Mok, are focussed on delivering urban-barista-quality coffee (more than half of the village cafes have Italian-style espresso machines and will serve your latte with the requisite decorative swirl). Whether from a high-tech espresso machine or an old-fashioned percolator, good coffee is a given.

Some are chameleons that morph from cafés to lunch spots to beer bars as the day progresses. The Craft Room opens as a meeting spot to grab a kick-start coffee opposite the main gondola, gradually developing into a happening snowboarders’ haunt as the day winds down.

But why so many cafes in one little community? First of all, Nozawa Onsen is a compact village of small buildings and there are few venues big enough to support a restaurant business, but plenty of holes-in-the-wall that can accommodate a few tables and chairs in a cosy spot.

Secondly, this is a living village of 3,400 residents, and a small café is an ideal lifestyle business, alongside some summer farming, and other winter activities, whether for a local family or one of the many newer permanent residents of the village. Tomii-san, of the Sousakuya Koubo, said “I’m working at home anyway [she is a seamstress] so if friends and guests come by, why not make them a coffee or share whatever I’m making for lunch?” While Rowie of Shizen Collective commented that the reason she started her café was to host her yoga clients and friends and make sure they had a place with homecooked vegan food and treats.

We asked some of our staff what their favourites were:

• John Vermaak, manager of Kawamotoya, picked Hardings, the onsite café, for its almond croissants (and everything else)
• Taisei Kikuta, manager, picked St Anton for its great steamed buns and range of drinks
• Kaori Machida, manager of Address Nozawa, plumped for Akari Swiss Bakery, “it’s so cute!”
• Lena Leong, reservations manager, loves Napa Café for its “friendly owners and lovely desserts”

There’s a full list below. Note that many of these are small businesses with irregular opening hours; if one is closed, just walk on to the next. Most will serve you a beer and other drinks as well as coffees. And almost all will also offer light food if not hot meals.