Coffee Tour in Southeast Asia

I don't know how you are in other parts of Southeast Asia, but I am at a loss on the streets of Singapore, on the corner of Vietnam, on a certain signboard in Malaysia. Although "coffee" was transliterated "universally" by intelligent ancestors in the early years of its spread, and there was no big obstacle to hearing and hearing, even if Singapore people always called coffee Kopi, which is pronounced from Minnan dialect, it was not a big deal. However, like the blond Europeans around me who were very confident about coffee, I did not know what sins Kopi O and Kopi C had suffered. It was decidedly written on the sign of a coffee shop, which is usually where Espresso or Cappuccino is at Starbucks.

Opening the door to Southeast Asian coffee tours

Of course, I believe I'm luckier than the one next to me, at least through the gray cells of my brain, to understand what happened to the word Kopitiam(Singapore coffee shop), which is basically a transliteration of "coffee shop" in Chinese. In fact, cafes in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia have deep roots in China, and it is not only because of the large number of Chinese. According to K.F.Seetoh, founder of Makansutra, a famous food guide in Singapore, in the early 20th century, many local cafes opened in Singapore and Malaysia, and most of the people who opened and patronized cafes were "lower Nanyang." Rich businessmen came to the New World with bulging pockets. In order to integrate into the so-called English civilization world, Western civilization was the fashion trend. When they gathered in cafes, they accidentally became a culture.

Of course, there are other benefits to coffee shops, enough to satisfy pragmatic Chinese. At that time, many of these cafes came from Hainan, China, which is also an interesting thing about Singapore. It is said that the Chinese who defected to Singapore in those years always had different batches according to the provinces, while the Hainanese finally arrived, most of the industries had been occupied by people from other provinces, so the Hainanese could only operate the catering industry, among which Hainanese chicken rice would become a local famous dish by chance. Most of these Hainanese who opened cafes also enjoyed the same experience. When they worked on British ships, they often helped in the kitchen. When they returned to the land from the drifting sea, they brought back the British catering culture (which was obviously more popular than Chinese food in Singapore at that time).

In those days, cafes had plenty of seats and served cheap breakfast or lunch along with coffee. Although most traditional Singapore Kopitiam shops have been transformed, such as Yakun or Killiney Kopitiam, there are still exceptions. For example, Chin Mee Chin Confectionery, which opened on East Coast Road in the eastern district, has maintained its original appearance. In Singapore, which is three-quarters summer, it is not even equipped with air conditioning. It shows that the coffee shop in the past is not a luxurious place, but a variant of the tea house. But the menu is mostly Western. A typical breakfast (which will only flatten your purse a little) includes a cup of coffee or tea and a hard-boiled egg, served with a plate and soy sauce. The typical way for locals to eat eggs is to beat them into a plate, then mix them with soy sauce and sprinkle them with pepper, and eat them like pudding.

Coffee, an exotic commodity, was able to enter Southeast Asia thanks to Western colonialism.

Another must-have is the so-called Kaya Toast, which translates literally as kaya toast. Butter and homemade Kaya sauce are not placed on one side for you to use, but are spread thickly in advance (or just Kaya sauce). Kaya sauce is a local classic creation, this sweet and greasy coconut sauce definitely reflects the common love of all ethnic groups in Asia. The reason why that house is still popular is that the eggs are always just right and the Kaya sauce is always the most authentic. The Kopi O or Kopi C mentioned earlier is actually a slang word.

Coffee here is served irregularly with milk and sugar. They are usually made with more processing, such as dry frying with corn kernels (also known as sugar) and butter, which gives coffee a slightly sweet taste, Seetoh said."In the old days, they used lard, but now they don't." In cafes, baristas pack processed coffee powder into long thick "socks," a fabric coffee filter that soaks the coffee flavor over time (like a teapot). Seetoh stressed that although those "socks" must be thoroughly washed at the end of the day, they may not be clean.

Then, they would rinse the "socks" of coffee beans with hot water and pour them directly into a cup that had already been filled with condensed milk or milk and sugar, and it would be a cup of "fragrant and strong" coffee. Kopi C refers to coffee with milk only, and C actually comes from Carnation, a canned milk brand that most Singapore cafes choose. Although many cafes no longer use this brand, it does not prevent this "slang" from continuing to be popular. Kopi O means black coffee (with sugar added), which is said to mean "black" in Minnan dialect, Kopi Siutai means less sugar, and Kopi Kosong means coffee without sugar or milk, because kosong means "nothing" in Malay. And if it's just kopi, it's condensed milk and sugar, because that's how they've always been added, and everything else is based on it.

The most interesting is Kopi Tarik, which means coffee that is poured back and forth in two cups before serving. Tarik means "back." The original idea was to cool down, Singapore was too hot for hot drinks, but this method usually created a lot of foam in the coffee, like cappuccino, so they invented a new product called Kopiccino, which was a genius idea. It is not easy to understand these slang words, but we can try to learn, for example, I want a cup of iced milk tea, less sugar, then say, Teh C PengSiutai(really concise), Teh means tea, and Peng means ice in Minnan dialect. Well, it's not hard, is it? It's just some vocabulary problems, not up to the grammatical level. However, it can be pointed out that Southeast Asian cafes like to use condensed milk instead of milk, probably because there are more local Robusta coffee produced in Africa today, which is better at resisting pests and diseases than the long-standing Arabica coffee, but the taste will be more bitter. It is reasonable that heavy taste naturally needs to be adjusted again.