Who is Emi Fukahori?
I am 31 years old and have been in Zurich, Switzerland for 8 years now. Since November 2016 I co-own MAME together with Mathieu Theis, my life and business partner. Now we have two MAME cafes, celebrating coffees from all over the world and enjoy bridging coffees and people.

We compete at coffee championships since 2015 – this year I was crowned as World Brewers Cup Champion, after Mathieu had been 3rd placed at World Barista Championship.

Where are you from and where did you grow up? What was your childhood like?

I am from Fukuoka, Japan, it´s a prefecture in the Kyushu Island, southeastern part of Japan.
Grown up in Saga, next to Fukuoka, where my parents actually come from. My name in Japanese is 深堀絵美.I was quite a curious, cheerful, yet stubborn kid (yes I am only child) – I enjoyed drawing, playing outside and helping my mum in the kitchen.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

I wanted to be a tour guide travelling around the globe. Being Japanese in the island, I found it is always fascinating to know that there are more people outside, with different cultures and customs.

What did you study and why you chose it? Did it help you in the future?

After spending one year in London to improve my English, I studied hospitality management, specialized in tourism in Lucerne, Switzerland. I chose that university in Switzerland because this was one of those that can accommodate international students to both study and work in the branch. Having different nationalities around and opportunities to learn about them and myself, I found that making others happy is my pleasure. This is still really helpful when it comes to serve my customers at café. I like to see my customers enjoy what I enjoy (coffee), I really enjoy making efforts to improve their cup to make them even happier.

What did you do before entering coffee industry? How did this experience influence you

After my study I worked in a travel agency in Switzerland, for 4 years in total. I was in the inbound operation and management, which means I was responsible for people from overseas visiting Switzerland. We organized, planned, arranged tour programmes for leisure and business tour groups to Switzerland – Switzerland was my product. Depending on their nationalities and purposes of their travels, needs and demands were completely different. With fascination, I did enjoy working there. Once again, it was my pleasure to do my best to make their journey and travel experience as good as possible.

What is your favourite coffee?

This changes seasonally – but I always aim for a balance in cup. I like coffee that can appear with sweetness in the first place, then some brightness and long lasting, changing flavours in good body.

Why you decided to co-found MAME? What does MAME mean?

Mathieu and I met each other through coffee, as we were still working in the previous segments (me in the tourism, him in engineering!) We got so into coffee because of the depth of this speciality coffee world and fascination in flavours. At some point, we realised we like coffee so much to dream of living out of what we love doing.

We founded MAME, hoping to live out of coffee. MAME means ´bean´ in Japanese – 豆 – we chose this name, because we wanted a name that is short, easy to speak out, a kind of first-question-you-come-up-when-you-meet-me(barista), ‘what does MAME mean?’ This normally works pretty good as an ice breaker when we have first timer customers.

What do you do in your coffee shop?

We serve, sell, teach coffee. I love being in the bar shift and working as a barista, serving mainly 3 different characters of coffees – chocolaty, fruity, floral – as espresso, milk drink and filter. We sell serving coffees in bags too, so customers can find what they liked, and take it home. I also give customised barista/brewer courses on request.

As a coffee shop owner, how do you think coffee influence lives of people?

Coffee can brighten lifestyle of people. You have a bad day, you may talk to us baristas and/or a warm, sweet cup of coffee can cheer you up a bit. You have a good day, you can share that with us baristas and/or you feel like trying something new.

What is coffee for you and what does it bring into your life?

Coffee fills my life up and brings me joy (sounds cheesy!)

Coffee is not just a cup of different flavours extracted, but it´s about varieties, producers, science, techniques, craftsmanship, art, pleasure, emotions and people. I love it.

In your free time, do you do café hopping? How do you see other coffee shops now as you are an owner yourself?

OF COURSE! That´s actually most of my main purposes when I travel! When I entre a café in a new country/city, I am so curious about its concept and offer, thinking what I can learn from it.

Why do you think coffee is such a social drink?

Because coffee can connect people very easily. Coffee being diverse and can be approached from different aspects (technically, scientifically, emotionally, as experience etc).

As 2018 is close to finishing, looking back, what would you say were the lessons of this year for you?

The biggest lesson of the year is to stay open and keep learning. This spirit pushed us a lot, both of us were so privileged to go to the world stages and both managed to deliver what we wished. What we know today could be different tomorrow, that´s fine, so we can keep learning to be updated for the day after.

What are plans for the next year?

Besides operating our two MAMEs, we would like to set up our own roastery and coffee academy. At the roastery we wish to have closer relationships to (green) coffees and get to know coffees from a new angle. At the academy we wish to share our championship experience with as many enthusiastic brewers/baristas as possible, learning with them.

So looking forward to 2019!