Hokkaido Residents' "Waya Uma" [10] "Misuzu's Toraja": The Coffee Genes Inherited from Kenji

Greetings 🍒 I am Akatherina IV 🤙🏻👈🏻

Do you all like coffee?
I mentioned it briefly
in the Marusei Butter Sandwich episode

Recently, I've become unable to handle caffeine,
and it makes me feel kind of sick.

But before that happened,
I had the kind of constitution where I could drink coffee at any time and still sleep like a log.

For starters,
my mother drinks coffee
like it's water.

My mother would brew about a liter
of coffee at a time.

And she would drink it all up in the blink of an eye.

I would drink it too because it was there.

On top of drinking it like water,
we were poor,
so the coffee we could drink

was always the kind that hit the trifecta of:Super cheap! Great value! Large capacity!

And it was always decided that we would brew it
very, very thin.

But when I went to town with my mother
(Sapporo residents call going to the Odori area "going to town")

she would occasionally
stop by Misuzu Coffee.

She would scrape together money she didn't have
to buy Toraja coffee.

And on the way home,
she would always talk about "Kenji."

Kenji was my mother's father,
so he was my grandfather.

I call my mother by her first name, lol,
and in the same way,
I call my grandfather by his first name too, lol.

Kenji's family lived in a place called Kami-Utashinai in Hokkaido,
and there is a city in Hokkaido called Utashinai City,

which is currently the city with the smallest population in Japan.

Kami-Utashinai is included within that.

When Kenji's family lived there,
it was extremely prosperous as a coal mining town,
and apparently there were many people there (about 40,000).

And,
Kenji was,
um...

To put it very kindly,

a middle-aged man who kept the heart of a child,

I guess? Haha.

His occupation was a playboy.

In today's terms,
like a NEET who is married?

I think Kenji's occupation,
"playboy,"
was his true calling, but in an era when many people were still living in post-war poverty,

and televisions, washing machines, and rice cookers were not yet widespread,

he apparently had a wonderful sense of smell
for various stylish things.

At that time, a steam locomotive ran from Kami-Utashinai to Sapporo,
(Writing this, I find myself feeling excited by the sense of the era),
and he would often leave his wife and children behind,

hop on it, and casually go to Sapporo to have fun.

The souvenirs he would buy back
were "Misuzu Coffee's Toraja" and "Touman"
apparently.

Kami-Utashinai at that time was very much in the countryside,
and it seems they had never seen such stylish things as coffee.

My mother was given some to drink,
and she said it was so delicious
that she was surprised.

So, my mother thinks back on my late father, Kenji,
(though I wonder if he was really the kind of father you'd think back on like that,
but let's just say it's my mother's rose-tinted memory of him)

and she buys Misuzu's Toraja in town,
and tells me that story about Kenji and the SL Sapporo Epi.

Every time I hear it, I think to myself,

Ah, they really are parent and child.
Even though neither of them has any money,
they both buy expensive coffee.

So this is how poverty is passed down.
(We were genuinely poor.)

But well, the heart that cherishes those kinds of memories
is definitely not a bad thing,

so I figured it might be okay once in a while,
and I've been going along with it.

And well, Toraja is
actually delicious, isn't it?
The aroma is really good,

and since I don't know much about coffee,
I don't know the fine details,

but for people who don't really like
coffee that's too acidic or bitter,
it's highly recommended.

The balance is just right, I guess?
Kenji really did have a knack for finding good things like that,didn't he? (Am I being too harsh? Haha)

Misuzu Coffee was apparently founded in Hakodate in 1937 (Showa 12).
A founding year in the single digits of the Showa era
is quite a long-established shop in Hokkaido.

According to their official website, they also have branches in mainland Japan.

If you're buying in Sapporo, I recommend the shops in front of Sapporo Station or Shin-Sapporo.
They will roast the raw beans to your preferred level right there on the spot.

The Pole Town branch allows smoking, so please be careful if you don't like cigarettes.
(I'm so sensitive to cigarette smoke that it gives me a headache.)

By the way, my mother
drinks expensive coffee like it's water.
She'll brew a whole liter of Misuzu's Toraja at once
and gulp it down like water.

Now, I carry on those memories of Kenji and my mother,
inheriting them,

and after all, when it comes to coffee,
I occasionally buy Toraja
and drink it.

Since I can't handle caffeine anymore,
I can't drink that much of it,
but I still find myself thinking that Toraja is the most delicious coffee,
haha.

Genes are scary, haha.

********** End-of-Volume CM **********
Whether it's coffee or green tea, I, Akacherina IV, have recently been drinking decaf,
but I also have a serious side.

In my daily life as a singer-songwriter,
I send out the message,
"By speaking out about our painful feelings,
let's all become able to express our own pain."
I have posted many of my own feelings on my official website,

so go take a look.

アカチェリーナ4世 札幌を拠点に活動するミュージシャン,アカチェリーナ４世のWebサイト akacherryna4.com