Café de l'Ambre
“PERFECT
OWN ROAST
HAND DRIP”
Fujihiko Hayashi finishing a “Blanc et Noir” with evaporated milk. Don’t mix.
CAFÉ DE L’AMBRE needs no introduction. Since it’s opening in 1948, everything about this kissaten has been committed to print extensively. You can find it written about in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, magazines, books, and cited in scholarly research. More recently, scores of coffee blogs, travel books, vloggers, online reviews, and city guides recommending a visit to this legendary coffee house have been immortalized on the internet forever, further cementing Café de l’Ambre’s status as a temple to coffee nerds.
Sekiguchi Ichiro, the shop’s late owner, has even written a book on l’Ambre’s techniques and theories. Needless to say, there’s no need to further chronicle the history of this shop with all of this rhetoric already existing. Furthermore, it has remained frozen in time since I first visited in 2012. (In fact, writings I’ve found from as far back as the 80’s pretty much reflect my experience in 2023.) Even the baristas making the coffee are the same, with Fujihiko Hayashi (pictured above) still at the helm as l’Ambre’s master pouring straight fire into bespoke porcelain cups. So why do I feel the need to further add to the discourse surrounding this café? Who do I think I am?
It's because Café De l’Ambre was the first to show me that coffee could be something more. On that first visit in 2012, Hayashi pulled me straight into the deep end with 50cc’s of a 39 year old Brazil. That tiny cup of coffee may as well have been the Mariana Trench. It really changed me. I instantly realized that this drink—consumed by nearly everyone on the planet without even a second thought—had immense depth, and it broke my smooth little brain. A violent and restructuring core memory if there ever was one.
At the time I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what I was tasting. I just knew that empty voids in my skull suddenly felt occupied. This was a coffee I’d remember for a long time.
Peru, aged 5 years.
Aged Coffees
Coming back year after year with growing experience in the specialty coffee industry, you start to see that the processes, equipment , and technique employed at l’Ambre go against all “best” practices. The aged coffees are the elephant in the room. “Past crop” is not a taboo phrase in this shop. If anything, it's the main attraction. Tasting these coffees feels like participating in an experiment. It also feels like a privilege to taste something of such finite quantity.
Origins you may be deeply familiar with become completely alien, and take on a whole new personality after decades in environmentally controlled storage. A Yirgacheffe from the year 1998 morphed into something closer to red Glühwein or blueberry mead. A 1973 Brazil transformed into a coffee far more exotic than it had any right to be, like what I imagine a petrified cherry would taste; an interesting minerality mixed with red Kool-Aid. A 2004 Kenya revealed a sparkling, funky lambic beer on top of that classic tomato juice acidity.
Mason jars of aged coffees sit above the shop grinder and fridge.
It’s completely new territory, and we don’t yet have the vocabulary to describe what the aging process is doing like the wine world has. However, these coffees all have one thing in common: they taste utterly alive. I don’t mean in the probiotic, kombucha sense, but ever changing and constantly evolving. It’s also possible that, whereas specialty coffee today is mostly concerned with revealing a place (i.e., origin), l’Ambre is able to reveal both a place and time through this aging process. But I have no way of testing that. It’s just a thought. Perhaps the coffees change while aging, or perhaps they are just time capsules.
Equipment
The fridge does not even use electricity, just a big block of ice. To chill coffees, a cocktail shaker is rolled on this block. There’s no need for a cutting edge extract chiller.
Two Fuji Royal roasters sit in the alcove towards the front of the shop. There are no computers or digital probes in sight, just pen and paper.
In lieu of scales and temperature controlled kettles, experience, intuition, and sense are the primary tools. In fact, much of the analog equipment was designed and made by hand by Sekiguchi himself. The kettles, flannel filters, cups, sauce pans, and more, were a direct response to a market not meeting his particular needs and tastes. Needless to say, you will not find any of this equipment in any other shop.
Most interesting is their grinder, an “RG04-SEK” that was partially designed by Sekiguchi himself, and produced by Inoue Manufacturing. It doesn’t even use a rotating burr. Instead, coffee goes through 3 stages of grooved gears in a roller mill style. You would typically see grinders like this in industrial or laboratory environments, because most grinders of this style are massive, and their cost is prohibitive. (l’Ambre’s grinder cost nearly $20,000 USD.)
Forgive my tiny images, as details on Inoue built grinders are incredibly scant, even on Japanese Google:
Technique & Menu
Coffees are roasted medium-dark at l’Ambre, with many looking well past second crack. Despite the darker roasting, the coffees are no less characterful. If you want a lighter tasting coffee, the strength is adjusted by dose and extraction time here. Speaking of, the standard brewing ratios employed aren’t even remotely close to the ubiquitous 1:16, with single doses as high as 40g of coffee yielding 50g of brew (1:1.25) for nel (flannel) filter coffee offerings. Should you choose a single origin brew, it will be brewed into a sauce pan, then that sauce pan is gently heated to bring the brew to the desired temperature.
Prepping a flight of “Blanc et Noirs”
There are even drinks on the menu that feature multiple kinds of sweeteners added…on purpose! All are served as is, and no additional milk or sugar is provided. Many present more like signature drinks made at a World Barista Championship, using egg whites, egg yolks, house-made treacles, cognac, house-made coffee liqueur, Cointreau, and more. For everything I have tried at l’Ambre, the ingredients only elevate the coffees. Depending on what you order, you will even be given specific instructions on how to enjoy it best, just like at WBC.
Yet, despite these supposedly “wrong” processes, odd choices in equipment, and antiquated techniques, the coffees served are extraordinary. They defy all the rules we have burdened ourselves with, and feel like minor miracles, or mysteries of nature. These coffees taste like an unsolved equation. They are complex problems for your brain to work out over time. They require deep reflection and a willingness to accept. They show us that we don’t really know much about this drink, and prove that there’s no need to stick with convention.
In essence, Café de l’Ambre is magic.
In 2018, Sekiguchi Ichiro died at the age of 104. He was Hayashi’s uncle, the shop’s primary roaster, and the one responsible for l’Ambre’s claim to fame aged coffees. Since then it has become a bit of a tourist destination, with new customers hoping to try Sekiguchi’s aged coffees before they’re exhausted for good. The experience is a bit different without his presence, and the clientele aren’t just old salarymen anymore, but it’s no less revelatory.
Coffee drinkers of all stripes now queue up well before their 12 pm opening time, all hoping to get a counter seat, and all hoping to pull their companions into the deep end with them.
Visit if you have the means.
l’Ambre’s storefront.
You can visit their charmingly dated website here.
- Josh