Japan and Korea has a coffee culture that has changed with societal needs over time. Today, coffee shops serve as a niche within their urban cultures. While it was introduced earlier in history, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Dutch and Portuguese traders, it rapidly gained popularity at the turn of the twentieth century. It supports the social aspects of Japan, serving both as a space to connect but also to alleviate oneself from social pressures. Coffee is also defined by class interactions and classicist behaviors and has economic influence through the mass amount of import of coffee and the mass consumption of coffee in Japan in its many different forms.