When talking about Japanese coffee and cafe culture, one must mention the Pan no Kai, a salon and cultural movement run by young artists at the end of the Meiji period.

The reason why this has a deep connection to coffee culture is that artists in their 20s at the time were fascinated by the cafes of Paris and traveled from place to place in Tokyo in search of an authentic cafe that could fulfill a similar role.
This association is said to have begun at the end of 1908, the 41st year of the Meiji era.

 

<The cover of the first issue of the literary magazine "Subaru," which started at the same time as Pan no Kai>

It is said that the revolutionary thing about the Pan no Kai was that it was a place for artists such as Manabu and painters to interact. The group was centered around young artists such as poets who would go on to be active in the literary magazine "Subaru," Hakushu Kitahara, Mokutaro Kinoshita, Hideo Nagata, Isamu Yoshii, and painters who had gathered in the art coterie magazine "Hosun," Hakutei Yasuo , Tei Yamamoto, Tsunetomo Morita, and Hakuyo Kurata.

At that time, Paris had become a destination for artists, and the culture of discussing art in cafes spread to Japan. Manabu and I agreed that there was a need for exchanges in art in Japan as well, and that there was a need for a place to discuss art.

The movement of young artists who began to interact in this way led to a break from the naturalistic tendencies of the previous generation and the creation of Romantic art.

Subaru, named by Mori Ogai and launched in 1909, published a large number of works that were truly romantic, and together with the Pan no Kai, led this trend.

 

The name of this club seems to go well with coffee, but of course it has nothing to do with bread. It is actually taken from the Pan Society, an art movement that took place in Berlin in the late 1800s. "Pan" is the god of shepherds in Greek mythology.

 

<The founders of the Pan no Kai, Kinoshita Mokutaro (left), a Manabu and poet, and Kitahara Hakushu (National Diet Library collection)>

When members of the art coterie magazine "Hosun", along with Kitahara Hakushu and Kinoshita Mokutaro, tried to hold the first meeting of this Bread Society, the biggest challenge was finding a venue.

This was because there were almost no authentic cafes in Tokyo in the 1900s.

However, in order to imitate the cafe culture of Paris, the members were adamant about finding a venue on the banks of the Sumida River, which they likened to the Seine. Another reason was that quite a few members felt an affinity with the Edo atmosphere of the downtown area.

It was Kinoshita Mokutaro who was busy searching for a venue. Poet and critic Noda Utaro wrote about this in his book "The Literary Movement with an Exotic Feeling" as follows:

"Exotic seagulls were swimming along the banks of the Okawa River in Sumida. The steam engines spurted out doughnut-like smoke rings as they cut through the waves of the river. There was nothing quite like a café.

The Sumida River reminded me of the Seine in Paris. I desperately wanted to find a venue along this river that exuded a Western and Edo atmosphere.

At that time in Tokyo, the only coffee houses were Aokidou near the Akamon Gate in Hongo, and the newspaper reading rooms that were the precursors to the milk halls scattered throughout the city. The rest were cow shops or Western restaurants.

Since I had no other choice, I decided to find a Western restaurant instead of a café, and found Daiichi Yamato, a three-story building resembling a Western-style building near Ryogoku Bridge. It was a beef hotpot restaurant, but it served Western food and alcohol. It was a dirty house. Still, the fact that it was on the banks of the Okawa River gave me a moment of satisfaction somewhere in my heart.

One day at the end of the year 1908, the first bread-making party was held on the third floor of Daiichi Yamato. (Noda Utaro, "The Literary Movement with an Exotic Atmosphere")

Thus, despite all our efforts, the first few meetings were held at a beef hotpot restaurant.

 

＜"The Bread Club" drawn by Sohachi Kimura based on an account of Mokutaro Kinoshita. This work was exhibited at the 5th Shunyo-kai Exhibition in 1928＞

 

Hikaru Takamura, Kaoru Oyamauchi and others participated in the Pan no Kai, and older generations such as Bin Ueda and Kafu Nagai also joined at times, and the scale of the event gradually grew. The venue also changed accordingly.

Now let's look at it from Kinoshita Mokutaro's recollections.

"The first two or three times we went there (Note: Daiichi Yamato), but the house was very shabby and had no charm at all, so we quickly got tired of it. After that, we found a Western restaurant called Sanshuya in Kodenmacho. This was a block with a Kisui downtown atmosphere, lined with old-fashioned wholesale shops, and the house was a Western-style building that retained some of the architectural style from the time of the First National Bank, so we really liked it. The proprietress was a native of Edo, and for one of our events she would invite some of the top geisha from Kayacho, and we were delighted, remembering the "Drawings of Nagasaki Amusements" preserved at the Manabu School of Art.

Afterwards, Eitaitei, located near the Eitai Bridge in Fukagawa, was often used as a venue as it offered views of the river.
Much later, Konosu was established in Koamicho and was known as "Maison Koonos" (Mokutaro Kinoshita, "Recollections of the Bread Club").

After being held at Western restaurants such as Sanshuya in Kodenmacho, Nihonbashi and Eidaitei in Fukagawa, the bread meeting was held at a shop called "Maison Konosu" in Koamicho, Nihonbashi.

Konosu is said to be one of the earliest cafe bars and cafe restaurants in Japan, and served French cuisine and French-style dark roast coffee.

At this point, the bread club's original wish finally came true, and they were able to hold a meeting in a cafe-like establishment. By that time, the club had grown in size and the number of members who liked alcohol had increased, so it had turned into a grand drinking party.

Scenes from these bread-breaking parties were depicted in works such as Hakushu Kitahara's "Poems of Tokyo," Mokutarō Kinoshita's "Song of the Afternoon," and Junichiro Tanizaki's "Tales of Youth."

Then, around 1910, the enthusiasm for the Bread Club began to wane, and by 1913 the club had come to an end.

However, the Pan no Kai, which brought together artists of this era, is said to have left a significant mark on the cultural history of Japan, and its pursuit of cafe culture is also clearly engraved in the history of coffee culture.

Maison Konosu moved from Koamicho to its Musashi branch in Nihonbashi around 1915 (Taisho 4), and later operated as a French restaurant in Minami Tenmacho, Kyobashi until the Great Kanto Earthquake.

During the Taisho era, meetings of various literary groups such as the Juukakai, Mirai, and Shinshicho were held here, and many writers have written about drinking coffee here.

Along with Cafe Printemps, it became one of the stores symbolizing the cafe culture that was finally beginning to flourish in Tokyo, but it closed shortly after the Great Kanto Earthquake.