Meet Yoshi and Yukiko Toge, co-founders of Sprout, a Niseko roastery café rooted in mountain life and good coffee.
One trip to Alaska was enough for Yoshi and Yukiko Toge came back with a plan: leave Tokyo, move to Niseko, make the outdoors a constant rather than a weekend. A Seattle stopover introduced the other half of the plan: coffee shops built around people.
Sprout, their roastery café near Kutchan Station, came out of both. During winter, a second location opens in Hanazono. Year-round, they supply beans to local businesses including Meetzz café in Lily Hall.
We spoke to Yoshi about the green season — the hiking routes worth knowing and what Niseko looks like without snow.
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How did you discover your passion for the outdoors?
My first contact with nature started with kayaking, river rafting and skiing. But rafting is not a year-round activity in Hokkaido. When the river water starts getting too cold, I want to do something else.
That was how I started trail running. From there, I discovered that I enjoyed all of these outdoor activities. One similarity between all of these outdoor activities is that the scenery “flies” past you; whether you are trail running, hiking, skiing or rafting along the river.
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Why did you choose to move to Niseko?
When I was living in Tokyo, I lived in a small apartment. I get on a packed train, go to work in an office in a building, and repeat this routine.
But when you live in a place like Alaska or Hokkaido, the lifestyle is totally different, especially in winter. To get out of the house, you open the door and you see the ice that you need to break. You need to chop wood to get firewood to heat the house. Life and work are co-related; whereas in Tokyo, your personal life and work are quite separate. This experience in Alaska made me want to move up north within Japan, which brought me to Hokkaido.
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What is the connection between coffee and the outdoors?
When I first visited Alaska in 2000, there were no direct flights from Tokyo to Alaska and so I had to transit in Seattle. During my stopover in Seattle, information was not as easily accessible back then as it is now, with the internet. So what I did to collect information was to go to a local café.
There was no Starbucks at that time, but I realised there were so many cafés next to bookstores, sporting shops and universities. In these cafés, people who loved the same hobby — like movies, rafting and trail running — would gather here as part of a community. So when I started living in Hokkaido, I thought it would be a nice idea to create a café that builds a community here to celebrate a shared passion for outdoor activities related to the river and the mountains.
My wife and I knew nothing about coffee at first. Yukiko worked at a café previously, while I learnt more along the way, guided by my passion for coffee. When we went to Seattle, it was an eye-opening experience for us to discover the many possibilities of coffee roasting.
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Tell us more about Log Book, the outdoors zine that you created.
I made this when I opened Sprout, it became a place to gather various communities of people of different interests, but that passion or information isn’t shared with the general public.
That was when I started Camp & Go, located next to Sprout, which is a building that now houses a ground-floor bookstore and all-year-round accommodation on the second floor.
After Camp & Go was built to host events related to these outdoor activities, I started thinking about how this information could be recorded rather than a one-time event. That was how Log Book was started, as the means to share this information in a journal like you would to log flights, sea journeys or kayaking trips along the river. Keeping a record of the past would also be a good way to identify how you would go forward in the future.
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Which is the summer route that you love the most?
I love trail-running along Lake Hangetsu, which is located at the foot of Mount Yotei. This recommended spot is great for a morning jog. If you get to do one full day in the mountains, you can take on the Niseko Loop route that I started.
You start from Goshiki Onsen and it goes in a figure-eight loop around the mountain. If you do this loop six times, you will cover a hundred miles; once in a year, my friends and I will take on this 100-mile challenge across the span of five weeks.
Running this 25-km loop may not be for everyone — it’s dependent on your fitness level — but it is a great hiking route, too. You get to see a beautiful lake, go up some hilly terrain, and get to enjoy a great variety of scenery.
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What does Mount Yotei mean to you?
In traditional Shinto philosophy, we have this concept, “otento-sama wa miteiru”. This means that the sun is always watching you, observing how you behave and how you interact with people, thus inspiring polite behaviour.
Mount Yotei is viewable from everywhere in Niseko, so we feel that Yotei-san is looking upon us in a similar way as the sun. You can’t say bad words, or do anything bad in front of Mount Yotei; it inspires us to do better.
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Which is your favourite mountain in Japan?
Mount Annupuri. I have hiked it numerous times; it’s an easy 2.5km route.
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