“We’ve been to Shetland a couple of times to visit friends. Last time we came for Up Helly Aa and we loved it, so we were thinking to maybe move here and looking to find something to do. Luckily we found the shop so we decided to move here and open a coffee shop.”
Terence Tsao, originally from Hong Kong, and his Japanese partner Emilu Hasegawa moved to Shetland from Portsmouth in spring 2023 and have just opened their new café, Showa Coffee House, on Lerwick’s Commercial Road.
The couple were encouraged by the initial response to their soft opening to offer drinks to locals and visitors during the four days of Lerwick hosting the Tall Ships Races.
Terence and Emilu hope to interest both Shetland residents and tourists in Japanese culture with the simple aim of bringing something a little different to the town. From early August 2023 they plan to open from 10am-4pm between Monday and Saturday.
The décor of the premises, formerly Emma-Louise’s Coffee Shop, has been transformed. It is a minimalist and classy affair, the neat furnishings supplemented by an array of cultural artefacts from their homeland and including a selection of Terence’s vinyl records from both east and west (he has good taste!).
Emilu hails from Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands whose mountainous terrain was the setting for much of Haruki Murakami’s magical mystery novel A Wild Sheep Chase.
She says: “When we decided to open the shop, we wanted to put some elements of what we like [in], and our interest is in old-style, retro things in Japan. Shetland people seem really interested about us, and we got good comments about our coffee.”
Running a hospitality establishment is a completely new experience for the couple, so they are feeling a mixture of “excited” and “nervous”, but as committed coffee lovers they are looking forward to sharing their passion with the public.
The name “Showa”, meaning “bright peace”, is an homage to what Terence refers to as the “golden age” of Japan during its postwar resurgence.
There are nods to cultural touchstones of the 1980s and 1990s such as Tamagotchis, paintings and toys including a giant doll popularised by KEWPIE, a mayonnaise brand ubiquitous in Japan.
The café will also be selling Hata Ramune, a soda drink sold in bottles containing a glass marble, and ginbis confectionery.
“It’s really a western style mixed with Japanese traditional culture – we make more fancy things, more creative things, more interesting things, so we want to keep this name [Showa] for our customers,” Terence says.
That meeting of cultures extends to his record collection, with Britpop favourites Blur’s new record nestling alongside LPs from back home. Among his current listens is the latest release from veteran Tokyo producer and singer-songwriter Tatsuro Yamashita, who pioneered the “city pop” music genre.
That meeting of cultures extends to his record collection, with Britpop favourites Blur’s new record nestling alongside LPs from back home.
Alongside traditional global coffee shop mainstays such as lattes and cappuccinos, they will be offering matcha and authentic Japanese baking – including trademark rice cake mochi – and some savoury food options.
So far the couple are loving life in Sandwick, a village in the south end of the Shetland mainland, and have been beguile by the beauty and nature of the new place they call home.
Their experience of people in Shetland, too, has been very positive. Away from the hustle and bustle of city live they find folk are “nicer, more polite and have more time to say hello”.
“It is quite special for Emilu,” Terence adds. “She was born in Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan, and we are both in the northernmost islands in the UK. When she first came to Shetland she told me the weather, the landscape is quite similar but not exactly the same as Hokkaido – a memory of something new and something familiar.”
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