Intro: A friend recently inspired me to do more writing about places. Since I’m leaving Japan in two weeks I decided to visit and write about a new place every day. Here’s the one from today, which I really enjoyed writing.
Fuglen Coffee, Asakusa
Apparently there is more than one of these coffee shops, which makes sense. The shop has the feel of a high quality, manufactured product. Everything is perfect. Perfectly clean. Perfect lighting. Perfect music selection. Perfectly rough looking wrought iron finishes. If you put this much work into building one thing it would be a waste not to do it again.
Makes me think about what perfect even means. I suppose something is perfect when it exactly fits your expectations, ticks all the boxes. In this way perfection is a neutral term, without positive or negative connotation. The phrase "Perfect Storm" is notable for its irony but, really, it's not ironic at all. A storm can certainly be perfect. I can't think of a better word to describe a bad thing that precisely fits your low expectations than "perfect".
So this is the perfect coffee shop. So much so that it helps to illuminate the coffee shop expectations I didn't even know I had. I didn't realize that my archetype for coffee shop included a spiral staircase, but clearly this is the case. Or at least it is now.
There is even a high counter perfectly elevated to enable 5’11’’ people to work standing up with minimal neck strain. Though I have to spread my legs a bit to get down lower, encroaching somewhat into the space of my neighbor who is, fortunately, a friend of mine.
Around 6:30PM one of the staff comes over to my standing desk to let my friend and I know that the shop will be closing in 30 minutes. They let me get one one more refill for my buckwheat tea. I point out to my friend that this is the clear advantage of tea over coffee— free refills. She, a coffee drinker, counters by mentioning that the coffee in this cafe was rated as the best in the world by the New York Times.
So turns out I spent 3 hours in the world's best coffee shop, drinking tea. However, that wasn't what occupied my mind as I left. Instead I thought about whether something that is the best can still be perfect.
I've made this distinction in the past:
Eternal perfection vs contextual perfection
Eternal perfection is the platonic ideal. It's the perfect version of the perfect idea. There are no flaws to be criticized. It's other-worldly. It's unattainable.
Contextual perfection is the real world kind.
Contextual perfection is about the perfect version for this time & this place. It's about satisfying the perfect number of criteria for a thing to move forward. It's created by taking the most context-aware action at this point in time. It's attainable.
Contextual is efficient.