Hong Kong "Music Coffee" and "mood Coffee" what's so special about HK $280 a cup?

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Music Jia, what is it?

On Saturday night, there was an art pub room68 on Portland Street in Yau Ma Tei, which held the first "Music Jia Yau Ma Tei Sound" for 30 minutes each, entertaining only two tasters, no live music, and just a cup of coffee at a cost of RMB 280 per person.

In September last year, the author reported that there was a stall at the coffee market Coffee Agenda held by Yuan Chuangfang in PMQ, Central, at a cost of 200 yuan per cup, which made people marvel at the spending power of Hong Kong people visiting the bazaar. Is a cup of coffee worth 200 yuan a fake culture or real taste? ). Then again, this coffee bean has a long history, not only setting a world record for auction prices in 2017, but also the winner of the 2017 World Cooking Competition (World Brewers Cup).

After all, what kind of beans are used in this cup of "the sound of Yau Ma Tei" music? It turns out that there are four kinds of coffee (Panama Geisha, Colombia, Ethiopia Yegashev and Burundi), plus three kinds of tea (Darjeeling, wood and pennyroyal lip calyx mint).

It was also Michael, who brought 200 yuan a cup of Ninety Plus Panama Gesha BNP#227 at the coffee market, who created this cup of music. The BEI Coffee he drives in the alley of Saigon Street has no pull flowers, no latte, cappuccino, no waffle, no spaghetti, and sells blindly, and directly takes beans from Japanese suppliers and fried beans himself, mainly deep-fried and baked, which runs counter to the mainstream of the market. There are many rules in the store and a flood of negative reviews online, but it opened in 2013 and has not yet closed.

This time he was invited by room68 barista Alex Lai to create three performances of "the Sound of Music Jia Yau Ma Tei". The first game was held and all eight seats were filled that night. Prior to this, Michael has also created "Music Jia" with the theme of Japanese films "Fenglin Volcano" and Li Xianglan.

Drinking coffee is not to cheer you up.

After all, what is this "music Jia" all about? Coffee shops also play music, and even if they go to No.1 Blue Mountain Coffee in Jamaica, they may not dare to charge NT $280. even if they dare to do so, they may not be able to sell eight cups in two hours.

Therefore, first of all, we must believe in the relationship between coffee and the senses, which is the key to this cup of music.

Michael says the Voice of Yau Ma Tei is his tenth work. As it happened, a year ago, a regular guest wanted to invite a friend to Micah for coffee because of his birthday, and he also wanted his friend to drink while listening to his favorite music. Michael suddenly thought that it would be better to tailor and match a cup of coffee to the guest according to the rhythm and color of that piece of music. It was his "first time".

He once talked about "the Art of Coffee" in an interview: "Coffee art is not just a visual canvas." pull beautiful, that is latte artist, does not mean that the cup of coffee is good to drink. "his idea is that if latte art is coffee art, it is visual art." then can coffee art be promoted to a deeper level of art, integrating different elements, including images, music and so on? "

Therefore, he was inspired by Musical Jia and wrote mood coffee.

The process is that he first chatted with the guests and felt their mood ups and downs, and then immediately used different coffee beans and prepared a cup of coffee, and at the same time chose a piece of music for about 8 minutes, allowing the guests to listen to music while drinking caffeine. The taste of coffee will change with the color and rhythm of the music.

The point is that after drinking this cup of moodiness, you will feel comfortable, because Michael believes that drinking coffee is not to refresh you, but to relax.

A journey to experience the five senses

The difference between "mood Jia" and "Music Jia" is that the music of the former is chosen by Michael according to the mood of the guests, and the coffee beans in each cup are also different, while "Music Jia" has specific music and story themes. Everyone listens to the same music and drinks the same coffee, but the taste they drink and the images projected in their minds are different.

According to Alex, "the Voice of Yau Ma Tei" was composed by local composer Li Guohua for the Southeast Building Hotel where room68 is located, with a total of 10 pieces of music. Michael chose four of the ten pieces to determine the theme of the story, then selected the matching coffee beans, and in order to be closer to the music, he added three kinds of tea.

In his words, coffee beans are the protagonist, tea is the supporting role, each has its own points, and kung fu (technology) is probably found in considering the degree of baking and grinding of the four kinds of brown beans at the required water temperature. and then present the appearance order of the taste under the change of the music (in order to avoid the play through, the excerpt of the music and the theme of the story are not detailed here).

At the scene, due to entertaining two guests in each session, Michael is making coffee at the same time as Alex, but the cooking methods of the two are very different. However, the guests of the first show did not care whether the coffee was made by the original creator, and in fact, they did not indicate who made the coffee when they presented the two cups of "music coffee".

In the process of drinking and listening, Michael invites guests to randomly draw associative images in the album, including trees, raindrops, flying and beating, almost none of them are the same.

Interestingly, in the process of drinking coffee, taste is not the most important. However, this is really a five-sense experiment with coffee under the banner. When guests are involved in it, they will have different combinations of five senses because of their background, experience and imagination.

Michael said richly: "Coffee art means that there should be no formula, and the so-called five-sense art, everyone receives different, and then according to the induction to project their own image association." "that is the diversity and tolerance that art should have, and it is also the infinite possibility that coffee can participate.