Coffee Ritual [藝式咖啡]

This is Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Coffee Ritual) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:09:00 +0000

Stumbled on this video while browsing for coffee info.

Coffee Grinder

noreply@blogger.com (Coffee Ritual) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:52:00 +0000

To a coffee lover, the single most important device to acquire other than the coffee brewing apparatus is the coffee grinder. You may use any brewing apparatus, be it a French press, an espresso pot, an espresso machine, a manual dripper, a vacuum pot or even a cold drip coffee maker, it is fairly easy to archive a good brew when you do it correctly. However, a grinder will probably determine your coffee drinking experience a pleasant one or a horrible encounter.

There are two types of coffee grinders, i.e. blade grinder and burr grinder.

To most coffee lover, blade grinder is a no-no. It uses metal blades to chop up the beans. Although inexpensive but you have to compromise on the quality of the grind, usually uneven in size and to get a finer grounds, you will need to chop for a longer period and the blades will create heat that burnt your coffee. You may find this type of grinder in all major electrical appliances stores. Some of the models available in Malaysia are Braun KSM2, Bodum C-Mill, DeLonghi DCG39.

Burr grinder uses two wheels to crush the beans, one moving or spinning and the other static. The distant between the wheels is adjustable and determines the ground size. This method produces a more consistent grind and operates at a lower speed, thus generate less heat. However, most burr grinders in Malaysia are available for commercial use that cost thousands of Ringgit. For home user, ETC Marketing in the Curve carries a few models for your consideration, check out their Gaggia MM that cost around RM540, it is an entry level grinder for beginners. If you are using an espresso machine, you should seriously consider a better grinder like an Ascaso i-1/i-2 burr grinder, priced around RM1700. You may find more good suggestions at Coffee in Malaysia.

For those who are budget conscious, you can consider a manual burr grinder or hand grinder instead. A manual burr grinder usually cost less and can produce acceptable grind quality. The downside is you have to do quite a bit of workout to get enough coffee ground for a few cups of coffee. It is still okay if you grind not more than four cups of coffee every session. If you need to grind more than that a few time in a day, it make sense to buy a good electric grinder.

Not many good manual grinders are available in our market, though. I have search around KL and PJ area and found three that worth mention here.

The Bodum’s VENICE Coffee mill, you may have to hunt around major department store in KL or PJ, look for Bodum’s counter at the household department, there is one on displayed at Robinson in The Garden, Mid-Valley, priced at RM359. However, the VENICE Coffee Mill does not score very high among reviewers in the online community. In my opinion, it is still a better grinder compare to the ‘chop chop’ machine.

If you are lucky, drop by ETC Marketing at the Curve for their Kyocera CM-45CF ceramic burr grinder. They have one unit on displayed but do not have stock in the store, you need to order to have it deliver from their warehouse. It is one of the best hand grinders available in our market, priced at RM328.

Coffee Ritual also carries one model from Hario of Japan, the Ceramic Coffee Mill Skerton MSCS-2, priced at RM165. I will write in detail about this grinder in future post.

If any one came across a good grinder somewhere, please share it with us. Thanks in advance.

PS: This post may be expanded in future.

Coffee as we drink it

noreply@blogger.com (Coffee Ritual) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:18:00 +0000

The vast majority of our population are coffee drinkers. Ironically, not many can tell you what constitutes a good cup of coffee. Ask anyone around you this question may cause them to stare into a void blinking uncontrollably. Some may be able to utter something like “got to smell nice lah!” referring to the aroma, alright, fair enough, or “must be black enough” referring to the colour, er..., or “has to be very kau” referring to the strength... I guess. Well, that’s about all you may get.

Prior to recent years, before Délifrance, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Starbucks Coffee and alike set their foot on our shore, most of us or our father or grandfather or great grandfather has never savour a real good, premium gourmet coffee before. Our colonial master, the British, do not fancy coffee. Hence, coffee appreciation among the upper class was nonexistent. There was no demand for exotic coffee from other part of the world. Even good quality, high grade premium coffee beans from our neighbour, Indonesia, has altogether bypass our region heading straight into the European market. We are literally clueless about the world of coffee for generations.

Malaysian, however drinks one particular type of coffee, which grown on our own soil. It is mostly found in some part of West Malaysia. The coffee is a high-yield crop known as liberica species. This coffee, if consume without any special treatment, is highly unpalatable. In another word, the liberica species is rather inferior compare to the arabica or even the robusta species. You can safely guess that it is not highly sought-after among the coffee lovers. However, the liberica coffee still managed to find its way into the local coffee house, fondly known as Kopitiam to most of us. If ever we have any coffee experience at all, it is the Kopitiam’s coffee experience.

In the early days, people of this land were not particularly rich. The proprietors of the kopitiams realised that most of their customer will welcome anything that is affordable or cheap, hence serving good quality coffee is not the priority then. To reduce cost, the proprietor of the kopitiam has to source for the cheapest coffee bean available and the liberica beans happen to fit that requirement. As mentioned earlier, the liberica coffee is highly unpalatable, if they served it straight, it will definitely fail to impress their customer. To solve this problem, some clever roasters (those days, almost all kopitiam roast their own coffee just right behind their coffee house) has devised a method that involved adding sugar and butter (margarine is use today to cut cost) during the roasting process to create a drinkable beverage that is dark and heavy bodied taste, in some case, coffee may also roasted together with grounded wheat, salt, oat, burned corn etc, for cost cutting purposes. This method is widely adopted by almost all roasters in the region.

The roasted concoction mentioned above has creates a beverage known as kopi (coffee in Malay language). If you order a cup of kopi in a kopitiam, however you will ended up with a cup of milked coffee instead. How is this come about? This is a hint that initially the proprietor of the kopitiam did not feel comfortable with the concoction they have created to be served straight black. To hide any undesirable flavour in their kopi, they added lots of condensed milk (fresh milk is expensive). Hence, by default, kopi is served with milk. If you desire black coffee, you should order kopi-O, O is black in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect. Again, be aware that it is sweeten with sugar, the proprietor still find it uncomfortable to serve you a straight black unsweetened coffee. You must order kopi-O-kosong, kosong is “nothing” in Malay language, to get your black unsweetened coffee. Just a word of caution, if you are use to good quality arabica coffee and cannot settled for anything less, just avoid kopi-O-kosong.

There is a co-relation between economy performance and gourmet coffee consumption. The largest gourmet coffee consuming countries are all developed nations. The best crops available will always ended up in the hand of the one with the greatest economy muscle. For example, when the Japan’s economy reaches its peak in the 1980’s, almost all Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, one of the world’s most expensive coffee, were purchased by the Japanese, the rest of the world has been deprived of the Blue Mountain coffee for more than a decade. Looking at our nation, we did not experience an exciting economy performance for most part of the 19th and 20th century. To most ordinary folks, meeting end needs is more important than savouring a good cup of gourmet coffee. With only the liberica coffee at our disposal, we have slowly, from one generation to another generation, got acquainted and developed fondness to the unique taste of our kopi. I personally believed that we love kopi not due to its quality or exquisite taste, but rather it is an acquired taste.

In the 1980’s, our country has propelled itself towards an industrialised nation. The economy prospers over the next two decades and the quality of life had improved tremendously. Travelling abroad for business, education and leisure were at an unprecedented scale. It was during this period that we got exposed to what people around the world have taken for granted, a taste of a truly great cup of gourmet coffee.

One company that has played a pivotal role in introducing gourmet coffee in our region is Délifrance from Singapore. Délifrance started their first café bakery at Clifford Centre, Singapore in 1985. In 1990, their first café in Malaysia started in Lot 10 shopping centre, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. To many Malaysian my generation, Délifrance was the place we had our first sip of cappuccino, café latte, café mocha or Americano. It was also the place that sale the most expensive coffee around town and it got a lot of people the shock-of-their-life-time experience when their espresso served.

After Délifrance, came along The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Dome Café, Starbucks Coffee, Gloria Jean's Coffees, to name a few. These players, with their unique trend setting concept, style and taste, have managed to garner some followers. However, gourmet coffee appreciation is not widely spread in our society yet. Due to the high price these establishment charged, it is only confined to city dwellers, mainly high income group. Unlike Taiwan and Japan, where gourmet coffee are served in coffee house every corner island wide and enjoyed by every level of the society, Malaysia still lagging behind by maybe one whole generation. Another problem is Malaysian cannot shake off our taste for the kopi. Like a breast fed baby boy, who never tasted anything other than his own mother’s milk, will take some months, or years, to get use to other type of foods. Worst still, with the mushrooming of our home grown brand, the Ipoh Old Town White Coffee chain, 120’s outlets to date, and their clones, it will take Malaysian more time to reach the same level of coffee appreciation like other countries such as Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, The States, etc.

To end this post with a less depressing note, there are some individual in Malaysia who are doing their bit to elevate our level of coffee appreciation. It is a daunting task looking at the unfavourable condition here. However, with their passion and love for coffee, it is worth every effort discovering a new coffee loving soul. I will be searching for them and will highlight their stories in due time.

Prelude

noreply@blogger.com (Coffee Ritual) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Sometime in February 2009, a gentleman walked into our café and ordered a cup of Colombian Special, a single origin coffee. After he had a few sips of the Colombian, we started a short conversation. He was quite impressed with the freshness of our coffee which is hard to find in most local cafés. We exchange some thoughts on the subject and before he left, he pass on a web address for me to visit, http://kfchan.wordpress.com/. I did not get his name then and only check-out the site a few days later.

Five years ago I was a web designer. Ever since I started Coffee Ritual, the café, I have no idea how the web has evolved. The website introduced to me earlier by the gentleman is a blog. I have never seen a blog before. Having read about it in the newspaper now and then, but never actually seen one. I was immediately hooked. It is a blog about coffee in Malaysia. I spent my next few days reading every single posts and comments on the blog. It is a whole new world to me, very different from the BBS or Forum I knew. In a blog, there is this host, the blogger, who is really passionate about the subject written on his blog. I can feel the emotion, tears and joys of the blogger. The ideas, experiences, thoughts and knowledge are shared and discussed among the readers and the blogger in the comments after each post. It is a wonderful way to interact.

After some serious thought and research, an urge to create my own blog slowly developed over the last two months and this really got me very excited. I have so much that I wanted to share. Oh yes, this is it, this is the platform I will ride on to reach out to the world.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Coffee Ritual, the blog.

Before I end this post, I would like to thank Kfchan of Coffee in Malaysia for introducing his blog to me that very fine day. I salute your contributions to all the coffee lovers in Malaysia. Thanks again.