What's behind the cat cafe craze?

A cat cafe opened up this week in New York. But they have long been popular in Japan and elsewhere.

Cat cafe
(Image credit: (Andrew Burton/Getty Images))

On a recent trip to Osaka — surrounded by temples thousands of years old, and magnificent mountains full of cherry blossoms and historical sites — I found myself in a cat cafe. For ¥1000 (about $10) I got to spend an hour petting a dozen or so cats while sipping a matcha tea latte at Cafe Ragdoll.

Five other visitors wandered around a space that looked like a living room, throwing around toy mice or dangling string in front of the cats. As I sat there, taking in all the cuteness, I wondered if cat cafes would ever catch on in New York City.

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Amy Kraft is a print and radio reporter based in New York. She reports on science and the environment for publications including Scientific American, Discover, Popular Science, Psychology Today, and Distillations, a podcast out of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She is currently working on a book of humor essays. You can check out more of her writing on her blog Jaded Bride.