Kurasu’s story began thirteen years ago, before there was a physical shop.
It started from a home in Sydney in 2013, with an online store, a camera, and a simple idea: to share Japanese coffee culture with the world, and to bring what we learned abroad back to Japan.
On August 11, 2016, kurasu.live Stand opened its doors.
What had existed online became a physical place—a small coffee counter near Kyoto Station where people could experience the coffee, tools, craft, and hospitality that Kurasu had been sharing from a distance.
This year marks ten years since that counter opened.
Why Reflection?
For this anniversary, we chose the theme Reflection.
It would be easy to treat ten years as a celebration of what has been accomplished. But an anniversary is also an opportunity to pause, look back honestly, and consider what should be carried forward.
For us, Reflection begins with three questions:
Where we came from.
Where we stand.
What we carry forward.
These questions are not only about the history of Kurasu. They are about the choices behind it.
Why did an online store need to become a physical coffee counter? What did Kyoto give us? What did we learn from Australia and from the people who visited us from around the world? How did our relationships with coffee, tools, makers, roasters, producers, and communities change as Kurasu grew?
And, perhaps most importantly: what must remain true as we enter the next decade?
From one counter to many places
When Kyoto Stand opened, the space was small and almost everything was visible.
Customers could see coffee being prepared, ask about the beans or equipment, and speak directly with the person behind the counter. The limitations of the space created closeness. Coffee was not separated from conversation, movement, or hospitality.
Over the following decade, Kurasu grew beyond that counter.
We opened new spaces, began roasting, developed deeper relationships with producers and partners, worked with makers, held events, shared recipes and stories, and connected with teams and communities in different parts of the world.
The form of Kurasu changed, but the questions behind it stayed with us:
How can coffee connect people and places?
How can tools, craft, and ideas travel without losing their context?
How can an independent company grow while protecting quality, curiosity, and hospitality?
Looking back without becoming nostalgic
Reflection is not an attempt to make the past look perfect.
The last thirteen years have included moments of growth and possibility, but also projects that ended, ideas that changed, mistakes, difficult decisions, and times when the next step was not clear.
All of these moments shaped Kurasu.
To reflect honestly means looking at what worked and what did not. It means recognising the people and places that made progress possible. It also means asking whether the choices that brought us here are still the right choices for the future.
We do not want the next ten years to be defined only by becoming larger or opening more shops.
We want to remain close to coffee itself: to quality, sourcing, craft, hospitality, and the people who create value throughout the coffee chain. We want to grow in a way that strengthens those relationships rather than creating distance from them.
A story shaped by many people
Kurasu was not made by one person or one moment.
It was shaped by the people who found the original online store, visited the Kyoto counter, brewed our coffee, used the tools we introduced, worked alongside us, supplied us, challenged us, and carried parts of Kurasu into their own places and routines.
It was shaped by baristas, roasters, producers, makers, partners, customers, friends, and communities in Kyoto and around the world.
A reflection made alone is only half a reflection. The way others experienced Kurasu is also part of what Kurasu became.
The Reflection series
Over the coming weeks, we will share different parts of this story through the Reflection series.
We will return to the beginning before there was a shop, revisit the first Kyoto counter, and explore the influence of place, coffee, hospitality, tools, design, objects, and community.
We will also make space for the choices that were not straightforward, and for the questions that remain unanswered as we look toward the next decade.
This is not intended to be a complete company history.
It is a reflection on the moments and decisions that shaped Kurasu—and on what we hope to protect, reconsider, and carry forward.
Thank you
To everyone who has been part of Kurasu’s story: thank you.
Whether you have known us since the early online-store days, visited Kyoto Stand when it first opened, joined us somewhere else in the world, or discovered Kurasu only recently, your presence has helped shape what Kurasu is today.
We hope you will join us as we look back at the first ten years of kurasu.live Stand and consider what the next ten might become.
Where we came from.
Where we stand.
What we carry forward.
The reflection continues.
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