Specialty Coffee Association of Japan (SCAJ)
The Specialty Coffee Association of Japan (SCAJ) is the national trade body for specialty coffee in Japan. In Japanese it is 一般社団法人 日本スペシャルティコーヒー協会 — a general incorporated association, which is the ordinary Japanese legal form for a non-profit membership body, meaning nobody owns it and its members elect its governance.1
It does three things that matter to the rest of this wiki: it runs Japan’s national coffee championships, it puts on the annual Tokyo trade show, and it certifies the people who work in the trade. Its stated purpose is to raise awareness and deepen understanding of specialty coffee among Japanese consumers and growers worldwide, and to spread “systematic knowledge of and practices in coffee processes from cultivation to the cup.”2
That matters because of the market underneath it. Japan is the world’s fourth-largest coffee-drinking country and the single most persistent record-buyer at the world’s top auctions — see Japan coffee market. SCAJ is the professional body sitting on top of that demand.
How it got here
SCAJ is younger than the culture it represents. The chain of bodies runs:1
| Year | What happened | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1987 | Founded as 全日本グルメコーヒー協会 (All Japan Gourmet Coffee Association) |
| 2 | 1999 | Renamed 日本スペシャリティーコーヒー協会 |
| 3 | 2003 | Re-established under its current name, 日本スペシャルティコーヒー協会 (SCAJ) |
| 4 | 2014 | Launches its practical qualification and certification system |
| 5 | 2023 | Marks its 20th anniversary, counted from the 2003 re-founding |
So the word “specialty” entered the organisation’s name in 1999 — roughly the same window in which the American and European associations that later merged into the Specialty Coffee Association were building the same vocabulary. SCAJ counts its own age from 2003, not 1987.1
The current chairman (会長) is Katsuhiko Hasegawa (長谷川克彦).1
The championships
SCAJ organises the Japanese national championships. Its own activity page names these:3
| Abbreviation | Competition |
|---|---|
| JBC | Japan Barista Championship |
| JBrC | Japan Brewers Cup |
| JCTC | Japan Cup Tasters Championship |
| JLAC | Japan Latte Art Championship |
| JCIGSC | Japan Coffee In Good Spirits Championship |
| JCRC | Japan Coffee Roasting Championship |
| JSC | Japan Siphonist Championship |
| WSC | World Siphonist Championship |
The first seven mirror, title for title, the World Coffee Championships run by World Coffee Events — World Barista Championship, World Brewers Cup, World Cup Tasters Championship, World Latte Art Championship, World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and the roasting title.
The eighth is the odd one and the interesting one. The World Siphonist Championship is a world title held under SCAJ rather than under World Coffee Events — Japan owns the international competition for siphon brewing, the vacuum-pot method that never left kissaten culture and that the global championship circuit does not cover.3
This is where Japanese competitors on this wiki come from. Tetsu Kasuya won the Japan Brewers Cup in 2016 before taking the world title that year, and Hidenori Izaki came up the barista route to the 2014 World Barista Championship.
To verify — whether these nationals are the formal world qualifiers
SCAJ’s own pages list the eight competitions above but, on the pages consulted here, do not state that the national winners qualify for the World Coffee Championships, and no World Coffee Events national-body document was retrieved confirming SCAJ as Japan’s sanctioned qualifying body. This wiki’s Tetsu Kasuya note already says SCAJ “runs the Japanese qualifiers he won” — plausible, consistent with how every other country works, and consistent with Kasuya winning the Japan Brewers Cup and then the world one, but not confirmed from a primary source on this pass. Treat the qualifier link as very likely rather than documented.
To verify — no results archive was retrieved
No winner, year, or score from any SCAJ national championship was obtained here. The competition pages linked from scaj.org/championship and /championships both returned 404 from this machine, so the archive was not reached. Japan coffee market flags the same gap: this wiki holds almost no Japanese national competition results.
The Tokyo show
SCAJ’s most visible product is the SCAJ World Specialty Coffee Conference and Exhibition — usually just called “the SCAJ show” — an annual trade fair and conference in Tokyo, and one of Asia’s major coffee industry gatherings. SCAJ2026 runs 14–17 October 2026 at Tokyo Big Sight, South Halls 1–4.4 It has its own website separate from the association’s, at scajconference.jp.
The show sits in the wider circuit described on Coffee trade shows: like World of Coffee, it is a trade body’s own fair rather than an events company’s product.
To verify — no attendance, exhibitor or membership numbers
Neither scaj.org nor scajconference.jp published a visitor count, exhibitor count, floor size, or membership total on the pages consulted. SCAJ is definitely member-based — its show has an early-bird exhibitor window restricted to members — but the number of members, the membership categories, the fee structure, and the full board of directors are not stated on any page reached here. Any circulating figure for “SCAJ attendance” should be traced to a primary source before use.
Education and certification
Two programmes are worth knowing:3
- Coffee Meister (コーヒーマイスター) — SCAJ’s own certification, running since 1999, aimed at training professional coffee salespeople. It is the qualification a Japanese café or roastery staffer is most likely to hold.
- CQI Certified Q Grader Course — SCAJ hosts the Coffee Quality Institute’s Q Grader certification in Japan, the international licence for formally scoring coffee. This is the mechanism behind the Premiumisation story: Japan’s dense population of licensed graders is part of why Japanese buyers pay for the top of the score scale.
It also runs roasting quality workshops and specialty coffee cupping seminars.5
Contact and location
SCAJ’s registered office is in Tokyo:21
- 住友不動産青山ビル西館7階, 8-5-26 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052, Japan
- Tel +81-3-4416-8791 · info@scaj.org
To verify — the published fax number looks malformed
SCAJ’s English overview page prints a fax number of +81-5-3156-2494.2 Japanese domestic numbers dialled internationally drop the leading 0 and take a recognised area code; “5-3156” does not fit that pattern, and the number does not appear on the Japanese-language page. It is transcribed here as printed and is likely a typo on the source page. Do not rely on it.
Related
- Japan coffee market — the market SCAJ sits on top of: flat, enormous, and home to the world’s record auction buyers
- Coffee trade shows — where the SCAJ show fits in the global fair circuit
- Specialty Coffee Association · World Coffee Events · Coffee Quality Institute — the global counterparts
- All Japan Coffee Association — the separate, industry-wide Japanese trade body that publishes the national statistics
- SCAP — Panama’s equivalent national association, for comparison
- World Coffee Championships · World Barista Championship · World Brewers Cup · World Cup Tasters Championship · World Latte Art Championship · World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship
- Tetsu Kasuya · Hidenori Izaki — Japanese champions who came up through these competitions
- Siphon brewing · Kissaten · Nel drip — the Japanese brewing traditions, one of which has its world championship here
- Q Grader · Cupping · Coffee scoring · Premiumisation
- Saza Coffee — the Japanese roastery behind two world price records
Official links
- Official site — Specialty Coffee Association of Japan (SCAJ)
- Official site — SCAJ World Specialty Coffee Conference and Exhibition