COFFEE, CRAFT, AND THE TWO ISLANDS THAT BROUGHT US TOGETHER

Requiem.Coffee, also known as Requiem for a Crema, began with two people from opposite ends of the world — an Irishman from a rugged northern coast and a Japanese woman from a mountain-ringed city — who met in a tiny kissaten café in the mountains near Hiroshima, Japan. Matt was a high-school English teacher and Haruna worked in eldercare: We learned we both cared about people, society and, most importantly, really good coffee. We began to meet daily for the kind of strong, quality coffee that fuels the working-class jobs that keep our society functioning. Teachers and eldercare workers, like me and Haruna: We may not have much money, but we deserve a world-class shot of coffee just as much as any suit and tie wearing salaryman.

Those Japanese Syphon cafés treated coffee like a small ceremony, something to slow down for. That philosophy followed us through marriage, across continents, and eventually home to Ireland, where we decided to build a family business around the ritual that had shaped so much of our relationship.

Today we brew syphon coffee the same way we did back in Japan: Slow, scientific, intentional; using original vintage Cona, Hario, and Bodum coffee machines; it's just that now we are serving it from our carefully restored Jaguar hearse. A former working funerary vehicle: This vehicle has taken part in hundreds of ceremonies: Often one the most important ceremonies in the lives of those involved. We respect that history, to us the hearse is not a novelty or a gimmick: It is a reflection of our deeply held personal philosophy of Ichigo ichie (一期一会), that everything in life is fleeting and so we must cherish every moment all the more.

Requiem.Coffee is more than another Irish coffee pop-up: Firstly, our philosophy is Japanese, our 'coffee stand" is a moving piece of coffee history: The hearse our temple, and slow, scientifically brewed coffee is our shared ritual. Every cup is made with the same care that first brought us together.

WHY SYPHON COFFEE

Where Science Meets Ceremony

Syphon coffee is one of the oldest and most theatrical brewing methods in the world: A bubbling fusion of heat, glass, motion, and precision. Long before modern machines, Japanese kissaten masters perfected this technique, treating it not as a novelty but as a disciplined craft. The result is a cup with unmatched clarity and depth: Clean, aromatic, and layered in ways other brewers simply cannot reach.

What makes syphon coffee special isn’t just the flavour. It’s the ritual. The rising water, the bloom, the gentle draw-down — it forces you to slow down and pay attention. Every variable matters. Nothing is rushed. Nothing is hidden.

For us, syphon brewing represents everything we value: Intention, patience, and respect for the beans we source from small farmers around the world. It’s a method that rewards care, honours craftsmanship, and transforms a cup of coffee into a moment worth remembering.

In a world obsessed with speed, syphon coffee insists on meaning. And that’s why we choose it.

If Coffee is King: The Syphon is The Sceptre.

OUR ETHOS

Respect for Craft, People, and Every Cup We Brew

Coffee, Craft, and the Two Islands That Brought Us Together

Requiem.Coffee — or Requiem for a Crema — began with two people from opposite ends of the world who found each other through a shared love of care, ritual, and quality craft. Matt grew up on the northern coast of Ireland; Haruna in a mountain-ringed city near Hiroshima. We met in a tiny kissaten café deep in the hills of Western Japan. Matt was working as a high-school English teacher; Haruna worked in eldercare. Two underpaid professions that have one thing in common: they demand genuine attention, patience, and compassion. We bonded first through our work — and then through the syphon coffee that fuelled it.

Japan’s old kissaten cafés treated coffee like a ceremony. The syphon pot wasn’t a gimmick; it was a philosophy. Slow brewing, intentional movement, quiet detail — every cup a small ritual, every brew a kind of meditation. That rhythm shaped the earliest days of our relationship. On days off we would visit small family-run cafés, listening to the soft whirr of grinders and the gentle rise of boiling water through glass chambers.

Those early years gave us a shared conviction: that good coffee is not a luxury reserved for the wealthy. Teachers, care workers, cleaners, nurses — the working-class jobs that keep society running — deserve the same quality and craftsmanship normally reserved for suits and salarymen. Coffee should be democratic and dignified, not exclusive. And so, as we carried our lives from Japan to Ireland, that philosophy came with us. Requiem.Coffee began not as a business idea, but as a continuation of the ritual that shaped our life together.

THE ART OF ATTENTION: SLR PHOTOGRAPHY AND SCIENTIFIC ROASTING

Long before we ever roasted our first batch, we were already practising the discipline that would define our coffee: analogue SLR photography. Matt learned on his grandfather’s 1960s Minolta, and Haruna spent years shooting landscapes around Hiroshima’s mountains. Analogue photography is an art form built on patience and precision: aperture logged, shutter speed recorded, light measured, frame considered. Every click of the shutter leaves a trace — a record to be studied, improved, refined in the darkroom.

That discipline of logging, measuring, comparing became the backbone of what we now call scientific roasting.

When we roast, we approach each batch the way a photographer approaches a roll of film. Every roast is not one attempt — it is six controlled variations: different times, different temperatures, different development arcs. We record each turning point the way we once recorded shutter speeds. Then we compare the results side by side, looking for nuance: acidity, sweetness, texture, balance. We don’t guess. We don’t rely on instinct alone. We roast by evidence.

This approach allows us to produce consistent, precise roasts that honour the bean rather than overpower it — roasts designed specifically for syphon brewing, where clarity and delicacy matter more than brute strength. Our beans are intentionally light-to-medium to preserve florals, citrus notes, and sweetness. Even our darker profiles are engineered, not improvised.

What we learned from SLR photography became the philosophy behind Requiem.Coffee:

Attention is love.
Precision is care.
Craft is the record of how carefully one has looked at the world.

Our roasting is a continuation of the same discipline that once filled notebooks with film data. It’s the same ritual — just a different medium.

A HEARSE, A HISTORY, AND A TRAVELLING MUSEUM OF COFFEE

When we moved home to Ireland, we decided our coffee would not live in a shop but in a story. That story took the form of a carefully restored Jaguar XL hearse — a working funerary vehicle that had been part of hundreds of ceremonies across the UK. Many of those ceremonies were among the most important moments in the lives of the families involved. This vehicle had carried meaning long before it carried coffee.

We never saw the hearse as a novelty. We saw it as an inheritance — a space that demanded dignity. Instead of stripping it down or covering it in vinyl, we kept it intact as much as possible, adding only what was required for UK and HSE food-safety compliance. The interior has been restored with antiques, walnut surfaces, and museum-quality syphon equipment. What was once a vehicle for final goodbyes now travels Ireland as a quiet reminder that life is short, beauty is fleeting, and moments deserve attention — especially the small ones.

We built the hearse to serve as a travelling museum of syphon coffee history. Inside are functioning 1960s–1980s Cona, Hario, and Bodum devices — each one restored, preserved, and used exactly as intended. Customers often find themselves standing before machines they’ve only seen in old kissaten cafés or in vintage books. Many have never tasted syphon coffee before. It turns each brew into an experience: a performance, a story, and a memory.

For us, this isn’t nostalgia. It’s continuation. The same ritual that brought us together now travels Ireland, cup by cup, reminding people to slow down, savour the moment, and allow craft to mean something again.

Requiem.Coffee is not simply a brand; it is our marriage, our craft, and our shared belief that care, the rare kind, is worth the time and dedication it takes.

Kaizen Philosophy & Scientific Coffee Creation

Requiem.Coffee exists because Matt believes in kaizen: The Japanese spirit of mastering one’s craft through lifelong study and small, deliberate improvements. Our scientific roasting method didn’t come from Matt’s degrees in science, but from something far older and more personal: His lifelong love of analogue photography.

As a teenager, Matt learned to shoot on his grandfather’s 1960s Konica Minolta: A beautiful, technically mystifying machine, much like our syphons today. Every frame demanded discipline: Rigorously logging shutter speed, aperture, and light by hand, then returning to those notes in the darkroom to chase the perfect print. It was a ritual of patience, precision, and creativity.

That same philosophy guides our roasting. And again, our brewing.
Requiem.Coffee’s analogue-inspired method gives us timelessly reproducible roasts, crafted with intention and exactness. It's the perfect brew you can come back to.

It all comes back to the lesson learned in that darkroom:
The finest creations live where science meets art; and where care is taken one deliberate step at a time.

How Our Hearse Reflects Our Philosophy

For Matt and Haruna, ichigo ichie (一期一会) is more than a poetic idea — it's a thread woven through their relationship and, now, their work.
In Japanese, ichigo means “strawberry,” and during those early dates Matt’s birthday — 1-5, “ichi-go” in Japanese — earned him the affectionate nickname Ichigo Boy, or Strawberry Boy. It was light-hearted, sweet, and embarrassing nickname, that reluctantly stuck. But as Matt would later learn, the word carries a deeper resonance.

Ichigo ichie is a four-character idiom meaning “one time, one meeting.” It expresses the belief that every encounter — even the smallest one — is unrepeatable and should be treated with sincerity and care. What began as a couple’s inside joke has become the guiding philosophy of our business: every cup is its own moment, and every moment deserves dignity.

That’s why the hearse is not a gimmick to us.

We inherited this remarkable vehicle, and with it a responsibility. A hearse carries the weight of finality; it reminds us that time is brief, beauty is fragile, and attention is a form of honour. So while we have refitted the interior to meet UK and HSE food and beverage regulations, we have preserved the vehicle itself with reverence. All modifications are non-destructive and fully reversible, our branding subtle and removable. Its dignity matters to us. Even if it played only a fleeting role in someone’s passing, that moment was important — and we wont treat that carelessly. or like some joke. So no 'our coffee will wake even the dead' ads: Because just like our coffee, we take this all very seriously. 

Requiem.Coffee is designed as a rolling syphon coffee museum:
a quiet celebration of syphon coffee history, mortality, and timeless designs. Inside, you’ll find antique coffee apparatus, taxidermy pieces chosen for their excellent craftsmanship, and one-off relics that ask you to pause, look closer, and reflect on life and beauty. A working His Master’s Voice radio from the early 1900's hums beside unused syphon machines over half a century old. Our collection of vintage syphons — restored, studied, and mastered — may be one of the most complete anywhere in the world. We certainly think our range of what is often considered 'the best coffee machine ever made' is unmatched.

You don't need to argue wether the Cona size D or the Family Standard tasted cleaner and more refined; Wether the Bodum Santos is undisputed master of a deep, cloth filtered syphon coffee; Wether the Hario truly is the single best cup you will ever taste. Because we have them all, you can decide for yourself. For me it depends on the weather, my mood and the beans on hand: But I know, that speaking personally, I will always have the perfect cup at hand on one of these machines even if I have to change the grind size, brew time, filter type, or all three.

And it’s through these devices that our philosophy becomes practical.
Scientific coffee is simple: You taste, adjust a variable, try again, and repeat until the cup is just so. With our breadth of equipment and technical mastery, we can make almost any bean sing — but more importantly, we can honour each cup as a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

One time, one meeting. One 'perfect cup' every day. One coffee you will never forget.