One of the pioneers of specialty coffee in the Philippines, Magnum Opus is home to barista champion, Jonathan Choi. What we like most about Magnum Opus is that feeling of comfort you get staying inside their shop; tucked away on top of a building inside a neighborhood village. And as a neighborhood cafe, it is always filled with regulars from the area. The intimate vibe is perfect for working alone or bringing a date.
It’s a global tribe of brewers. Many times we’re using the same tools, using coffees often from the same farms, practicing the ethos of specialty coffee. Maybe we see eye to eye on a very specific detail and that builds bridges. We go to so many shops and so many towns using the same V60 and Brewista kettle. We see it over and over again. You feel that each of these baristas are connected by this one thing; pouring water through this spiral over some coffee.
Inch Coffee is right next to a beautiful park near the beach. This shop has all the toys in terms of equipment and cool stuff you can have in a cafe but something we really liked here was that we ordered a pour-over and they ended up brewing it on the simplest of devices: the plastic V60.
Barista culture in this cafe was really fantastic, they wanted to know you and they wanted to talk about coffee. Traveling there as baristas ourselves, they of course wanted to know about our hometown and the other places we had been and what we thought about what they were doing. You can sit and talk coffee with these guys for hours.
Right on top of Sheung Wan station you’ll find Amber Coffee Brewery. So it’s an easy cafe to just drop into and check out! When we were visiting them, they happened to be serving the coffee that had won the World Barista Championship. It was our first time to taste their coffee and it was nice to try something that was unique, though it was on a special menu – not their standard one. As a bonus, we were able to taste it in his cafe prepared using the same machine setup that was used as the standard at the world championship; a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle espresso machine and a special edition EK 43 grinder. It’s a tiny cafe but there is attention to detail when it comes to flavor and even service-ware.
Apartment Coffee is cafe minimalism at its finest. Aside from being instagram-perfect, the designers have gone out of their way to remove all obstructions between the consumer and the coffee experience. This ethos spreads all the way to their packaging, which is dressed down and honest. We can’t wait to show you more of the beautiful coffee experience that you can have here.
Apartment’s understated interiors are so clean that you’ll barely notice the incredible Hario Buono kettle that is actually a World Brewers Cup Trophy. Qing He, the man at the bar and owner of Apartment Coffee, is one of Singapore’s Brewers Cup champions, and placed 6th internationally when he travelled to Brazil to represent the island nation. The understated placement of the trophy is perfectly on-brand for Apartment Coffee, as the entire place feels like you stepped into someone’s beautifully minimalist home, so it’s displayed in that same fashion, juxtaposed with vinyl records and books by flavor experts Rene Redzepi and Maxwell Collona-Dashwood.
Apartment Coffee is in Singapore at 161 Lavender St. It is walking distance from the Bendemeer MRT Station.
But it’s easy to overlook how excellent their espresso service is in this cafe. The temptation is to try their pour-overs — which are all so obviously well executed — but definitely do not miss on what they’re doing using their machine setup. They have not cut any corners with their Synesso, EK 43 and mythos 2 setup. One of the things that you really feel here, especially with the espresso machine and grinder setup on top of the counter, is that you’re kind of involved in the discussion that’s happening in the creation of your drink.
You sit right across them as they make it, seeing the bits and pieces surrounding the bar, and you actually feel the vibration of the machines on the counter as the drink is being made, that tactile interaction comes across as a very deliberate attempt to involve both the customer and the barista in the preparation and drinking process.
There’s quite a climb up to Ho Chi Minh City’s The Workshop, but it is worth the effort. Perched on the third floor of a beautiful French Colonial building that’s just a stone’s throw from the city center, is an equally beautiful coffee shop. This cafe was filled with travellers when we visited them, which speaks volumes about how its reputation for quality has spread across the world.
Being passionate about coffee can come in different forms, a lot of people open coffee shops or become a barista. But there are also a handful of people that use their skills in craftsmanship to create equipment for coffee. We encountered this kettle in Vietnam crafted by ArtisanSmith, an aussie based company that produces hand made coffee equipment like kettles, brewers, and tampers. What caught our interest was their attention to detail, it’s very pleasing to the eyes and it has its own personality which complimented the vibe of the coffee shop. We believe that as a barista, being inspired by your gear will make for a great brewing experience.
Looking up The Workshop online, you’ll likely not realize that its on the third floor of a building in Ho Chi Minh. You’ll find that the entrance is basically the foyer to the staircase, almost entirely blocked by parked motor scooters which is the primary transportation in Vietnam.
When you climb up into the Workshop, one of the nice things about this cafe is that you feel the french colonial influence in their architecture. Most pictures taken of the Workshop are taken indoors but we wanted to give an idea of how pleasant the place is from the street level with their big and beautiful french windows. This is one of the very romantic parts of Ho Chi Minh’s District 1, and The Workshop fits right into that vibe without sacrificing quality one little bit.
The aesthetic of Ometesando Koffee is locked in with precise lines and sqaures, giving the coffee shop an organized and calculated vibe. You feel that the baristas are real technicians because every recipe is dialed in with basic questions about your desired sweetness and milk quality. Finally, their design aesthetic is also evident in their selection of equipment, such as this Kalita Wave in copper. Omotesando is clearly an espresso bar but their consideration for the quality of their pourover equipment also stands out. The best thing about Ometesando is that their branding matches the coffee, when you taste it you feel the excellence in preparation and the precision in brewing. It’s a holistic approach to both style and taste in all sense of the word.
The B Side is a great spot for late night coffee. Most cafés close earlier in the town they are from, Kota Kinabalu. Dinner service is a thing for them, so it makes for a good place to have coffee while you enjoy eating a late meal. The independent store vibe — being a stand alone café in a residential area — is pleasant one, with a staff that evidently takes pride in their craft. Not that Kota Kinabalu is a place full of chains, it isn’t. But most of the few great cafes they have are spread out, so when you find a great neighborhood café like The B Side, it become a nice little refuge.
Tucked away in an alley along Maginhawa Street, you’ll find a three story gem called Driftwood Coffee. It’s the first born of business and real life partners, Louise and Michael. They decided to pursue their passion for both coffee and baking by merging them into a cafe. Their goal is to build an informed community of regulars by educating costumers about specialty coffee and offering short course workshops such as sour-dough making and coffee cupping. There’s a lot going on in this cafe but we find their approach to food and drinks simple, straightforward, and easy to like. Definitely one of the best places in the metro to pair freshly baked sourdough bread with coffee, ideally something similar to this latte which had a tasting note that reminded us of dark chocolate coated blueberries.
I’ve been waiting 10 years for this drink.
I first heard about Benton’s Old Fashioned on a now-defunct podcast called Diggnation, from a guy named Kevin Rose. I have been a fan of Kevin since his days as a production assistant in cable tv and (if I remember correctly) was living in the San Francisco basement of a certain third wave coffee entrepreneur who would go on to be quite important as well. On Diggnation circa 2008, Kevin spoke of his trip to NYC, and how he went to this prohibition-style, secret cocktail bar called a “speakeasy” which was hidden behind a phone booth of another restaurant. He had this bacon-infused Old Fashioned cocktail and what sounded like an incredible time. The name of the bar? “Please Don’t Tell.”
It was the first time I had ever really heard of a modern-day speakeasy. I didn’t even really drink back then. But as I heard about what I came to know as PDT, I knew two things: 1) after following him for around a decade at this point, I trusted Kevin’s taste pretty implicitly; and 2) this was the start of something special.
Sure enough, the speakeasy concept and the fat-washing process used to create Benton’s Old Fashioned blew up seemingly overnight.
My own city of Manila had our first legit speakeasy open only a few years later in 2011. And each time I heard of a similar concept being started up in my city or elsewhere, I always thought “Oh. They’re doing the PDT thing.” And I would go over and try that bar’s version of the Old Fashioned.
Fast forward to today, PDT has opened its first ever permanent branch, right here in South East Asia, gracing Hong Kong’s Central area for little over a year now. Since I’ve never been to NYC, this was my first chance to finally try the now famous Benton’s Old Fashioned, a drink I have wanted to taste since I first heard Kevin’s story in 2008.
As I sipped the drink, I could see how this is where it all started.
Both for my own journey through beverage, as well as for the last decade of experimental cocktail service as a global culture explosion. On its own, Benton’s Old Fashioned was not mind blowing. It was round, balanced (just the right amount of infusion), and sophisticated. Ten years down the road, this drink is not to be considered as “experimental,” as it certainly was in 2008. There are other cocktails on PDT’s 2019 menu to play that role. However, it’s not a stretch to say that this is the drink that dug the trench from which countless cocktail bars the world over have erected their own respective standards. And that is really something special.
Until today, Benton’s Old Fashioned is still the most ordered beverage in both the NYC and HK bars.
Now, it would be wise to take this writing of mine with a little grain of salt. While tasting this beverage, I must admit that it was quite difficult to separate my emotions and anticipation from the actual tasting experience. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it’s not. And maybe that influence and power in word-of-mouth marketing is part of the PDT magic. I honestly cannot tell.
But I can tell you this: it was one of the best drinks of my life.
Maybe it was the journey. Maybe it was the place. Maybe it was the incredible hospitality shown to me by Chanel and Adam who work at PDT. Maybe it was the drink itself. Maybe it was everything all at the same time. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
It’s worth finding out for yourself. Find that phone booth and dial “1.”
— Kayo Cosio (@kayocosio)
Chief Strategist at Honeycomb Manila, Publisher of dailydrinkmag.com
After midnight, as baristas ran their post shift at Cebu City’s The Good Cup Coffee Co., a shooter entered the premises and opened fire inside the cafe. The shooting resulted in the deaths of Kis Tryvl Ramos and John Michael Hermoso. Also injured were Sherwin Dean Rivera and Jerome Amada.
John Michael was a managing partner at The Good Cup and is also the current Philippine Brewers Cup Champion. We at Daily Drink knew him to be a passionate, talented, and good-hearted man. He loved Cebu, he loved coffee, and he loved serving people.
Kis was a working BA Psychology student at UP Cebu. She was set to graduate this coming June.
On Friday, 4/12 at 1PM EDT, the world coffee community will together hold a moment of silence for John Michael as he is a national champion. This will be done officially from the stages of the World Brewers Cup and World Barista Championships in Boston, USA and streamed globally.
Our hearts go out to the entire The Good Cup family. Please join us as we mourn this senseless tragedy.
Rest in peace, John Michael. Rest in peace, Kis.
