Tokyo restaurant upcycles coffee grounds for limited Fairtrade beef bowl

Fermentation-focused restaurant Umami Takurami in Tokyo launched a limited-edition Fairtrade Set last week. The establishment is a two-star recipient of the Food Made Good Japan Awards 2025, and they are promoting the circular economy by upcycling spent coffee grounds into the restaurant’s signature dishes.

The restaurant is participating in the Fairtrade Million Action Campaign 2026, an annual event organised by the non-profit organisation Fairtrade Label Japan. Under this scheme, every order of the Fairtrade Set counts as one action. For each action recorded during the campaign, one yen is donated to producers in developing countries. The campaign seeks to reach a cumulative total of three million actions nationwide this year to protect the environment and the future of global producers.

A central feature of the set is the upcycled beef bowl, which is the restaurant’s most popular lunch item. The kitchen staff use spent coffee grounds in the pre-treatment process of the beef. The aromatic qualities and inherent bitterness of the coffee grounds enhance the umami of the meat and create a deeper flavour profile. This way, a material usually discarded after the brewing process is reused.

The Fairtrade Set also includes a dessert and a beverage designed with circularity concepts. The tea cheesecake incorporates Fairtrade-certified tea leaves, blending floral notes with the richness of fermented ingredients. The accompanying drink is a house-made beverage produced by simmering spent coffee grounds with various spices. These recipes are birthed from a desire to ensure that high-quality speciality coffee is used entirely without waste, something the restaurant wants to continue to do for all food materials.