Kota Kinabalu’s Ampersand Specialty Coffee & Co-workplace is able to strike a good balance between edgy industrial and cozy in their modern cafe set up. The cement-washed walls, exposed beams, mismatched but carefully picked furniture and raw wooden elements combined with a good amount of live potted plants, vibrant pops of color and the inviting smell of coffee, altogether, create a cool and relaxed atmosphere. It’s like visiting your hip and stylish friend’s apartment.
[Read more…]
If there was an award for The Most Overproduced Coffee Packaging, Taipei’s Aura would take the tape by a country mile. On first glance, the packaging seems pretty straightforward: a white vented bag with a sticker. But the devil’s in the details. Enter the cafe, and the first thing that you will see is what is essentially a museum exhibit explaining the science and computer programming and visualization models that the roaster has developed over a four-year period in order to generate the little image on each coffee packaging sticker.
It’s something that we get to discuss in detail on this week’s upcoming episode of Let’s Coffee, our YouTube show together with Yardstick Coffee. We sit down with Philippine Tasters Cup Champion Mich Sy in anticipation of the upcoming Philippine Coffee Competition and discuss preparation for competing. And it was during this dialogue that we discuss different tasting notes and tasting charts. How should we use them and how does life experience affect how one experiences and describes flavors?
Kayo Cosio uses Aura as one of the examples in the episode of how dedicated and extreme an approach to understanding local flavor can really be. If you’re not yet subscribed to HoneycombManila on YouTube and Yardstick on IGTV, be sure to do that so that you do not miss one of our best episodes so far!
UPDATE. Watch the episode here:
Fresh drop! Getting in great for next week’s Philippine Coffee Competition, we have a very special special guest. Kayo talks to Mich Sy, champion of the Philippine Tasters Cup Champion. They talk about competitive coffee and preparing for competitions.
“Let’s Coffee?” is a collaboration between Yardstick Coffee and www.dailydrinkmag.com
If you can’t make it to the live event, please join us online by subscribing to Honeycomb’s YouTube page, as well as to Yardstick and Daily Drink Magazine on Instagram. Follow Honeycomb Manila on YouTube: www.youtube.com/honeycombnow, or search for “Let’s Coffee?” on Spotify Podcasts!
You can also get our audio podcast here:
SPOTIFY
https://open.spotify.com/show/10EdetMrUehkg7Cfk1c6IS
GOOGLE PODCASTS
https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lNWE4ZjgwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz
RSS
https://anchor.fm/s/e5a8f80/podcast/rss
Most of the content on each channel will be the same, but there will be some differences between platforms. We just want to make it as accessible to as many people as possible, whichever platform works best for you.
The funny thing about getting lost is that it just happens on its own. And that can happen in the real world, but it also happens on cafe menus sometimes. Especially when you are in a place like Brewology in Quezon City, where the menu includes signature coffee drink designs that have been known to include things like large piles of torched marshmallows.
Luckily, finding your true north in Brewology is easy. Just order a cup of black, filter coffee and you’ll find your bearings. It’s so well executed, sweet and consistent — as any filter cup should be. This is how you know that Brewology knows what they’re doing. Yes, experimentation and sugar rushes exist here. However, all you have to do is order a filter or even an espresso, and you’ll see that they are building from foundations that are firm.
From farm to bar, The Workshop serves up sunshine and comfort. The first thing you notice walking into The Workshop is their big, beautiful windows. Light pours in generously from outside, fully illuminating the activity in the bar situated in the middle of the cafe. This 360 degree bar setup allows baristas to easily interact with customers from any side of the room and in turn, gives curious customers a closer look into how their coffee is prepared.
But more than just the seating layout or interiors, what truly makes The Workshop a pleasurable cafe to visit is their cheerful and accommodating crew. Our visit was made more interesting because the baristas made sure to engage us in conversation. While preparing our pour-overs, he told us a little about their coffees.
The “hero” coffee was proudly grown in a place called Son’s Farm. The farm is located in Dalat, the central highlands in Southern Vietnam which is considered to be the “land of eternal spring.” Somehow, the mere sound of that gives us a delightful picture of sunny skies, lush fields and cool air. It’s a beautiful terrior for sweet coffee. That goes for the cafe as well.
Php120 for a specialty coffee pour over? Yes, please. It’s prices like this that encourage you to have seconds and to spend the afternoon exploring coffees. The Curator’s B.O.D. (short for Brew Of Day) has got to be one of the best deals in Makati. But it can be argued that the crew here that is certainly one of the best in the world.
This is how it should be, as quality of service will always trump quality of product. However, now the young veteran of Metro Manila craft coffee and cocktails, The Curator has somehow managed to serve up both. It translates to a one-two punch that cannot be dodged.
Service in style. Quality in flavor. Personality and consistency. Job well done.
“It’s the first one in the world. Look at the serial number,” said Zenki Ho. He’s the founder and proprietor over at Taipei’s Moonshine Coffee Atelier, a small-street gem jammed right into the middle of Taipei’s tile-clad apartment buildings. It’s exceptionally Australian in a location that is quintessentially Taipei.
He’s referring to his S7 Nighthawk, a 7 kilo Loring Smart-Roaster that’s designed and built in the USA. Let’s put that in context: Moonshine is a one-room cafe in the capital of Taiwan, a country that already manufactures some of the world’s best roasters (including the official machine of the World Roasting Championship), and in spite of that, Moonshine has opted to bring in a machine that is smokeless, smart, highly programmable, and highly efficient. And it’s the first of its kind in the world. Talk about a flex.
But of course, machinery can only get you so far. The true flex will always be in the coffee itself, an area where Moonshine does not disappoint. Order a “combo” from the menu, and they’ll serve a duet of espresso, one with milk and one without. Sweet, intense, and balanced in both cups. This is a place where they know exactly what they’re doing.
Moonshine Coffee Atelier stands out proudly in a city already covered with stand-out cafes.
Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee is a little roaster in the ground floor of one of Singapore’s Housing Development Blocks. There is a small cafe there too, where you can hang out and enjoy the expertly roasted coffee options.
Our espresso was a seasonal blend, named “XVIII” and contained an Ethiopia Shakisso G1, which was a natural process heirloom coffee, plus two other fully washed coffees. The first was from Cerro Azul, Honduras of the red catuai varietal, the second was a typica varietal from Papua New Guinea’s Sigri Estare. It was an interesting mix of origins, and we chose to try it because we thought that it was not traditional at all. On the tongue, the espresso was creamy and full bodied, with many notes of many berries and a sweetness like cola. With a three origins and three varietals like these, it’s difficult to know what to expect, so a surprise was inevitable.
Though the burlap and wood interiors are what one may consider to be pretty standard for a “third wave cafe,” Tiong Hoe has managed to create something terribly exciting and unique in the way that they roast and serve the coffees. If we had a star system on Daily Drink Magazine, we’d probably be giving Tiong Hoe’s espresso a maximum mark.
Follow @tionghoespecialtycoffee on Instagram.
This cup of coffee came out of a packet. And it’s awesome.
Given to us by Matt over at @commonmancoffee in Singapore, he said he wanted us to test it out on the flight home to our home-base in Manila. Unfortunately, the cabin crew wouldn’t let us cabin-brew due to turbulence, a situation where hot liquids are not served at altitude. As a result, we had to settle with brewing it on solid ground, at home the next day.
The coffee is one we are well acquainted with: Ardi Sidama, an Ethiopia single origin that Common Man has championed for several years now. We’ve tried it in Malaysia. We’ve tried it in Manila. We’ve tried it Singapore. It’s delicious! So how did the drip bag fare? Popping open the packet, we were greeted by the familiar aroma of Ardi: floral and fruity. It’s clear that the flush of nitrogen gas used when packing the drip bag has been quite successful, as fragrance usually deteriorates quickly after grinding the coffee.
Following the instructions on the packet, we added coffee until the cup was full. It actually says to add 200ml of water, but we didn’t bother measuring, as it seems like this drip bag is most likely intended for times you don’t really have equipment with you. But we let the bag steep in the cup for 4 minutes in total, even when the water had reached the level of the bag inside the cup.
The result is quite pleasant. For this brew, not terribly fruity, but incredibly and unmistakably floral. Bravo!
Was my coffee made by a mad coffee scientist? In this cafe, you’ll feel like your coffee was a result of numerous experiments. At Madness Specialty Coffee you get a sneak peek of how your coffee is made before you receive it in a cup. They have their roastery in store which is basically where the coffee science begins– you’ll see records of previously roasted coffees–origin, varietal, altitude, and fermentation process. The bar also has tubes of coffee hanging from the ceiling.
We got to sample some of their coffee concoctions, we got to try their cold brew and their flat white. The cold brew was a bit too strong for our liking but we loved the flat white. It’s a washed single origin from Caldas, Columbia called Anserma which had notes of chocolate, red fruits, and caramel. The Anserma is great with milk and tastes almost like a dessert.
Madness Specialty Coffee is the only roastery in Alicante City. This Café is one of the very few specialty coffee shops in Alicante and their aim has always been to spread the love for third wave coffee to locals and tourists alike. People at Madness are very keen on taking part in every step of the process: from farm to cup with the “fresh-fresh” concept. For the uninitiated, that means seasonal coffees, freshly roasted, served directly to the customer. They call themselves “coffee designers” and so in that spirit, they try to design the perfect coffee and café experience.
And they’re definitely on the right track. They’ve created this place with coffee in mind and having roastery on site guarantees the freshness of their beans on bar. They also do a great job of promoting inquiry and curiosity through interiors, integrating chemex drop lights, portafilter sinks and even coffee sack upholstered chairs. If you’re not crazy about coffee yet, this place will lure you into that rabbit hole that is specialty coffee. Soon enough you’ll be part of the madness too.
Follow @madnesscoffee on Instagram.
