Ista Coffee Elements

Osaka, Japan

Ista Coffee Elements is an eight-seat room near Sakaisuji-Hommachi station in the business district of central Osaka, where everything turns on coffee. Owner and bartender Fumiaki Nozato is a world coffee cocktail champion, and the beans are roasted in house on a micro-roaster tucked away at the end of the narrow bar before they become the base of the drinks. It works as a coffee shop pulling espresso and as a cocktail bar with one of the most cohesive lists in the city. The Maillard Banana Shake builds on banana, rum, milk, chocolate and espresso; the Element, a competition winner, sets coffee against brandy, rose, raspberry, cream and Campari. A section called Coffee Tree Cocktails reaches past the bean to the cherries, the flowers and the leaves.