Verve Coffee Roasters Ebisu – Best Coffee Experience in Tokyo

On this trip, we had the best coffee experience in Tokyo at Verve Coffee Roasters Ebisu. The spacious cafe at Yebisu Garden Place scored highly on all aspects of a good coffee place – good product, outstanding service, nice ambience and a fair price.

Verve Coffee Roasters was founded in 2007 in the city of Santa Cruz in California USA. There now have locations in different parts of California and have expanded to Japan where they have several outlets in Tokyo.

Coffee at Yebisu Garden Place

Yebisu Garden Place is a retail and cultural center in Ebisu, Tokyo. It was built on the former site of the Yebisu Beer brewery. This complex is made up of a mix of European-style architecture, modern skyscrapers, museums, shops and restaurants. Some notable landmarks here are the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Westin Tokyo hotel and a replica of a Louis XVI French château which houses the 3 Michelin Star restaurant Le Chateau de Joël Robuchon.

Verve Coffee Roasters Ebisu is located in one of these buildings. On the first floor of the Central Plaza of Yebisu Garden Place. Unlike hip cafes which have tight spaces and tiny stools and tables, this cafe is bright and spacious. The regular sized dining tables and chairs made this a suitable place for a coffee break after some walking around Ebisu.

Of the several coffee places in Tokyo that we visited, the two that impressed us the most was Glitch Coffee in Nihonbashi that we wrote about recently and Verve Ebisu. Verve, however, won us over with the availability of coffee sampling before we placed our order. In the case of Glitch, the different types of coffee bean samples were offered for smell sampling but not tasting.

At Verve Coffee Roasters Ebisu, pots of coffee were ready-made for customers or would-be-customers to try before making a purchase. This was the first cafe we have been to which provides for coffee tasting before purchase. Like in Glitch, a friendly barista was on hand to explain the beans and to answer any questions.

Verve Coffee Roasters Ebisu Menu

Here are pictures of the Verve Coffee menu at Ebisu Tokyo. After trying the samples offered, we decided on a cappuccino (680 yen) and a pour-over made with Mate Matiwos beans from Ethiopia (780 yen). We also ordered a slice of banana pound cake (780 yen) to go with the coffee. There was also a 200 yen discount on the second drink. Even without considering the discount, this was a more wallet-friendly place compared to Glitch.

This is what our coffee and cake looked like.

The Ethiopian coffee was described to have strawberry and passion fruit flavours. We could not pinpoint the specific fruit flavours but liked its soft fruity taste.

The cappuccino had a smooth, well-balanced flavour without sourness, which was something we liked. Overall, we understand that Glitch seems to have a higher hip factor, but for us this was as good a cup of coffee as we needed to have. It may not have the wow factor in the cafe decor, but we appreciated the spaciousness and the number of seats available. Verve would be the cafe we would look out for in the future for a coffee break in Tokyo.

Verve Coffee Roasters Ebisu
Yebisu Garden Place Center Plaza 1F
〒150-0013 4-20-7 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Opening Hours: 7 am – 9 pm

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