The Starbucks franchise has recently opened its largest coffee shop in the world in Tokyo, Japan. The coffee shop located in Tokyo is a 32,000-square-foot store that was opened to the public on the morning of Feb. 28, 2019. The roastery exceeds the coffee shop in Shanghai, becoming the largest Starbucks shop on the entire planet. The Starbucks company only has three other reserve roasteries currently located in New York City, Milan, and Seattle. With the construction of a roastery in Tokyo, Starbucks aims to open one more in Chicago in the future.

Roasteries are constructed in order to make the Starbucks’ in-store experience one that is unique and exciting enough to attract new customers. Starbucks is also using its roasteries to experiment with new design concepts and items on their menu. Overall, Starbucks aims to offer its customers a place that they can go to in between home and the workplace. Starbucks hopes to focus on speed and convenience outside of one’s home and work environment. According to Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson, “As the first international market outside of North America, Starbucks Japan has contributed 23 years of innovation for the company globally.”

In Tokyo, customers are able to visit the roastery and ask for special drinks and teas to be made, filled with unique toppings such as cotton candy and even popsicles. Customers will also be able to view beautiful cherry blossoms through the glass walls of the roastery whilst sipping on their special drinks and beverages on an outdoor terrace.  

The roastery is a four-story shop that has several features. Designed from start to finish by local designer and architect Kengo Kuma, the Tokyo roastery is also home to the world’s largest Teavana bar. Starbucks hopes that one day, the shop will become the first of several of its stores to be certified by the Specialty Coffee Association, a non-profit membership group that is organized to train coffee professionals.

Starbucks’ Tokyo Roastery also shares many features in common with its four other locations, one of which includes a cask. The cask is 55-feet tall and shares distinctive design elements such as a split-flap sign known as the clacker board. The clacker board displays the coffee being roasted and brewed in individual roasters. In addition to this, the Tokyo Roastery has a series of overhead pipes that can shoot coffee beans throughout the building, and also sells customized products and merchandise to its customers.

After experimenting and testing out new drinks and recipes in its innovation lab in Tokyo, Starbucks has started to come out with new beverages nationwide. For instance, Starbucks’ Juniper Latte, a holiday beverage that was released just last year, was inspired by a drink that was also introduced in Starbucks’ roastery in Seattle.