I wanted somewhere I myself would want to sit for two hours without being rushed.

Tsuyoshi Komatsu opened Cozy Zephyr in October 2006 in a narrow ground-floor space on a side street off Jozenji-dori in Sendai's Aoba Ward. The first few months were quiet. He had a second-hand La Marzocco machine, a small hand-built counter, and a chalkboard menu with four items on it. The regulars who came in that first winter were mostly people from the neighbourhood who wanted somewhere warm and unhurried. He made their drinks, learned their orders, and kept the place open.

The turning point came in the spring of 2009, when Tsuyoshi started roasting his own beans in a small drum roaster he set up in the back room. Before that, he was buying pre-roasted stock from a wholesaler in Tokyo and was never quite satisfied with the freshness by the time it arrived. Roasting in-house changed everything about the flavour and also about how he thought about the menu. He started rotating single-origin coffees with the seasons, writing the tasting notes on a small card by the grinder, and customers started asking questions. That conversation is still happening.