man named Shokusanjin Ota described boarding a foreign ship and being served a drink called “kauhii.” It tasted quite unpleasant, he said, and was made by mixing sugar into water with a powder of roasted beans.

Formal imports of coffee began in 1858, and the first Japanese coffeehouse of record, the Kahiichakan in Tokyo, is said to have opened in 1888. Drinking coffee became fashionable among the intelligentsia and the upper middle class, but remained something of a rarity. Imports were halted in 1944, during the war, as coffee was branded both a zeitakuhin (extravagance) and a tekikoku inryō (enemy drink). It wasn’t until after the war, and the liberalization of imports in 1960, that Japan got on its way to becoming a major coffee-drinking nation. Today Japan isBoth Basketball Canada general manager Steve Nash (right) and head coach Jay Triano (left), pictured this week in Toronto, have strong connections to B.C., Nash growing up on the West Coast and starring at St. Michael’s University School in Victoria while Triano was a standout for Simon Fraser University.

TORONTO — Wayne Parrish, the president and CEO of Basketball Canada, read off a list of accomplishments by Canada’s basketball community this week that was almost dizzying to behold.

Before introducing senior men’s national team general manager Steve Nash and head coach Jay Triano at a news conference at the Air Canada Centre, Parrish explained why basketball could be transitioning into the sport of choice among a younger generation of Canadians.

• Anthony Bennett taken first overall in the 2013 NBA draft,