The Fifth Newsletter

Drugs, I mean, Coffee.

What is love?

Have you met someone who said they ‘love’ coffee, only to find out what they meant was they’ve tried everything on the Starbucks menu?

Or, they just want coffee from the same place?
Three coffees a day from the kiosk across the road, that’s love?

It’s like someone saying they ‘love’ food, but they only do fine dining. Or dislike vegetables.

For me, coffee can be $1 from 7-Eleven. It can be Lavazza ORO. A drip pack from Japan. It can be Boss in a can. Tiramisu. Affogato. Kopi O from a Malaysian kopitiam, the 3-in-1 packs. I’ve tried Blue Mountain in Japan; I’ve tried the Macro beans from Woolies.

Being a coffee snob is boring; try being a coffee slut instead.

Not that long ago, coffee, for me, was just Nescafe.

I remember in college, we never said ‘let’s go out and have a cup of coffee.’ For $3.50, we would much rather get gelato.

And then out of nowhere, we get upset when baristas get our orders wrong. (Latte, not flat white, geez!) That takeaway cup became a fidget spinner, something for us to look like we’re doing something important. Reusable coffee cups - funny we don’t talk about the environment during COVID, and let’s face it, everyone who bought a Nespresso machine (or an actual expresso machine), thinking they’ll save money in the long run, still buys coffee when they go out.

It’s not the product; it’s the act.
How did it end up like this?

For me, it started with a girl.

Everyone knows this girl in college.
She’s way out of my league, the only person I knew (then) with more than 500 friends on Facebook, doing a double degree in law and whatever, on some sort of a long-distance relationship. (Never know if it’s true or just a made-up story to repel all the guys). For some reason, she was nice to me, the fat Asian nerd. Paid attention to my handwriting, my camera.

She had connections to everyone and seemed to be in the know for all things cool, but not slutty, or bitchy, or too stuck up. Miss Congeniality. Most important of all, she did not try to drag me into the Overseas Christian Fellowship.

So this girl took me to a garage with 6 chairs in the middle of nowhere, walls made of plywood, and ordered cappuccinos for the both of us. The roasting machine roaring in the background.

She said, “here, drink this without any sugar.”

If you’re born after the 90s, you have no idea how mindblowing that sounded. No sugar in coffee? It’s like saying no ketchup on your fries. No sambal to your Nasi Lemak. No frape on your frappucino.

I trusted her, took a sip, and go “that’s not half-bad.”
That is how I got into coffee.
That’s how an influencer influenced in the early 00s.

I didn’t know back then I was experiencing third-wave coffee.
Or that garage’s aesthetic will become the norm for cafes around the world.

The girl’s long gone from my life, after her exchange to an Ivy League college, she deleted herself from social media and became a ghost. Rumor has it she’s working for UNICEF, or gave birth to triplets, or a judge for the Michelin guide, consulting for an AI robotics start-up in Tokyo.
All highly plausible.

I went through all of the phases - V60, Kalita wave, Aeropress, Clever, French press, Moka pot, Chemex, the gooseneck kettle, the scale, the hand grinder. Everything, EVERYTHING but spending $2k on an actual espresso machine, because well 1. that’s the line you cross to become a real coffee wanker, and 2. no money and space.

So here’s my advice, which you may have read from the cookbook.

Invest in a grinder.

It was never the beans, never the water temperature, the paper filter, or how fast or slow you pour the coffee. The method doesn’t even matter. I have gone back to the Aeropress. I even made espresso on the Moka pot, brought it camping. They tasted fine. I bet my supermarket beans with my expensive grinder will beat your geisha on with a ceramic burr grinder.

It’s one of those things in life that ultimately, can be easily solved by money. Drop some serious dough on a grinder, and you’ll never make bad coffee ever again.

Trust me, buy a good grinder and forget about the rest.

I own the Comandante C40 for a couple of years now, but if I were to start today, I’d buy the 1Zpresso JX because it’s the same thing at half the price. I’m not gonna link them since they’re not paying me LOL just google it. If you have the $400 machine ones good for you. I just don’t have space in my kitchen.

Coffees in Melbourne.

It’s tougher to find really bad coffees in Melbourne than really good ones.

Here’s a list of the local big players: Market Lane, Seven Seeds, Padre, Dukes, Code Black, Proud Mary, Industry Beans, Axil, Wide Open Road, Allpress, Supreme…

Want something micro? Small Batch, Clements, Cartel, Monk Bodhi Dharma, Acoffee, Rumble, Wood and Co, Apocalypse…

I’m sure I’ve missed some, but seriously, how many do we actually need?

I have some bad news. Remember the curry puff uncle in Carlton I mentioned in the last newsletter? Gone. The landlord increased their rent, so they had to relocate. You can find them now at 14 Watertank Way in the city along Spencer Street. See? Good things don’t last. I guess the good news is I’ll be cutting down some calories and not eat curry puffs every week.

I usually do the introduction in the beginning, but if you’re new here, thanks for buying my book. I’m lazy to design my own newsletter so I steal the ready-made templates and the stock shots.

Do you have the Clubhouse app?
I’m thinking of starting a group, but since I don’t own an iPhone I might have to fiddle a bit with the iPad version and see if it works. I’ve been enjoying talking to different people who came to pick up the book from me in person lately so I thought a Clubhouse group might be fun. You can find me via my name.

It’s weird to know that I’m actually talking to complete strangers right off the bat just because of the book. Maybe I’ll share some of their stories in the next newsletter.

In the meantime, here’re the previous newsletters:
Newsletter 1 | Newsletter 2 | Newsletter 3 | Newsletter 4

Last week I wrote a post about how half of Asians around the world find pork extremely smelly, and the other half don’t. Funnily enough, the comments were polarising, which kinda proved my point.

I’m signing off this newsletter by asking you to trust yourself.

If Asians can’t even agree on the smell of pork, how can we even trust food critics?