Many years ago when I first became an ALT, I was told by one of the English teachers that my new desk was near the “coffee maker”. Initially, I was ecstatic as most of my life ran on caffeine during college. However, I soon found out that the term “coffee maker” was just a euphemism for the lowest ranking teacher who had to mix hot water with the provided instant coffee and serve it to the more senior members.Â
I got along fine with the coffee maker. He was a recent graduate from the local university with a kind smile and a go-getter attitude. In-between his regular trips to make drinks for the higher ranking teachers (everyone) he would even teach a few social studies classes. As an ALT, I was not really part of the teaching hierarchy, so even though I was the only person newer than him, he still asked if I wanted him to make me a cup of coffee. I thought that a steaming cup of liquid energy would be perfect as I set up my desk to begin my new work life in Japan. I accepted his generous offer with a smile.
You can imagine my disappointment when he set a tepid cup of brown sludge on my desk. Like a good boy who just received a pack of tube socks for Christmas from an elderly relative, I smiled and thanked him for his act of kindness and pretended to take a sip. I was able to force the rest of the unholy concoction down between the next couple of classes and then made a point to keep a cup of green tea on my desk from that point forward.
I am very curious if this is still still the norm in most schools. Do English schools and company jobs also have have to deal with undrinkable coffee, or was this unique to my work experience?
32 comments
I’ve never had a “coffee maker”. There’s a hot water bottle and some small single packages of coffee, sugar, and powdered creme that people can make if they want a cup, but very few do. Most either bring their own, or go to the cafeteria to buy some coffee from the vending machines.
The coffee situation at my work places varies. Some places have none or have ceased offering drinks in the last two years because of COVID-19. Another has a coin-operated vending machine.
For me personally, the coffee maker is the guy who puts coffee in my hot-drink container in the morning before I go to work. I get along with him OK.
Oh, I’m at an international school and I make people cups of tea because it’s what we did at my schools in the UK.
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I like making people a nice cuppa.
Coffee maker? I’ve never seen this in Japan or in UK offices. It’s just hot water, and you can add tea or instant coffee.
It is what it is. You’re in Japan, not Italy. Go to a コンビニ for decent cheap coffee.
We have a coffee pot, various drink mixes, and tea/juice in the fridge, but it’s around 3000/month to join the “drink club”.
I have never heard of this. When the school has guests, an available teacher, perhaps of the lowest rank will pour green tea, but I’ve never seen a teacher make coffee for anyone else.
I worked at one school that made delicious coffee a few times a day, but I found out it was because the VP loved coffee so they bought her a coffee pot and kept it full throughout the day (bit everyone could drink it).
When I was an assistant teacher we weren’t allowed to show drinks because the kids might get jealous. (JHS) so I had to hide my drink with a cover thing.
Everyone made their own coffee.
Also this is a 4-day old account. Named CoffeeBeanFreedom.
Perhaps an attempt at satire of the poor soul complaining that he couldn’t drink coffee in-front of kids at lunch?
What a truly rich blend of posters come to this sub, helping us percolate up new and original ideas, always providing a constant drip of content to release us from the daily grind.
We have vending machines, I suppose, or you can make instant coffee. No shops nearby, unless you don’t mind taking a 10-minute-drive.
We have a fancy schmancy machine that makes coffee, lattes and hot chocolate. Half the time I still bring in origami pour overs and use the hot water kettle because the brand of beans my school uses taste terrible
Buying my own beans/french press was a game changer. No more awful school coffee or Blendy sticks.
Free drip coffee singles.
We have a mini version of the machines they have at 7/11. It grinds beans and makes coffee. It costs 30yen a cup.
We don’t have many students so the receptist makes everyone a cup of green tea in the morning and makes pot coffee every 90 mins or so, leaving one on everyone’s desk (whether you ask for it or not). It’s a bit like having Mrs. Doyle from Father Ted around. The first week I was being served 5 cups a day (and drinking them to be polite) but after a few weeks I negotiated down to 2 with a second tea in the afternoon. In summer we get iced coffee and mugicha instead. It’s incredibly nice and I’m incredibly grateful though I would appreciate a few less cups some days.
So at my school (small town – I lived on top of it and shared the kitchen), we had a percolator and some free coffee (cheapo stuff). Outside there was a machine that sold Black Boss.
At one point in time I bought some good coffee from Australia & every time I travelled around Japan, so I had a stash in the kitchen. One day I noticed my stash was being used up REALLY quickly. I didn’t really care and assumed a few other teachers (all Japanese assistants) were using it. Fine! I said nothing as I didn’t really care (there was more than enough to go around).
After this had been going on for 12 months, an assistant (who thought she was the boss) saw me drinking some of my coffee. She cracked a shit and berated me, claiming that work owned it an like… how dare I ask it without asking her.
Long story short, we didn’t have coffee beans after that as I was like ‘fuck this… if somebody’s not only gonna drink all the good shit, they’re also gonna refuse to accept it’s mine then I’m not gonna provide shit for anybody!!!’ I began drinking black boss from the vendo out front. Life was good.
This made me smile. Need more quality posts like this.
Luckily, my coffee maker is an actual machine. It’s an automatic espresso machine, so it’s got a built in grinder and will dish out one or two shots. We rent it from a company that maintains it, and everyone in the office chips in to buy more coffee beans. I wouldn’t be able to live with those shitty crystals. Maybe once if I’m desperate but on a daily basis? I do not envy you.
We have an industrial Unimat coffee maker and once a month a guy comes to clean it and make sure coffee is stocked and everything is in working order. I assume it is a rental and that’s part of the service. However as a addict, I bring my own coffee because if I drank their coffee I would probably drink it all. So in an effort to cut my drinking, I bring my own drip bags. I buy some decent coffee drip bags from COSTCO, and I pick up the gourmet assorted pack for home. But bringing my own lets me keep it down to 2 cups a day.
We press a button 10 minutes before lunch, grab a cup, grab the pot and then pour some, put it back (to stay hot), and then repeat
dismal. I have to bring my own at my current schools. inaka schools were definitely better for the coffee situation
At one of my bigger schools, the VP bought a beautiful DeLonghi espresso machine. Loved those visits.
Other than that, made my own pour-over from the cheapest Costco packet stuff. If you are looking for good coffee in Japan, let alone schools, you will be on a mission.
At one of my previous roles, were I was back in the office every day, I did the stovetop “espresso”. It was enough for me and another person, so every time I made one, I would go down the roster and another stuff member would get a cup, including the lady whose job it was to make coffee. She was a bit flustered, but she accepted.
One of the ladies asked me if women made the coffee for other staff or visitors in my office back in my home country (gov department). I said they might, but they certainly wouldn’t be expected to do it. I was just as likely to make a cup of coffee for a colleague as they were for me. Same with visitors. Whoever was available would do it.
We make our own at each school I go to.
Our PE teacher, the most senior, brews weapons-grade coffee for all staff in our 10-cup industrial coffee maker before the a.m. meeting. We’re wired all day.
I’m not a teacher in Japan but I have a nice story from Korea.
The headteacher at my previous school used to make drip coffee for all the teachers at the school everyday. At first I didn’t really drink it because I liked latte’s instead of drip but little by little I began to enjoy his coffee and even learned how to make it myself. He bought a coffee grinding machine as well as other things to make drip with.
I didn’t much like this teacher at the beginning of my time at the school, he hazed me often, but in the end he was harmless and was just showing his way of being friendly even if it was a bit annoying.
Anyway I changed school and thought it’d be nice to make coffee for the other teachers just like I did. I bought my own coffee making equipment and expected my office to really enjoy it… Only to be told that none of them liked drinking coffee… So I got them osulloc teabags instead.
The private boy’s reform school I taught at for a year had a fully-stocked, free, hot/cold drink station. Coffee pod machine with tons of free pods, tea, hot lemon, etc. Used to get jacked up on dark espresso pods and then go to class and watch the JTE beat the kids.
City public schools with large teacher’s offices: an automatic grind and brew coffee machine with chargeable IC cards maintained by an outside company. As non-core staff I wasn’t able to get a card but friendly teachers would sometimes swipe theirs to get me a cup. The fridge had communal barley tea and 2 liter bottles of suspicious coffee. I would walk to a nearby vending machine or convenience store if I was desperate.
Public schools with grade separated offices: communal instant coffees and teas with one teacher in charge of collecting money and restocking. Sometimes if I was lucky there would be someone into coffee who would keep grounds stocked for individual serve drip or if I was even luckier one who would brew a pot each morning.
In the more rural public schools I’ve worked in they have a large communal drip machine. Lowest ranking member makes the pot in the morning and its sits on the warmer. Usually it’s finished right after lunch. If there is a big staff meeting, sometimes they’ll make a second half pot. The tiny mountain school has a home-sized drip machine.
Worst coffee situation was in Korea where any time you had a meeting, entered an office, or even had a few minutes of downtime with coworkers you would be obliged to accept a tiny paper cup of horribly over sweetened Maxim instant stick coffee.
The tea lady at my old school collected a coffee fee of 2000 yen per teacher each month. There were like 30 teachers in there! Was she really spending Â¥60,000 a month on coffee!? Doubtful…
I have coffee beans, a hand mill, and an aeropress in the kitchen of the classroom I work out of ^-^
I’m guessing this is your first job out of college?
Because this is the norm in every office, everywhere.
This is why people bring their own coffee and guard it with their life. LOL 🙂
When I was an ALT, I had a number of schools I visited weekly. At one of the elementary schools, the principal would make and bring me a cup of coffee from his personal coffee maker and served in a cup from his own private set. It was an extremely nice gesture but the only problem was that I wasn’t a coffee drinker.
Now I’m addicted to it and it’s all his damn fault.
My school has an espresso machine where you pay 50yen per capsule. It’s not bad considering i was paying 1500yen per month to use the regular drip coffee machine. This is at JHS.
At my public JHS we have a staff kitchen at the back of the staffroom, and there is an employed PTA member who makes coffee/iced tea. All of the staff put 1500 yen a month each into a little fund that pays that person, and the snack/tea/coffee allowance. Usually we have a dispenser of iced jasmine tea, a literal coffee maker and a large dispenser of boiling water along with a little box of teabags and one use pour over coffees. Sometimes it changes up based on what omiyage people bring back, or gifts from the PTA- during exam grading time, there is usually a bunch of tempura or cookies too. The money that doesnt get spent goes towards the bounenkai/enkai funds or other staff events. If we dont have those, (covid) we get a gift hamper of stuff on our desks at the end of the year.
At the ES we have a kettle and a sign that says “dont make a mess” lol