The Blues Tree (ブルースの木), Hakodate

While up in Hakodate, I went on a quest to find its best coffee. First stop - The Blues Tree, which is a charming coffee roaster near Mt Hakodate and its ropeway. They have a variety of single origin beans at medium to dark roasts.The taste of both the coffee and the beans here leans decidedly more traditional (i.e. it’s a bit on the bitter side). The Google reviews seemed to imply that it’s a cafe as they serve coffee, but The Blues Tree consider themselves to only be a roaster, and not a cafe. This wasn’t the only cafe around here that seemed to want to make this distinction so I’m not sure if it’s a Hakodate thing or not. Nonetheless they were happy to let us have a seat at the bench and order some coffee. Since they were in the process of roasting some beans in the corner, they had a very pared down menu to only two items - their Dutch coffee, either black or mixed with orange soda. Now Dutch coffee is quite similar to cold brew in that it’s brewed with cold water over many hours,…