Coffee & Toast @ Onca Coffee, Tenjin, Fukuoka

 

A new coffee joint has just been opened! And I am pretty excited to see what it has to offer. With its clean and woody interior in the newly renovated Mina Tenjin building, and with syphons at the ready, this is probably a hipster's dream come true. 

Men at work

I was pretty surprised that once doing a bit of digging prior to my java testing shenanigans, that Onca has a serious presence online curating and selling various beans all over the world. They have other shops too in other parts of Japan, with their shop in Gunma and Tokyo being the other main outlets. Now, I am quite excited. 

At the ready. Its pretty cool they have a small pamphlet to explain about the beans. 

The menu was relatively simple. Well, it only has black for 450 yen or white for  500 yen. Despite being a bit of the minimalist side in their facade, there is nothing minimalist with the price. But still, it would be worth trying this place out before judging. And as I did not have a filling lunch at the time, I thought of getting a toastie with it. Going with more of a traditional route, I got myself a red bean and butter toastie. This lead to the overall tag of 750. Ouch! 

Strong

Despite the hefty barrier of entry, the coffee is really good. For the black they used their own house blend, which has a flavour combination of dried fruits, caramel and cacao. Ok, they do not actually have that in their mojo. It would be interesting if they did. However, that did give the accurate description in terms of how it tasted like. There is some fruity and floral fragrance that I spotted and caught me right away. The mouthfeel was clean and crisp as well. There was a buttery sweetness, even though I added nothing into the coffee. And despite having such a flavour profile, it was not as acidic as I thought. 

Sweet delight. 

Speaking about buttery goodness, the toastie was really spot on. The were slabs of salted butter crammed between the bread and anko paste. The cold and savoury butter melded with the sweet and chunky red beans, thus giving off an interesting flavour combination. Imagine salted caramel, where salty and sweet collide with harmony and you will get the idea. The outer part of the toastie was absolutely crunchy, making this a joy to eat. It was actually pretty enjoyable. 

This came pretty handy. 

Overall, I did enjoy this afternoon cuppa despite being on the steep side. It should be note that they do not have a vast menu for their drinks like frappes, mocha, and the other usual suspects you get in your Starbucks. They do have something called the "espresso sunrise" for 560 yen which sounds interesting. Perhaps I can have that the next time I am there. Still, if you are a coffee fan I think it is worth a try. So if you fancy a go, the address is as follows:

4 Chome-3-8 Tenjin, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka, 810-0001, Japan

Front of the house.