[Northern Okinawa] Harvested, roasted, and brewed in the forests of Yanbaru. A special experience where you can enjoy fresh Okinawan coffee with all your senses.

The Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa has been reborn as a space worthy of being the base for a journey to experience Yanbaru, and we welcome you as a comfortable hotel that offers a unique stay experience through a wide range of accommodation plans and a wide variety of activities that guests can select according to their various usage situations and needs.

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Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa offers two special coffees for guests to relax during their stay. One is an original blend from Nakayama Coffee Farm in Nago City, which is served in the guest rooms. Okinawan coffee grown in the forests of Yanbaru is hard to find outside the prefecture. The other is coffee from Amberholic, a famous coffee shop in Okinawa City. This coffee can be enjoyed in the club lounge. Both are carefully selected by hotel staff with expert coffee knowledge who have personally visited farms and stores to ensure they are satisfied with the high quality of the coffee.

This time, we visited Nakayama Coffee Farm, and had the opportunity to stroll around the farm and experience roasting and brewing the coffee while listening to a talk about the appeal of Okinawa-grown coffee.

*Information is from the time of interview in June 2024.

• Table of Contents
• Nakayama Coffee Farm, where coffee is grown on a site of approximately 23,000 m2
• Enjoy the nature and culture of Yanbaru through a stroll through a coffee plantation
• Experience roasting locally grown raw beans to your liking
• Nakayama Coffee Farm: Supported by local friends and coffee fans across the country
• Amberholic: Another high-quality coffee you can enjoy at the hotel

Nakayama Coffee Farm, where coffee is grown on a site of approximately 23,000 m2

Nakayama Coffee Farm is located in the forest of the Nakayama area of Nago City. About a 10-minute drive from downtown Nago City, turn off the prefectural road and go a little further, and you'll soon be enveloped in subtropical forest. The farm is about 23,000 square meters in size. About 1.2 tons of coffee beans are harvested annually. There are not many coffee farms in Okinawa Prefecture that produce coffee on such a large scale.

"We started with about 300 seedlings. Now we have about 2,000 coffee trees growing," says Tatsumi Kishimoto, president of Nakayama Coffee Farm. He rented the land from a friend in 2013 and started the coffee farm.

There are currently around 13 varieties of coffee trees cultivated, ranging from varieties that have been cultivated in Okinawa for a long time to those that have recently begun to be grown.

Okinawa is at a lower altitude than major coffee producing regions overseas, and there is little temperature difference throughout the year. Therefore, coffee produced in Okinawa Prefecture has a lighter and sweeter taste than coffee produced overseas. Considering that coffee produced overseas takes several months to be transported to Japan, the fact that you can enjoy fresh raw beans roasted in the production area is a unique attraction of coffee produced in Okinawa.

Another feature that differs from overseas is that only fully ripe fruit is harvested by hand, one by one. In large overseas production areas, the harvest season is shorter than in Okinawa, and they need to harvest large quantities at once, so they sometimes use machines. Although harvesting by hand is time-consuming, it ensures that fully ripe and unripe fruit are not mixed together, and the quality can be stabilized.

Enjoy the nature and culture of Yanbaru through a stroll through a coffee plantation

Nakayama Coffee Farm wants visitors to learn about the intricacies of coffee making, so they offer courses that allow visitors to stroll through the coffee farm and experience harvesting and roasting. (Harvesting is only available from late November to late April.)

Nakayama Coffee Farm "Harvesting and Roasting Experience" https://nakayama-coffee.net/harvest/

Mr. Kishimoto will guide you on a walk around the farm. As you walk between the coffee trees that spread out like terraced fields, you can hear about the ingenuity and hardships of cultivation, the characteristics of the varieties, and the current state of growth.

"This was originally a field for shekwasha and tankan (a type of mandarin orange). The large trees around it also act as a windbreak, helping to protect the coffee trees during typhoons."

"This strange sound is that of the Oshima cicada. It is often mistaken for a bird, but it is actually a cicada that lives in Yanbaru."

"That big tree is a holly tree. It seems that holly trees this big are rare even in Okinawa."

"The bamboo here is to mark the boundary of the property. In Okinawa, there is a culture of planting bamboo at the boundary of land."

Besides coffee, there are also many interesting conversations about plants and animals in Yanbaru, Okinawan culture, etc. You can enjoy a fulfilling time, like a little trekking.

Experience roasting locally grown raw beans to your liking

The roasting experience begins with choosing your favorite type of green beans from several varieties harvested at Nakayama Coffee Farm. The lineup for this day was Typica, Mundo Novo, and Nakayama Mix.

With detailed advice from the farm staff, such as "Medium or light roasting is more suitable for these beans than dark roasting," you can roast them to your desired doneness. After about 10 minutes of heating the raw beans, when they are roasted to the right color, the roasting is stopped by exposing them to the wind to cool them down.

The roasted coffee can be drip-brewed on the spot. The degree of grinding of the beans and the water temperature are adjusted according to the type of beans and how they are roasted.

Enjoy freshly brewed coffee while gazing at the lush nature that unfolds before your eyes. Fresh coffee that you have harvested and roasted yourself will surely be a special cup of coffee.

Nakayama Coffee Farm: Supported by local friends and coffee fans across the country

"I've loved coffee since I was a student," says Kishimoto. He has been interested in coffee since he was young, enjoying the differences in taste depending on the place of origin. After graduating from university, Kishimoto went to the United States to study agriculture. After learning about flower and vegetable seedlings for about two years, he returned to his hometown of Okinawa. After that, he experienced outdoor work such as working in hydroponic cultivation and as a kayak guide, and at the age of 29, he opened a restaurant in Nago City. He has been closely connected to the local community and has run the shop for about 17 years.

"The reason I started the coffee farm was because I received some seedlings from an acquaintance. I had studied seedlings in America, and I also liked coffee, so I thought I'd give it a try. But I didn't have a suitable piece of land. Then, a friend from the Moai group told me he had some unused land and told me I could use it however I wanted."

*Moai: A traditional Okinawan culture of mutual support in which a group of friends gather regularly to enjoy food and drink. A set amount is collected and one of the friends takes turns receiving it.

He started growing coffee in 2013 while working at a restaurant. He got advice from people who had started growing coffee earlier in Okinawa, and information about seedlings and cultivation from coffee lovers all over the country, and gradually expanded his farm. Having secured a substantial harvest, he became a full-time coffee farmer in 2019. He says that he has "somehow managed to continue" thanks to crowdfunding, in which the hotel also participated, as well as subsidies from the government and support from coffee lovers all over the country.

During the time he spent in America in his early twenties, he learned a lot more than just agriculture. "I met a lot of different people in America and learned that people have different ways of looking at things, thinking about things, and perceiving things. What I thought was common sense was different overseas. On the other hand, I also noticed that people there have similar sensibilities to Japanese people."

Currently, about 10% of visitors to Nakayama Coffee Farm are tourists from overseas. The rare Okinawan coffee is gaining attention overseas, and the farm even receives orders from Europe.

Kishimoto's experience in America is put to good use in his interactions with overseas customers and in his diverse ideas about farm management.

Amberholic: Another high-quality coffee you can enjoy at the hotel

In addition to Nakayama Coffee Farm, Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa also offers another specialty coffee: Amberholic coffee, served in the club lounge.

Amberholic is a coffee shop located in the Koza area of Okinawa City. It is one of the many home roasting shops with many fans in Okinawa Prefecture, where coffee culture is booming. Koza is surrounded by a US military base, so a unique culture that exudes an exotic atmosphere has taken root.

We spoke with Kina Takashi, who is in charge of lounge operations at the hotel. "Because the Club Lounge is a high-class space, we want to serve the highest quality coffee possible. I myself love coffee and have been to many coffee shops, but when I saw the passion of Amberholic's president, Nomura, I knew I could trust his coffee."

Amberholic's CEO, Yuta Nomura, personally visits farms overseas to purchase carefully selected coffee beans. He actually stayed at the hotel and offered suggestions from various perspectives, such as "this coffee would be perfect for the club lounge." Study sessions are also held with Nomura as the lecturer so that hotel staff can accurately communicate about coffee to guests.

"It was Nomura who suggested the Balmuda coffee maker. With hand drip, the flavor inevitably varies depending on who makes the coffee. We chose this machine so that customers can enjoy the flavor of Amber Holic coffee in the same way they would if they were drinking it in a shop. It's easy to operate with just a few touches, and the excellent design has been well received by our customers."

To allow customers to enjoy a more fulfilling coffee time, a service has been devised to change the type of coffee served in the Club Lounge depending on the time of day. From 10:00-17:00, seasonal single origin coffees are served, and from 19:00-23:00, blends suited to quiet evenings are served.

"I wanted to allow customers to taste a variety of coffees depending on when they visit, whether that be throughout the day or the year. I would be happy if not only coffee lovers, but many other people can enjoy the charm of Okinawa's coffee culture." As a coffee lover himself, Kina's exploration of coffee is never-ending.

Coffee cultivation in Okinawa Prefecture has a long history, said to date back more than 100 years. However, it is rarely shipped outside the prefecture, so its existence is not well known. We hope that a cup of coffee at the Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa will help you experience the charm of Okinawa's rich food culture, which goes beyond the sea and forests.

Nakayama Coffee Farm

Amberholic