NANAO, Iwate — In earthquake-hit areas of central Japan’s Noto Peninsula, a man from Iwate Prefecture has been serving warm coffee to people residing in shelters and temporary housing, providing some 10,000 cups to date.
Since the disaster struck on Jan. 1, 2024, Shinsuke Iwahana has visited the region approximately 800 kilometers away from home practically every month in his food truck, and his brews from carefully selected coffee beans have been warming people’s hearts and bodies though the harsh cold winter.
Iwahana, 47, was himself a recipient of support after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, and he was inspired to pass on the favor.
“I hope this serves as a token of gratitude for that day,” he said.
Traveling 800 km in a food truck
On the morning of Dec. 1, 2024, Iwahana’s food truck stood parked at an assembly hall in the Ishikawa Prefecture city of Nanao.
“Oh, it’s the guy from Iwate,” “It’s so comforting,” commented residents who emerged from temporary housing located next to the hall to receive coffee in paper cups, as smiles spread across their faces.
The food truck is operated solely by Iwahana, a self-employed resident of the Iwate Prefecture city of Kamaishi in northeast Japan. This was his eighth visit to the location.
Among those enjoying the coffee were Sachiko Urakami and Takemi Kaga, both 74. “He’s been coming since we were in the evacuation center, giving us warm coffee and words of comfort,” “It feels like he’s saying, ‘I won’t abandon you,’ and it brings tears to my eyes,” were among the things said by the pair.
Between mid-January and the beginning of December 2024, Iwahana’s food truck visited the Noto Peninsula 10 times. The long journey — nearly 800 kilometers each way — takes some 15 hours. Each time, he has spent about a week going around evacuation shelters and temporary housing facilities providing coffee that usually costs 500 yen a cup free of charge.
For the coffee, he uses fair trade beans, roasted in-house, and mainly uses a light roast, which is less bitter. “I don’t want those hurt by the disaster to have a bitter experience,” he explained.
Kimihiko Tanaka, 63, whose home was completely destroyed in the Noto quake, now lives in a two-bedroom temporary housing unit with two other family members. “Living in temporary housing can feel stifling at times, but this coffee provides a break,” he said with a softened expression. Iwahana quietly responded, “Well, we received support following the (March 2011) disaster, too.”
For a man in his mid-40s, the one-person job of driving long distances and providing coffee is tough at times, but the gratitude he felt for support in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake spurs him to keep going.
Support after the Great East Japan Earthquake
On March 11, 2011, Iwahana was working in a building in Tokyo. At the time, he owned his own business both as a system developer and management consultant. The violent shaking of the quake scattered printers and other equipment around his workplace.
He headed to the Unosumai district in the north of Kamaishi, where his family home was located, but it took him about a week to get there.
The disaster including a massive tsunami claimed the lives of about 600 people in the area. His family’s home, located about 1.5 km from the coast, was also completely destroyed, with sea waters flooding the home above floor level. His parents evacuated and were safe, but one relative perished.
Afterward, he traveled from Tokyo back to his hometown every weekend to help run a mobile library for disaster victims. Meanwhile, he was supported both materially and emotionally by the many volunteers visiting Kamaishi.
A piece of happiness for each person
Iwahana felt close with the supporters who visited repeatedly. “It made me happy to know they hadn’t forgotten the disaster or its victims,” he said. He regularly visits the Noto region so people can feel the same as he did back then.
Iwahana had been involved in coffee as a side business even before the 2011 earthquake. He sought to give those hit by the disaster even a slight sense of calm, and when he provided coffee to people in evacuation centers and temporary housing facilities in Kamaishi, they shed tears of joy. One person told him, “This is the first time since the quake that I’ve felt so relieved,” bringing home the power of a single cup.
While in Tokyo, Iwahana had pursued profit as a businessperson, but he decided he wanted to open a store in his hometown, engaging in down-to-earth work where he would interact with others.
Around that time, the city of Kamaishi and other areas were seeking people to operate food trucks as part of a joint public-private venture to support those affected by the March 2011 disaster. The timing aligned with his resolve, and he began operating a truck in June 2012 while living in local temporary housing. He now does business in the city center every Wednesday and makes a living by participating in events and roasting and selling coffee beans wholesale.
The name of the business is Happiece Coffee, stemming from a portmanteau of “happy” and “piece.” It was named based on the wish to deliver each person a piece of happiness.
A drink that brings ‘peace of mind needed to live like humans’
Starting from the Hiroshima landslides of 2014, Iwahana began providing bags of drip coffee to disaster-hit areas, also doing so following the Kumamoto earthquake of 2016 and the rain disasters in Akita and Yamagata prefectures in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
After the Noto quake, he judged that he would be able to enter the affected area by car, and made his trip there with the food truck for the first time. Nearly every month, he has visited Nanao, where a citizens group from Kobe that he connected with post-quake operates, as well as the cities of Wajima and Suzu.
In Nanao, 45-year-old Tomoko Ishisaka, a local representative of the Kobe citizens group, expressed gratefulness for the visits by Iwahana, affectionately known as Shin-chan. “There were people who shed tears when Shin-chan visited,” she said. “The coffee helps calm them, allowing them to talk about things they usually find difficult to discuss.”
Iwahana believes that coffee is “a drink that lends the peace of mind needed to live like a human being.” After tasting it, disaster victims who had been complaining or on edge go home with smiles on their faces.
Over one year has now passed since the Noto quake. For a little longer, Iwahana intends to keep delivering moments of comfort to those who’ve endured the disaster.
(Japanese original by Shinichi Okuda, Sanriku Local Bureau)
This post was originally published on here
