An art and science of making that personalised cuppa

“Let's meet up for coffee,” is a familiar refrain we often hear today as an invitation to meet to discuss business, work or just chat in the many international and domestic branded franchised chain cafés dotting the major cities and towns across Malaysia and much of Asia.


The operations of many of these popular coffee outlets are based upon industrial supply chain, distribution, production processes, delivery practices and standardised products, to optimise on purchasing costs and high labour costs in the brands' home countries.

As a result these outlets and their end products regarded by some to have a rather standardised, cookie cutter look, fell and taste which lacks individuality and the personalised touch.

However, the Coffee Ritual café, formerly located on Jalan 14/20, Section 14, Petaling Jaya is unique, with its display of coffee making paraphernalia, bags of coffee beans from around the world, coffee-themed paintings by a local artist on its walls and its its unique colour scheme and décor.

One also can't help miss the rather ritualistic manner in which cups of what it calls “single origin gourmet coffees” are individually brewed  manually by its manager Chung Yeh Chin on its front counter using equipment which look more at home in school science lab.


The ritual

Insert brewing funnel

No, nothing mysterious or proprietary about this technique called vacuum coffee making or siphon coffee making as it's used around the world but is rather rare in Malaysia. For example, Japanese coffee company UCC used it in its cafés in Malaysia back in the 1990s, which is where Chung got the idea from.

The equipment comprises a purpose-built spirit or gas burner, a heat-proof glass flask and a glass funnel with a stem which fits into the flask with a rubber seal on the stem making an airtight seal.

A filter is first placed into the bottom of the glass funnel, the coffee beans are then ground and put into the funnel. Water in the flask is then brought to the boil over the burner and the funnel is inserted into its neck, and the pressure of the steam forces the boiling water up the stem into the funnel and brews the coffee.

Using a stopwatch, Chung lets the coffee grinds brew in the boiling hot water, typically for one minute. Coarse grinds are allowed to brew for a little longer since extraction is slower, while fine grinds for a little shorter.

Brewing time

“Coffee is a rather delicate substance which becomes bitter if you let it brew in boiling water for too long,” said Chung.

He then turns off the burner at the right time and the steam in the flask at the bottom immediately begins to cool and contracts, drawing the brown-black coffee liquor in the funnel above back into it through the filter, leaving the grinds above.

When the coffee liquor is all drawn back into the flask, the funnel is removed and its served to the customer with separate milk and sugar to be added as required. This manual coffee-making process produces single origin coffees which are clean, crisp and smooth, and priced at RM6.00.

Done

It's called “single origin coffee” since the beans used to make each cup are from Columbia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Sumatra and other places as available.

Cold brewing

Most coffee we've ever had is brewed using boiling hot water, since it produces a quick cuppa but if  the thought of brewing coffee with iced water sounds crazy, Coffee Ritual also brews coffee using iced water in a similar but very much larger piece of equipment. 

Here iced water in an glass container is dripped at 40 drops per minute into a glass container with the coffee grinds and the resulting coffee liquor passes out from the bottom trough a spiralled glass tube into a glass flask below.

It's a slow process which produces 600 millilitres of coffee in eight hours but it produces coffee with a distinctive taste and if the coffee is kept in the fridge for over a day, it ferments and can give the drinker a kind of “kick.”

Cold brewing equipment

Besides single origin coffees, Coffee Ritual also serves more common offerings such as espresso based coffees, iced coffees, iced blended coffees, various teas including fruity teas, chocolate-based drinks, mixed fruit smoothies and popular soft drinks, with prices ranging from RM5.00 to RM12.40.

For food, it serves mostly western dishes such as pastas, rice, savoury crêpes, salads, gourmet sandwiches. gourmet pies, soups, fish & chips, chicken, lamb and beef dishes, though some such as its Tom Yam Chicken Crepe and Otak-Otak Crêpe are a fusion of western and Asian cuisine.

Its deserts include cakes, sweet crêpes, pancakes, Häagen Daz ice cream and apple pie.

Coffee Ritual began its eight year in January. It began in Phileo Damansara I for its first five years then moved to Section 14 and is now based in Damansara Utama. For more of the details, visit www.coffeeritual.com.

Meanwhile, a new cafe, Mbuji occupies its former location in Section 14. www.facebook.com/MbujiCafe

Mbuji Cafe