Tokyo Coffee Shop Made Famous on TikTok Draws Returning Tourists Hungry for Pudding

Shizuo Mori serves a pudding during a photo opportunity at his Heckeln coffee shop in Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
Shizuo Mori serves a pudding during a photo opportunity at his Heckeln coffee shop in Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
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Tokyo Coffee Shop Made Famous on TikTok Draws Returning Tourists Hungry for Pudding

Shizuo Mori serves a pudding during a photo opportunity at his Heckeln coffee shop in Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
Shizuo Mori serves a pudding during a photo opportunity at his Heckeln coffee shop in Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2023. (Reuters)

With a rapid, right-hand swoop, Shizuo Mori served the last of about 50 puddings on Wednesday, a treat that's made his tiny Tokyo coffee shop a destination for tourists flocking to Japan after the end of COVID restrictions.

Mori's trademark fling of the arm helps dislodge the eggy custard from its tin, and the circular motion is easier on his 80-year-old wrist than a snapping motion would be.

But the technique, developed over the half century he's run the Heckeln coffee shop, has also earned him a worldwide audience via videos spread on TikTok, Facebook and other social media sites.

The lines out the door of Heckeln, midway up a narrow street in Tokyo's Toranomon district, are largely comprised of foreigners willing to wait for the "Jumbo Purin" topped with caramel.

Visitors to Japan maintained a "robust recovery" in February, the national tourism agency said on Wednesday. Arrivals totalled 1.47 million, surpassing 1 million for a third-straight month after COVID curbs were eased late last year, though still down 43% from pre-pandemic levels.

Haitham, on a business trip from Abu Dhabi, was enticed by TikTok videos he'd seen of Mori, but arrived with his friend just a bit too late, finding a sign on the door that the puddings had sold out.

"I'm a big creme caramel fan, so I dragged my friend here to come and see him," said the 38-year old, who asked not to give his family name. "And I was very disappointed, because it's finished, and it's not even 2 p.m."

Sariel Wong, a tourist from Hong Kong who'd seen Mori's on Facebook, was luckier, getting his 400 yen ($2.96) pudding after an hour-long wait.

"In Hong Kong there is a lot of pudding but not like this one," said Wong, 38. "It's a little bit smooth and not too sweet."

Mori thinks it's a little strange that his coffee shop has a queue out the door most days. He hears from his customers that he's famous on the internet, but he doesn't use social media and doesn't have a cell phone.

Like many restaurants, Mori and his 24-seat shop struggled through the pandemic, which kept away many of his traditional customers of students and office workers. And a surge in supply costs has been a double whammy, but Mori said he's held firm on his own prices.

It was a dark time, but probably the same all over the world, he said. But now the masks are coming off and he's happy to welcome his new fans from abroad.

"I'm happy, but there's one thing I regret," Mori said at then end of a lunch rush. "When people can't get in, and they have to return home without getting any pudding, it kind of pains me in my heart."



Nearly 250 Million Children Missed School Last Year Because of Extreme Weather, UNICEF Says 

Two maintenance workers clean the tables of one of the classrooms of Zakia Madi middle school, five days before the students return to school, in the village of Dembeni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
Two maintenance workers clean the tables of one of the classrooms of Zakia Madi middle school, five days before the students return to school, in the village of Dembeni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
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Nearly 250 Million Children Missed School Last Year Because of Extreme Weather, UNICEF Says 

Two maintenance workers clean the tables of one of the classrooms of Zakia Madi middle school, five days before the students return to school, in the village of Dembeni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
Two maintenance workers clean the tables of one of the classrooms of Zakia Madi middle school, five days before the students return to school, in the village of Dembeni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on January 22, 2025. (AFP)

At least 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a new report Friday.

UNICEF said it amounted to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 because of climate hazards.

The report also outlined how some countries saw hundreds of their schools destroyed by weather, with low-income nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa hit especially hard.

But other regions weren't spared the extreme weather, as torrential rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted school for more than 900,000 children. Thousands had their classes halted after catastrophic flooding in Spain.

While southern Europe dealt with deadly floods and Asia and Africa had flooding and cyclones, heatwaves were “the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year,” UNICEF said, as the earth recorded its hottest year ever.

More than 118 million children had their schooling interrupted in April alone, UNICEF said, as large parts of the Middle East and Asia, from Gaza in the west to the Philippines in the southeast, experienced a sizzling weekslong heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

“Children are more vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related crises, including stronger and more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Children’s bodies are uniquely vulnerable. They heat up faster, they sweat less efficiently, and cool down more slowly than adults. Children cannot concentrate in classrooms that offer no respite from sweltering heat, and they cannot get to school if the path is flooded, or if schools are washed away."

Around 74% of the children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, showing how climatic extremes continue to have a devastating impact in the poorest countries. Flooding ruined more than 400 schools in Pakistan in April. Afghanistan had heatwaves followed by severe flooding that destroyed over 110 schools in May, UNICEF said.

Months of drought in southern Africa exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon threatened the schooling and futures of millions of children.

And the crises showed little sign of abating. The poor French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean off Africa was left in ruins by Cyclone Chido in December and hit again by Tropical Storm Dikeledi this month, leaving children across the islands out of school for six weeks.

Cyclone Chido also destroyed more than 330 schools and three regional education departments in Mozambique on the African mainland, where access to education is already a deep problem.

UNICEF said the world's schools and education systems “are largely ill-equipped” to deal with the effects of extreme weather.