On Chichijima, one of the Ogasawara Islands and known as the first place in Japan to grow coffee, a father and daughter have maintained a practice of coffee cultivation that ceased during World War II when all the islanders were forced to evacuate.
Motomi Nose, 49, and her father, Akio, 83, currently take care of some 1,200 coffee trees, each roughly 2 meters tall, at their farm, Nose's FarmGarden, located in the mountains. The coffee farm had been abandoned for decades during the time when the island was put under U.S. control after the war, but some trees survived, enabling the family to revive the farm and continue its history up to this year — the 50th anniversary of the reversion of the Ogasawara island chain. Fruit can be seen on some of the trees, with some of it beginning to turn red. "Coffee trees are scattered everywhere, so I take care of them little by little everyday," Motomi said.
Forefathers of the Nose family migrated to Chichijima during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) and began cultivating coffee. There are records that say coffee was cultivated in the Ogasawaras as early as in 1878, which makes the islands the first in Japan to grow coffee.