Un Cafe Sucre (Karuizawa Roasting)

Un Cafe Sucre K.K. traces its roots to 1998, when it opened as 'Mr. Beans' Hikifune shop in Tokyo's Sumida ward, selling coffee beans and imported foods before the company existed under its current name. The business is led by representative director Yuko Nirei, born in Sumida in 1968, who has stayed with the company through its shift from that original Tokyo storefront to its present operation, which includes the roasting factory and shop in Karuizawa that now anchors the brand. The company states its guiding position plainly: coffee beans are an agricultural product, and getting a good cup depends on every stage — growing, distribution, roasting, and extraction — being handled without cutting corners, not just the roasting step a customer sees. That philosophy underpins the Karuizawa operation, where beans are roasted on-site and sold both through the physical shop and the company's own online store, rather than routed through third-party retailers. For a company now built around a resort-town roastery, the Sumida ward origin is a reminder the operation started as a neighborhood beans-and-imports shop in industrial Tokyo, not a boutique built for a tourist market from day one.