Greetings

It gives me the greatest pleasure to announce that at the general meeting of the Japan Coffee Culture Society, held in June of 2022, I was appointed the fourth president of the Society. I henceforth plan to make every effort to contribute to the Japan Coffee Culture Society, and I hereby solicit both your kind assistance and support with the sincerest appreciation for your unreserved cooperation.

Soon after entering the year 2020, an unprecedented pandemic of the Novel Coronavirus, or COVID-19, swept across the world. Additionally, the year 2022 has so far witnessed continuous disasters, including the political and economic repercussions of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and widespread damage caused by droughts and heavy rains around the world, including in Japan's Tohoku and Hokuriku regions.

Under these circumstances, I am still unable to give a clear answer as to the future direction of our association. However, I accepted the position of president because I earnestly desire to enjoy further conversations with my coffee-loving colleagues in a bright and cheerful manner.

I'm sure that there's no other academic society in the world made up of quite the wide variety of people as this coffee society. There are people here from various walks of life, such as academic experts engaged in cultural or scientific research, producers, distributors, and economists, all of them working hard every day. There are also members of the society who have dedicated themselves to improving their knowledge and skills in order to simply drink coffee alone or with family or friends, without regard to their status or role in society. These people are all precious to our coffee society.

In 2013, Japanese cuisine, or Washoku, was designated by UNESCO as an Intangible World Cultural Heritage. With such a delicate sense of taste developed in Japanese food culture, there is no reason why coffee brewed by the Japanese people should ever be bad.

The Japanese have also sublimated tea from a mere beverage into the culture of the tea ceremony, and the art of scents into the culture of Kōdō, or the art of incense. Of late, the orientation toward coffee can also be said to have become an integral part of Japanese culture.

My specialty is the history of modern Japanese art crafts, and I am currently lecturing on the history of coffee in Japan, mainly to international students, in a university class entitled "Coffee Culture in Japan." I am also giving lectures in medical school classes on coffee as written about in the works of Agatha Christie, who is often referred to as the Queen of Mystery.

In her autobiography, Agatha Christie lists "crowds, being crammed in between people, loud voices, noise, and long-winded speeches" as some of her pet peeves. It is as if she wrote this in anticipation of our current COVID-19 pandemic countermeasures. And while people generally assume that she was a tea drinker, since she was English, she actually loved coffee. She lists "the smell of coffee" among her favorite things.

How that coffee actually smelled may be a matter of conjecture, but Agatha Christie certainly must have enjoyed a wide variety of coffee tastes and smells as she traveled the Middle East and numerous other countries with her husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, on his travels for research. Even though we are unable to actually experience the "coffee smell" that Agatha encountered in these far-flung countries, in Japan we still have relatively easy access to the many delicious coffee varieties on offer from producing nations around the world.

Whether brewing coffee alone or drinking it with others while talking about it, both are exceptional tastes.

Those who wish to learn and talk more about coffee are cordially invited to visit and become members of our coffee society.

• Yoshie ITANI, D. Phil. (Oxon)
• President of the Japan Coffee Cultural Society
  and Special Project Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts