How Japan’s 2050 Coffee is blending futuristic tech and sustainable farming practices to deliver quality coffee while also tackling climate change.
2050 Coffee was established with a single aim: to help preserve the future of coffee on this planet. The name and ethos of the Japanese coffee brand is inspired by what many in the industry are calling ‘the 2050 problem’, based on research published in journal PLOS One that predicts half of the land currently used for growing Arabica coffee will no longer be suitable by the midway point of the century.
In response to this unsettling prediction, in 2023 Yozo Otsuki, Founder of established Kyoto roastery, coffee shop, and retail store Kurasu, felt compelled to do something. During an origin trip to Ethiopia, he asked farmers how companies like his could help them. Their response was buying more of their high-grade specialty beans at higher volumes.
Otsuki’s solution was to launch a new breed of coffee brand. One that builds direct relationships with farmers producing high-quality beans using sustainable farming methods while also taking action to scale up the farmers’ businesses.
“2050 was conceived to be a solution to current consumption patterns in the global coffee market in which mass-produced commodity coffee negatively impacts both people and planet,” says Jeevan Singh, Manager of 2050 Coffee Singapore.
“We are very selective about the producers we work with, choosing only farms that practise regenerative methods. It’s as much about how the coffee has been grown as how it performs in the cup.”
The aim of this selective process is to create an accessible and scalable outlet for high-quality ethical coffee which, in turn, prioritises supply chain sustainability. Singh says it’s also designed to expose consumers to a broad range of specialty coffees and producers, all while raising awareness of climate change and its effect on the viability of the land used to grow coffee.
With this forward-thinking approach to sourcing and roasting, the brand needed an equally radical look and feel to the coffee shop in which consumers would experience the beans.
The first venue in Kyoto is a stripped-back vision of the café of the future. Smooth concrete-grey walls and floors are the pared-back backdrop to benches hosting a parade of batch taps and, at the end, a single Eversys Cameo C’2ms Super Traditional espresso machine.
“The simple setting puts all the focus on the coffee. The taps allow us to serve five different batch brews alongside specialty drinks such as matcha latte and cascara cherry tea. Finally, we have the fully automatic machine for espresso,” says Singh.
The original shop in Kyoto was such a success that in October 2024 a second venue opened in Singapore. According to Singh, the expansion aligns perfectly with the country’s rapidly growing specialty culture.
“When I first worked in the industry around eight years ago, it was hard to communicate what we were doing with consumers as many of them didn’t understand specialty coffee or why you would pay a higher price. The pandemic changed everything: people started exploring coffee from home and since then interest has only grown,” he says.
“Now everyone is drinking coffee in Singapore, so it was the ideal time for 2050 to expand here. It also made sense as this was the first location in which Kurasu launched an international store, so Otsuki and the team know the market well.”
At the new venue, the menu is a 50/50 split of coffee roasted at the original roastery in Japan and the new roastery in Singapore, enabling the team to showcase both locally roasted beans and best-sellers from the sister site.
“While some of the coffees are different, the set-up of the store is almost exactly the same as the original venue – right down to the Cameo C’2ms machine,” says Singh.
As someone who has used a traditional espresso machine for most of his barista career, Singh says switching to the Super Traditional has been eye-opening.
“I’m mesmerised by the fact the machine can create recipes for me and adjust the calibration along the way. I thought the transition from traditional to automatic would be harder, but the Eversys Cameo is so straightforward to use,” he says.
“The best thing about it for me as a manager is that I can monitor the machine remotely. I can oversee workflow, consistency, and standard operating procedures from my laptop, which is hugely helpful for someone like me who’s usually running around the café trying to do multiple tasks.”
Singh believes having a reliable automatic machine that can take care of almost all the manual coffee preparation tasks is incredibly beneficial to a new venue like 2050 Coffee.
“We’re trying to sell a concept that is quite different to everything else in the market. Having a machine like the Cameo affords us the time to communicate our message to the customers,” he says.
“One of the things we take great pride in is building communities. Eversys’ technology gives us the space to do this.”
Eversys’ Asia-Pacific team, led by Fabian Fredriksson, have worked alongside 2050 Coffee to make the expansion as smooth as possible. The businesses were in close communication in the lead up to the opening and Eversys has continued to provide support to ensure the automatic machine delivers consistently high-quality coffee.
“Eversys’ distributors have been fantastic in sharing information and teaching us the relevant skills and knowledge needed to get the best out of the machine. The communication and guidance have been excellent,” says Singh.
According to Fredriksson, the Asia-Pacific region is seeing huge growth in rapidly expanding coffee brands, with many looking for fully automatic solutions.
“Our machines are designed to bridge the gap between traditional machines used in specialty cafés and the speed and ease-of-use of automatics. To be able to replicate coffee shops when scaling a business in a quickly expanding market like Asia, automatic machines are becoming a necessity,” he says.
Singh says that, despite its infancy, 2050 Coffee has plans for further expansion in the region to get its message to more coffee drinkers.
“The current plan is to scale the brand and continue to raise awareness for the causes that we stand for. We strive to educate people on the impact that our individual lives have on the world. Sometimes we get so caught up in the everyday cycle that we don’t stop to think about it,” he says.
“Climate change is increasing drastically every second and 2050 is only 26 years away. Until something changes, we’ll continue to spread the word through our coffee shops and support farmers who are prioritising sustainability.”
For more information, visit eversys.com or 2050.coffee
This article was first published in the November/December 2024 edition of Global Coffee Report. Read more HERE.
