When Amit Chhetri opened a coffee roastery and cafe adjacent to Todoroki Valley in a quiet corner of Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward in the summer of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, his friends told him he was crazy.

“Although I understood my friends’ reactions, my attitude was that things happen all the time in this world, and you cannot just stop living,” says Chhetri. “Owning my own cafe was my dream, so I decided to take the challenge.”

Today, Chhetri’s Yeti Roastery Coffee is a rising star on the local coffee scene. When I visited on a recent weekday, his cafe was filled to capacity with customers flocking to savor Japan’s only Himalayan specialty coffee, which he serves farm-to-cup.