The biggest concern to waking up early in a small town like this is the lack of cafés open at this hour. As was covered in yesterday’s post, this issue had been solved by Key Bakery in Motobu. So naturally, we drive up there for a first stop early in the morning, as we have a scheduled event a little ways away, which is also a morning activity. I get myself another café au lait and switch up the baked good with something that, when translated, was simply called “a lot of cheese”. Another wonderful coffee and a cheese stuffed pastry later and we’re back on the road.
While we’re on the road, I don’t think I’ve gone into any details on the person who’s guest house we are renting, Captain Kenji Morimoto. In the initial communication to us, he mentioned he will gat back to us on any questions we have, but may be delayed if he’s out at sea. Despite this, he was able to help us make a reservation (as our phones can’t make calls here) at a reservation-only restaraunt over in Ogimi village, where we’ll be going for lunch later today.
We arrive at our destination, the Nakayama Coffee Farm, located up in the mountains of Okinawa (fun fact, the name literally translates to “In the mountains coffee farm”). The largest of the few coffee farms Japan has, we arrive right as they are opening up for a tour of the farm. As we are chatting with our guide on the tour, I spot a very comfy looking cat chilling on a box, and like a reflex, I find myself petting it until we go out to see the farm.
The farm officially has many owners of different plots, where they choose the specific species of coffee to grow while the people who work at the farm manage and harvest the plots, so they have several different species at different stages of growth. The area is very scenic, with dense trees intentionaly grown around the farm to help with the typhoons that come through the area.
We arrive back at the main building / café, and our guide brings us some of the raw coffee beans for us to roast and brew. With very different preferences in coffees, it was fun to see the difference in both colour and taste, with my light – medium roast vs my dad’s dark roast. Eventually after close to 30 minutes, we finished roasting, grinding, measuring, and brewing our coffee, which we enjoyed alongside some complimentary coffee cake and candied coffee fruit.
It was a very fun experience and was cool to see all of the nature around the farm. Once we finished our coffee and cake, we drive back down the narrow, winding mountain road, heading north towards Ogimi village. With some extra time before our reserved meal there, we opt to take a more scenic route, crossing over a couple bridges to see some islands and driving along the coast. Eventually we pull into the town of Ogimi, popularized by David Beuttner’s writings on blue zones, with Ogimi being one of the main inspirations and examples used.
The restaurant is a farm to table establishment, with a rustic wooden look and plants covering it. We walk in and are greeted by an older Japanese lady, who seats us and brings us the menus. We order the platter of various traditional foods and are given some tea alongside it. The meal arrives, along with a translated guide as to what each dish is, with various local vegetables that I was unfamiliar with. The dish was very good and very filling, so after finishing up, we thank the ladies running the place and are back on the scenic drive home.
We make a quick stop at the 7-11 in Motobu to get a couple small snacks and stock up on coffee for what will be a very early morning tomorrow. I eat my ice cream and relax at the house and pack up my bag. We leave a teddy bear knitted by my grandma with captain Kenji with a hand written note in Japanese asking him to give it to a child (and received a heartfelt message from him the following day on it). After everything is packed up, we head to sleep at just shy of 9pm.
