In early-twentieth-century Japan, a culture of kissaten emerged: quiet tearooms that served coffee and excluded alcohol, catering to groups of writers and intellectuals seeking calm environments. Coffee had been officially imported to the isolated country only in the late nineteenth century, after it was first introduced by Dutch traders. The Japanese cafés were modeled on Parisian ones—though Paris was a place few Japanese people traveled to at the time, save the wealthy and the academic intelligentsia, who were beginning to read and translate French authors.
