Asakusa CU Cafe: Matcha, Donuts and Drinks All Day

And yes, there are 抹茶 (matcha, powdered green tea) drinks and Japanese-inspired doughnuts, because apparently Asakusa has decided that restraint is overrated. Personally, I think that’s a fine decision.

Asakusa CU Cafe is the newest little talking point in a district that never seems to run out of them. You’re in Asakusa, after all, where old-school temple town atmosphere meets tourism, street snacks, and the sort of foot traffic that can make even a tiny opening feel like a minor event.

What makes this spot interesting isn’t just that it’s new, but that it’s got a clear from-morning-to-night concept. Breakfast coffee, daytime tea, afternoon sweets, evening drinks. It sounds simple, which is usually a sign that someone’s actually thought about it, rather than just slapping a latte on a menu and hoping for the best.

Basically: this is a cafe that wants to be useful all day. And in a city like Tokyo, that’s almost a personality trait.

Asakusa CU Cafe’s all-day concept

The first thing that stands out is the rhythm of the place. Some cafes are built for a quick caffeine stop, some for lingering with a laptop, and some for the sweet, sacred art of disappearing into dessert. CU Cafe seems happy to be all three, plus a late-day drink stop when the light starts going soft over Asakusa.

By the way, that kind of all-day flexibility makes a lot of sense here. Asakusa pulls in everyone from temple visitors to day-trippers, locals, and people who just want a slower pocket of Tokyo. A place that can work for morning toast, an after-lunch pause, and a glass of alcohol later on is doing more than serving drinks, it’s reading the room.

And that room is busy. So a cafe with a properly planned day cycle feels less like a gimmick and more like a practical answer to how people actually move through the neighbourhood. From my experience, that’s usually where the better places begin.

Matcha drinks, coffee, sweets and alcohol in one place

Here’s the deal: CU Cafe doesn’t separate its offerings into neat little categories and then politely ignore the overlaps. Japanese tea sits alongside coffee, sweets sit alongside alcohol, and the whole thing is designed to let you drift from one mood to another without leaving the building.

Matcha drinks with proper presence

What most people don’t know: a decent matcha drink is about balance, not brute force. Too bitter and it tastes like you’ve licked a lawn mower. Too sweet and the tea disappears. If CU Cafe is doing this right, the matcha should land somewhere in the middle, creamy but grounded, with that slight green edge that tells you somebody paid attention.

And in Japan, matcha is never just a flavour, it’s a whole register of taste and mood. You see it in parfaits, cakes, lattes, even cocktails, and Asakusa is exactly the sort of place where that cultural crossover feels natural rather than forced.

My tip: if you’re going with friends, order both a tea-based drink and a coffee-based one, then compare notes. It’s the simplest way to see whether a cafe really knows what it’s doing. Personally...

Doughnuts with a Japanese twist

Plot twist: doughnuts can be culture, too. Not in a grand, academic way, obviously, but in the sense that a doughnut topped, filled, or flavoured with Japanese ingredients gives you a tiny edible snapshot of how Tokyo likes to remix imported ideas.

Japanese-inspired doughnuts often lean into flavours like matcha, 黄粉 (kinako, roasted soybean flour), black sesame, or even 小豆 (azuki, red beans), and they tend to be tidy in a way that feels very Tokyo. Less grease-soaked chaos, more polished indulgence. You can almost hear the menu designer saying, “let’s make it cute, but not silly.”

That’s the charm here. A doughnut is still a doughnut, but in Asakusa it can turn into a small conversation between local taste and global comfort food. Not bad, right? But that’s not all.

Why Asakusa is the right setting for this cafe

Picture this: you’ve spent the morning wandering past Senso-ji, dodging camera straps, browsing souvenir shops, and inhaling the smell of fresh 煎餅 (senbei, rice cracker). By the time you sit down, you want something that feels relaxed but still properly Japanese, something that bridges sightseeing and daily life without turning either into a performance.

That’s exactly where a place like CU Cafe fits. Asakusa has always had this slightly theatrical quality, in the best possible way, where tradition is visible, commercial life is busy, and food often acts as the handshake between them. A cafe serving matcha, coffee, sweets and alcohol all day is very much part of that conversation.

Let’s be honest: the neighbourhood has no shortage of snack stops. But a venue with a clear day-to-night identity gives you a reason to return, not just pass through. You might come for breakfast, come back for dessert, then somehow end up with a drink in hand at dusk, which is how half of Tokyo’s best evenings seem to begin.

And if you’re a Japanese learner, there’s vocabulary everywhere in this kind of place. You’ll see words like お茶 (ocha, tea), コーヒー (koohii, coffee), 甘味 (kanmi, sweets; confectionery), and お酒 (osake, alcohol) on menus, and even if you already know them, seeing them in context helps them stick. Food words are mercilessly effective teachers, partly because you actually want to remember them.

What Japan fans and learners should look out for

Here’s the catch: cute cafe menus can be easy to skim and hard to understand if you’re not used to Japanese food categories. But that’s also half the fun. A drink list that moves from matcha to coffee to alcohol gives you a neat little tour of how Japanese cafes often balance morning practicality with evening leisure.

For learners, CU Cafe is a nice reminder that Japanese food culture loves range. A single venue can be both a breakfast stop and a nightcap spot, both refined and casual, both local and adaptable. That blend is quintessentially Tokyo, which is to say, slightly impossible and entirely normal at the same time.

And for Japan fans, the appeal is simpler. It’s a place where the details matter: the tea, the sweets, the mood, the neighbourhood. The ingredients might be familiar, but the context changes everything. That’s the fun bit, really.

Insider tip: if you visit Asakusa, don’t treat the cafe as an afterthought between bigger sights. Build it into the day. Go early for a calm start, or late for a slower finish, and let the neighbourhood do the rest. It’s genuinely worth it.

For more Japan food and travel updates, see more Japan news on jpnerd.com.

In pictures

Sources

1. Elle Japan article on CU Asakusa