Kelawai "Kopi Tiam"


Our newspage. Posted here will be travel plans, any interesting news items about the family and of course, about Penang. If you have anything, please send it to me and I will add it to this page. Meantime, come in, have a kopi-o or teh-tarik and enjoy!

News,Moves and Needs




Of Interest - Penang Coffee


The kopi of old
By Leong Seok Hui
Taken from thestar.com

IN the early mornings as you saunter along Stewart Lane in Penang, you will catch a strong whiff of roasted coffee beans drifting down the narrow streets flanked by pre-war houses. Trailing the invigorating smell, you may find yourself stepping into Ong Kok Wan’s coffee manufacturing shop wedged between these brick houses.

Ong, 55, specialises in roasting and grinding coffee beans to make Hainanese coffee powder. If you venture into a typical Chinese coffee shop with marble-top tables and wooden chairs, you will be served the thick, full-bodied and rich-flavoured coffee coupled with thick toasts slathered with creamy butter and kaya.

So, what is Hainanese coffee powder? “It’s the ingredients that go into the roasting of the coffee beans,” says Ong. The essential ingredients are Robusta coffee beans, butter or margarine, sugar, sesame and salt. Robusta is a trade name for coffea canephora, a common coffee species used in Southeast Asia as compared to the more common Arabica coffee beans you usually find in Western countries or at local gourmet coffee places.

Robusta beans have a thicker aroma, less acidity, stronger body and more caffeine than Arabica beans. Butter gives a nice, rich fragrance to the coffee beans while sugar makes the colour darker and sesame lends a sweet aroma. Ong says the difference between a high quality coffee powder and the cheaper products are the quality of beans, type of butter and the amount of sugar. For instance, Ong’s best quality coffee powder is made from high-quality coffee beans from Indonesia and the creamy, thick Golden Churn butter.

Ong has been involved in the coffee industry for more than 20 years. Starting out as an apprentice coffee maker at a large coffee manufacturer in Penang, Ong eventually became a coffee salesman for the company. One day, a visit to a fortune teller turned his world around. The fortune teller advised him to grab the window of opportunity when he sees it.

“Somehow it was the right time and I decided that I had to give myself a chance to prove my own ability,” says Ong. Armed with a small capital, loads of experience in coffee-making and numerous contacts, he started the Kim Guan coffee manufacturing shop in 1988.

As we venture into the back of his shop, the whole place is enveloped in thick smoke and the robust smell of coffee beans.
“The beans give off lots of smoke when it’s just about ready,” Ong smiles apologetically. A typical day at his shop starts at 7am, when his two employees clean the floor and start weighing the coffee, sugar and other ingredients. They usually fill about 24kg of coffee beans into the wok-like cauldron. On most days, Ong and his staff make about two cauldrons of roasted coffee. The appropriate heat for roasting coffee is about 550°F.

When the beans reach about 400°F, it turns a darker brown. The oils start to emerge and produce the flavour and aroma of the coffee. The beans are well roasted after 45 minutes. Ong uses large fans to blow away the shells and cool the beans. Coffee bean shells tend to give the coffee an extremely bitter taste.

Ong sells his coffee under the Eagle brand in six different categories — from the best grade, AA which costs RM11.70 per kg to the cheapest, B1, selling for RM6 per kg. Most food stalls will buy the cheaper coffee while customers will buy the AA-grade coffee for their own consumption. Most regular coffee shops would buy the second highest grade coffee.

Ong supplies coffee to about 100 coffeeshops around Penang and Seberang Prai. Aside from large coffee manufacturers, there are only about five coffeemakers like Ong who runs his business from the back of his shophouse. On most afternoons, Ong delivers his coffee to his customers and tries to make new contacts along the way. Ong adds that the smaller production and personal touch give him the edge over large coffee manufacturers.

“As long as I retain the quality of my coffee, my customers will always come back for more,” says Ong. He knows his own products so well that he can tell the difference between all his six grades of coffee powders even if he tastes them blindfolded. As with any traditional trade, Ong worries that in years to come coffee manufacturing will only prevail in large factories.


Archived Articles

Older articles that previously appeared on this page have been archived.

Saving Nipha
Economic and Meteorological Crisis in Penang
Life Is Not Just About Money (on Uncle Ricky Tan Seng Hai and his work in Chiangmai
An article from the Star:Changing landscape of GeorgeTown.




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