Chapter 4: Coffee

Yoshimura passes Kaneki a parcel and assures him he is welcome back whenever he needs. When Touka questions why her boss would bother, he recounts how Kaneki became a ghoul through Rize Kamishiro. Alone in his room, Kaneki cannot bring himself to eat the meat and hurls it aside, digging through his kitchen for anything edible before realizing coffee goes down without trouble.

Encouraged by that small discovery, he heads to a shop downtown to stock up, since both coffee and water sit fine with humans and ghouls alike. None of the blends he tries wipe the foul taste lingering in his mouth. There he crosses paths with Nishiki Nishio, who recommends Blondy as the strongest instant coffee going.

Walking home in the dark, Kaneki catches a delicious aroma that reminds him of his mother's cooking and hurries toward it, hoping for a food that is not human flesh. What he finds instead is the ghoul Kazuo Yoshida feeding on a corpse, and he understands the scent that pulled him in came from a dead body.

Kazuo assumes Kaneki must be a ghoul as well and asks why he looks so shaken. Nishiki abruptly reappears and kicks Kazuo's head clean off, snapping that he wants no trespassers on his hunting territory. Kaneki recognizes him as the man from the convenience store earlier that evening.

Yoshimura reveals to Touka the full story of Rize turning Kaneki into a ghoul. Kaneki discovers that coffee is one of the rare things his new body can consume, a fact that becomes central to his connection with Anteiku.

His encounter with Kazuo Yoshida shows him a ghoul openly feeding, and Nishiki Nishio kills Kazuo to defend his feeding grounds, establishing Nishiki as a territorial threat.

The chapter's title reflects coffee's role as the practical solution to Kaneki's starvation and foreshadows why the cafe setting suits ghouls. It introduces Nishiki Nishio in earnest and sets up the ward's territorial disputes that soon involve Kaneki directly.