Solkatt Coffee Kyoto

Junpei Yamamoto spent sixteen years behind espresso machines in Kyoto, Osaka and Berlin before opening Solkatt in September 2024, renovating his father's old bicycle shop near To-ji temple's five story pagoda into a small, Nordic leaning bar finished in graded blue tile. A single bike still leans by the window, a quiet nod to what the room used to be. The name comes from the Swedish word for sunlight caught reflecting off glass, matching a stint Yamamoto spent working in Berlin as much as the light that fills the space.

The menu stays deliberately narrow, just five items: straight espresso, hot or iced lattes, and iced coffee or pour over, nothing to distract from the beans themselves. Solkatt sells its own rotating single origin lots direct through its online shop between visits, pulling from Kenya, Colombia, Peru and Honduras, and Yamamoto says tourists have not found the place in numbers yet, though that looks unlikely to last.