Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, 200g
On a British shelf the default is dark, and this is not that. The roast stops in the middle, so some of the bean's own acidity is still standing alongside the sweetness, and the cup comes out clean and tidy rather than heavy. Whether that reads as a virtue or a shortfall depends almost entirely on which coffee you grew up with: it will strike some drinkers as underpowered and others as a relief. It is ground for filter and cafetiere, too coarse for a domestic espresso machine, which would run straight through it and hand you a sour shot. Caffeinated.
Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, in brief.
Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee is a 200g pack of pre-ground coffee from Ueshima, the Japanese roaster most UK drinkers meet as UCC, picked into the Teas.co.uk selection alongside the House Blend and Fuji Mountain packs from the same range.
Format: ground coffee, cut for cafetière and filter. Not an espresso grind.
Worth knowing before you buy: Tokyo Roast is a roast style name, not an origin. Tokyo grows no coffee, and roast names have carried city names for a century. Brew it at around 10g to 200ml with water rested off the boil. The price in your basket is the price.
Start with the name, because it is the part that misleads people. Tokyo grows no coffee. No city in Japan does, and none ever will at that latitude. Tokyo Roast is a roast style name, not an origin, and the beans inside came from wherever the roaster's buying took them that season. That is not a criticism; it is simply how coffee naming has always worked. Roast levels have carried city names for well over a century, from City and Full City through Vienna, French and Italian, and every one of those describes how dark the beans were taken rather than where they grew.
This is the ground pack rather than the whole bean, which makes it a cafetière and filter coffee out of the box. The trade is the usual one and worth stating plainly: grinding exposes every surface of the bean at once, so a ground pack gives away aroma faster than a whole bean pack does. In exchange you get something you can open and use, cut at a grind that suits the brewers most households actually own.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
What A City Name On A Roast Really Tells You
Roast naming is one of the most quietly confusing corners of coffee, because two different systems share the same vocabulary. The old system is a ladder of darkness: a City roast is lighter, a French roast is darker, and an Italian roast is darker still. The newer system is a brand naming its own house profiles, which is what is happening here. A Tokyo Roast is not a rung on the traditional ladder and does not claim to be; it is a roaster's own name for a cup it wants to be recognisable.
What that means for you as a buyer is simple. Do not try to place this on a scale by its name, and do not assume it is darker than the House Blend because it sounds more metropolitan. The pack in front of you carries whatever the roaster declares.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; the outer pack, any inner liner, valve and label can each require a different disposal route.
The Grind Is Already Decided, So Match The Brewer
A whole bean pack lets you set the grind to suit the brewer. A ground pack has made that decision for you, and the single most useful thing to understand about any pre-ground coffee is which brewers that decision suits. A standard supermarket grind is cut for filter and cafetière: fine enough to give up its flavour in three or four minutes, coarse enough not to choke a paper filter or turn a plunger into a wrestling match.
That makes this an easy pack for a cafetière, a drip machine, a pour-over cone with a slightly longer pour, or a moka pot at a push. It is not an espresso grind, and a domestic espresso machine will pull it fast and sour because the water runs straight through. If espresso is your daily habit, buy whole beans and grind them, or buy a pack sold as espresso ground.
The other half of the job is the pack. Once it is open the clock is running, so squeeze the air out and clip it, or decant it into an airtight tin, and keep it in a cupboard rather than the fridge. Buy the size you will finish in a fortnight and this format costs you far less than its reputation suggests.
Getting a Consistent Cup
- Weigh it once: a scoop of ground coffee varies by a third depending on how hard you press it in. One weighing sets the habit.
- Do not use boiling water: rest the kettle for half a minute. This is the most common cause of bitterness in a cafetière.
- Seal the pack properly: ground coffee stales from air and damp, not from time on a shelf.
- Not for espresso: this is cut for filter and cafetière. A domestic espresso machine will run straight through it.
- Iced: brew at half the usual water volume and pour over a glass filled to the top with ice, so the melt brings it back to strength.
- Best with: buttered toast, a plain pastry, a slice of cake mid-afternoon.
Ingredients And Suitability
What is in it: roasted and ground coffee. The current UK pack carries the full declaration, the roast level and any origin statement, and that is the source to trust rather than us.
The price in your basket at checkout is the price.
Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Caffeine: contains caffeine. Worth moderating late in the evening if you are sensitive, and during pregnancy in line with current NHS guidance.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, 200g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Ueshima
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; the outer pack, any inner liner, valve and label can each require a different disposal route.
Our commitment to the planet
Sourcing and packaging details are printed on the current UK pack; the brand page carries the fuller story.
The taste profile
How does it compare
Four things decide the cup: dose, water temperature, contact time and how fresh the pack is. Get those right and a supermarket grind does far better than people expect.
The Cafetière
The Filter Machine
Made with this tea
The Four Minute Cafetière
How to make The Four Minute Cafetière with Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee.
- 30g Ueshima Tokyo Roast
- 600ml water at about 94 degrees
- A warmed three-mug cafetière
- Warm the pot with hot water and tip it away, then add 30g of coffee.
- Pour the water in steadily, rested thirty seconds off the boil, and stir the crust once.
- Wait four minutes, then plunge slowly.
- Decant whatever you are not drinking straight away, or it keeps brewing.
What you'll end up with: A clean, balanced pot with no bitter edge. The decanting step is the one people skip and the one that makes the second mug taste like the first.
The Filter Machine Jug
How to make The Filter Machine Jug with Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee.
- 48g Ueshima Tokyo Roast
- 800ml fresh cold water
- A rinsed paper filter
- Rinse the paper filter with hot water and tip the water away, which removes the papery note.
- Level 48g of coffee in the basket so the water cannot channel down one side.
- Brew, then move the jug off the hotplate as soon as it finishes.
What you'll end up with: A full jug at the standard 60g per litre ratio. Leaving it on the hotplate is what makes filter coffee taste burnt; a flask keeps it drinkable for an hour.
Iced Filter Over Ice
How to make Iced Filter Over Ice with Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee.
- 20g Ueshima Tokyo Roast
- 200ml water at about 94 degrees
- A glass filled to the top with ice
- Brew 20g in only 200ml, so the coffee comes out deliberately strong.
- Pour it straight over a glass filled to the top with ice.
- Stir once and drink while the ice is still there.
What you'll end up with: An iced coffee at proper strength. Brewing at normal strength and then adding ice is the reason most home iced coffee tastes like dishwater.
Cold Brew Jug
How to make Cold Brew Jug with Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee.
- 80g Ueshima Tokyo Roast
- 800ml cold water
- A jug or cafetière with a lid
- Stir 80g of coffee into 800ml of cold water until every ground is wet.
- Cover and leave in the fridge for twelve to sixteen hours.
- Strain through the plunger or a paper filter and keep the liquid in the fridge.
- Serve over ice, neat or cut half and half with water or milk.
What you'll end up with: A smooth, low-acidity concentrate that keeps three or four days in the fridge. Cold water pulls far less of the sharp end out of the grounds, which is why cold brew reads sweeter than the same coffee brewed hot.
Flask Coffee For A Day Out
How to make Flask Coffee For A Day Out with Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee.
- 60g Ueshima Tokyo Roast
- 1 litre water at about 94 degrees
- A pre-warmed vacuum flask
- Warm the flask with hot water first and tip it away. A cold flask costs you ten degrees immediately.
- Brew 60g to the litre in a cafetière, four minutes, and plunge.
- Decant into the flask at once and close it.
What you'll end up with: Coffee that is still worth drinking four hours later. The two things that ruin flask coffee are a cold flask and leaving the grounds in, and both take thirty seconds to avoid.
Coffee Rubbed Steak
How to make Coffee Rubbed Steak with Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee.
- 1 tablespoon Ueshima Tokyo Roast, dry
- 1 teaspoon soft brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika and a good pinch of salt
- Mix the dry grounds with the sugar, paprika and salt.
- Press the rub onto both sides of the steak and leave it twenty minutes at room temperature.
- Sear hard in a very hot pan, then rest the meat for five minutes before slicing.
What you'll end up with: A dark, savoury crust that tastes of roast rather than of coffee. A filter grind is the right coarseness for this; an espresso grind burns and turns bitter in the pan.
Brewing the perfect cup
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Roasted and ground coffee | 100% | The only thing in the pack. No added flavouring, no sweetener, no filler. |
| Roast level | Stated on the pack | Tokyo Roast is the roaster's own profile name rather than a rung on the traditional City to Italian roast ladder, so it does not tell you a darkness on its own. |
| Origin | Stated on the pack | The origin split and any Arabica proportion are the roaster's to declare. Tokyo is where the name comes from, not where the coffee grew. |
| Grind | Filter and cafetière cut | Fine enough to give up its flavour in three to four minutes, coarse enough not to choke a paper filter. Not an espresso grind. |
| Measure | About 10g a mug | Our own serving basis of 10g to 200ml, which gives roughly twenty mugs from the pack. Not a pack claim. |
Pack: Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, 200g; caffeinated ground coffee for cafetière and filter. Go by the best before date printed on the pack, and by the two weeks after opening rather than the date, which is when a ground pack actually fades.
Sourcing & blend. Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, 200g comes from Ueshima, the Japanese roaster most UK drinkers meet under the UCC name, and sits in the same 200g ground format as the House Blend and Fuji Mountain packs we list. Blending is what makes a named house profile repeatable: a roaster working to a fixed target can move the components as crops change and still land the same cup, which is the whole reason a blend carries a name at all. Whether a given pack is a blend or a single origin is the roaster's to state, and this one's pack carries that statement rather than us.
What's in Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, 200g, and what isn't:
- In: roasted and ground coffee, cut for filter and cafetière brewing. Nothing else.
- No artificial flavourings, colours, preservatives or added sugar: any sweetness in the cup is the coffee's own.
- Not decaffeinated: this is a regular caffeinated coffee.
- Not an espresso grind: a domestic espresso machine will run straight through it. Buy whole beans if espresso is the daily habit.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Ueshima Tokyo Roast Ground Coffee, 200g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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