🌸 chapter four: spring 2025 - umami, sweet, strange & good

spring is here, and it feels like we’re blooming too.

it’s been eight months since we first opened our little coffee bar in joo chiat, and it still feels a little surreal. every day, we get to wake up and make drinks we’re proud of, with people we love, for a community that keeps growing in the most unexpected ways.

for chapter four, we’ve been experimenting with new coffee, fruits, teas, and techniques, playing with hydrosols and foams, and continuing our love affair with ingredients that don’t traditionally belong in coffee, but maybe should.

each new chapter is a chance for our team to play, explore, and grow. for spring 2025, we pushed ourselves further, new ingredients, new techniques, and a few quiet revolutions in the bar.

this season our team have truly doubled down on what we do, we continue to make all our ingredients in-house, our team are making some crazy stuff that blows our minds. they have cracked the code on how to make hydrosols, starting off with a juniper hydrosol. it’s a delicate, botanical water distillation and we have created a new technique to make bubbles. its delicious and we are super proud of them.

thank you for trying something new, asking questions, tagging your friends, and sharing this little space with us. we read every message and see every post!

we’re so glad you’re here with us for the next chapter. thanks for being on this journey with us as we write the next chapter. 💙

🌸 spring 2025 : new season’s coffee

with each new chapter, we challenge ourselves to find new and incredible coffee. for our spring 2025 menu, we’ve discovered two new coffees that we absolutely fell in love with. they’re from opposite sides of the world, guatemala and papua new guinea, but both bring something beautiful and unique.

🍏 finca la colina : guatemala

finca la colina is a mix of bourbon and cattura varieties, grown between 1500 to 1700 meters above sea level, the cherries mature slowly in the cool climate, developing dense sugars and a lot of complexity. this is a great example of a guatemalan coffee.

it comes from the santa rosa region, a high-altitude area that produces some of the country’s highest quality coffee. the name la colina means “the hill” in spanish. 

we’re tasting a red apple acidity, a soft nuttiness like toasted walnuts and a round finish with flavours like a praline caramel.

the guatemala finca la colina is processed using the fully washed method. the coffee cherries are pulped straight after picking to remove the outer cherry. after washing, there’s a little fruit residue or mucilage remaining, and the beans are then fermented in water tanks to break down whats left. after the ferment, the beans are washed again to remove any remaining fruit pulp and then dried out in the sun. 

this processing brings out the acidity & sweetness and allows the nutty praline flavours shine through. 

santa rosa - guatemala

🍒 arufa ax : papua new guinea

we’ve always had a soft spot for papua new guinea coffees, they’re a little unusual & a little wild. this season, we got our hands on something really special: arufa ax, grown in the highlands of jiwaka province, right in the heart of png. 

arufa ax is made up of bourbon and typica varietals. it’s grown at 1650 meters, and put through a natural process where the whole cherries are laid out and dried under the sun allowing the fruit to ferment around the seed, infusing the coffee with a whole lot of sweetness.

this is our favourite processing method that enhances body and brings out all the rich, boozy sweetness we love. we’re tasting dark cherry, raisin, and even notes of chocolate liqueur and cacao nibs, it’s almost kind of desserty. 

kindeng, western highlands, papua new guinea

🍵 crema al matcha

this season, we took one of our most loved drinks, crema al caffè, and reimagined it in a totally new way. we’ve always had a soft spot for japan. we were lucky to explore there earlier this year and we tried all sorts of matcha. we love the rituals and the way they treat it. many people have been asking us for a matcha drink so we went out to learn and taste as much as we could. 

we tasted many and found a delicious ceremonial grade uji matcha from kyoto. it’s a bit earthy, slightly bitter, heaps of umami and has a glowing green colour that fits spring nicely. its a super bright, almost fluro green colour.

uji, kyoto, japan

we thought, what if we could take that intense, beautiful flavour and combine it into a crema? we start with ceremonial kyoto uji matcha, whisked and blended with demerara sugar, condensed milk, fresh milk, a bit of madagascar vanilla bean, and a pinch of salt. then we churn it until it turns into a soft, icy slush that's a bit airy and puffs up.

we top it off with a coffee honeycomb our clever team make in-house. this gives a super nice crunch and adds a sweetness that matches with the bitterness of the matcha. 

this will probably become one of our favourite ways to drink matcha! 

🐶 dog days

we wanted to create a coffee that was totally unlike anything we’ve done before. at home we have been having a little whiskey tipple before bedtime, and we really wanted to incorporate that smokey whiskey type flavour somehow into coffee. the flavour comes from the barrels that are set on fire and charred inside to give the whiskey its colour and flavour. 

spring means the northern hemisphere summer is coming! the romans believed that the hottest, most restless days of the year were tied to the rising of sirius, the dog star. it would appear in the early morning sky in late july, just before the sun, and they thought its glow added to the heat, drought and madness of the season.

the name is a little cheeky. it’s a nod to those slow, spring days when time feels like it stretches, when the sun is high & the windows are open.

we start off with strawberries and macerate them for two days to bring out their natural flavours. to that, we add a bit of fig leaf tea, which has this amazing coconut & walnut flavour, along with a bit of hibiscus to give it some tart and a tonne of espresso coffee using our big short blend. 

then we add a heap of milk with cookies that have been infusing over night. the acid splits the milk and we filter out all the solids to create a clear pinkish clarified milk punch. next up, we light up a spoonful of cherry wood chips and let the smoke infuse over the drink to give it a whiskey like aroma and taste. 

breathe in before your first sip, smell the cherry wood smoke. let the strawberry hit first, then the fig, then the espresso. it’s a little rich, a little floral, a little earthy.

dog days is one of our most experimental drinks so far, we’re super proud and excited for you to try!

🦆 duck shit miso

duck what? we are a little childish, when we heard the name we wanted to learn more. 

recently we were lucky to travel to china and we found this legendary oolong tea from china called duck shit oolong grown in the phoenix mountains of guangdong, china. 

phoenix mountain, chaozhou, china

back in the day, farmers named their oolong something unappealing, to keep rivals from stealing their crop. the name stuck, and today it’s one of the most prized oolongs around.

we love it for its toasty sweetness, when we tasted it, we thought, we have to create a coffee with this! first up, we make a butterscotch sauce, with brown sugar, cream, then steep in a heap of duck shit with a touch of white miso. this butterscotch is a little salty & sweet, with a load of umami. 

to build the drink, first up we put in a little oolong miso butterscotch sauce, a bit of ice, add some fresh milk, float on top some big short blend freddo espresso and add a rim of black sesame salt on the cup. 

if you love milky and creamy drinks, please try it out! 

😇 happy harry

recently our friends have been taking us out to try all sorts of new chinese desserts and we tried an osmanthus tea jelly. i've never tried anything like it before and this became our inspiration for a new tea based drink. 

we wanted to build something more gentle and refreshing. we set out how to create a super delicious and soft-textured tea jelly ourselves. 

we researched alot and found the highest quality red osmanthus tea is grown in gulin, china. the region’s climate is ideal for growing delicate teas like osmanthus. in guilin, osmanthus isn’t just a flower, it’s part of the city’s identity. streets are lined with osmanthus trees. locals infuse it into wine, rice cakes, porridge and even mooncakes.

guilin, guangxi, china

when the red osmanthus blossoms bloom once a year, it's hand-picked at its peak and dried the same day to preserve its fragrance. 

red osmanthus is a bit different than the common golden osmanthus. red osmanthus is rarer than its golden cousin and reserved for special batches of tea, desserts, or small-batch infusions made by families who’ve grown the flowers for generations.

in the tea, we’re tasting flavours like apricot jam, honey and plum. to build this drink, we add a little red osmanthus tea jelly in the bottom of the cup. the jelly is wobbly, floral & lightly sweet.

next up we add fresh coconut water, this adds a refreshing sweetness to the drink. to finish it off, we add a bit of blue pea cream, made with coastal wildflower honey from western australia from the rare honey company.  

we love this drink, it's refreshing and very fun!

🍈 little tall

sometimes our r&d team create things that are really amazing. they have been playing around with a rotary evaporator and working out how to use it well to create one of our fav drinks ever. 

we start with juicing fresh hami melon and oranges at the shop. then we add a touch of our house-made raspberry infusion to bring a pop of tartness and colour. 

to balance the fruit, we steep genmaicha tea, a japanese green tea blended with toasted rice. it adds a roasty, nutty base to compliment the sweetness and gives the drink a little warmth.

on top, we float a little layer of arufa ax cold brew, our new papua new guinea single origin. it brings dark cherry, raisin, and cacao nib flavours. 

rotovaps suck all the air out of the inside of the machine, this creates a vacuum inside which allows things to boil at a very low temperature.

we can distill delicate ingredients, like herbs, flowers, or fruit, at just 30 to 40 degrees celsius, preserving their most fragile aromatics and flavours. because it distills below normal boiling temperature, it preserves delicate aromatics that would be destroyed at 100°C.

this creates steam at a low temperature, then the super chilled condenser coil condenses the steam and it’s collected in the flask below. the liquid created is a hydrosol, it’s a bit like a non-alcoholic gin.

with this juniper hydrosol, we make a bubble that we love. we float this botanical bubble on top, it releases a foresty aroma that brings the whole drink to life.

start by eating a bit of the bubbles. then sip slowly. let the cold brew, genmaicha, and raspberry blend into the melon juice as the ice begins to melt. 

we hope you enjoy!

🐉 peachy dragon 

we had the most amazing jasmine green tea while travelling through kyoto this last winter.

it was at a little teahouse in a quiet street, one of those places that doesn’t have a sign on the door, its not listed at all so we had to drop a pin so we could save it in google maps so we can find it again.

inside, it smelled like roasted rice from genmiacha tea they were brewing. we sat on tatami mats and watched the steam rise from the bar where they were producing drinks. it was warm & toasty. 

there’s something about that green jasmine tea that stayed with us, they poured it over sliced fresh momo or japanese peach. 

when we started working on this season’s drinks, we kept thinking about our time in kyoto and were trying to work out how to combine jasmine green tea and peach.

we start off with a base of cold brew brewed at a 10:1 ratio for 16 hours made with arufa ax from papua new guinea, a super fruity natural process coffee that brings notes of dark cherry, raisin, and chocolate liqueur. then we layer it over macerated red dragonfruit, a bit of white peach juice along with jasmine green tea.

our r&d team were playing around with making a new type of foam made from whey. first we heat the milk and add a little acid to split the curds from the whey, its a little bit like little miss muffet. then we add a sage candy made from sage steeped in sugar syrup and aerate it to create a super interesting foam. then we dehydrate a dragonfruit and place it on top of the drink. 

we think this drink is super fun and interesting, we are excited for you to try it!

🍊 mont blanc 4.0

our mont blanc has been one of our most loved drinks since chapter one. every season, we’ve refined it out, tweaking the coffee, evolving the cream & playing with the aromatics. 

the very first mont blanc we created was inspired in melbourne at a little café called good measure. every season, we’ve asked ourselves: how can we make it better? what can we learn or improve?

first up, we improved the coffee. for this version, we make a 10:1 ratio cold brew with our fully washed process single origin from finca la colina in guatemala. grown in the mountains of santa rosa, this coffee is super tasty with notes of red apple, toasted walnuts, and caramely praline.

the apple-acidity adds freshness. the nutty, praline depth gives it sweetness and nuttyness. 

the cream is one of our favourite parts of this drink. we switched to french cream for extra richness, and cold infuse it with orange zest, nutmeg, and vanilla bean for over 48 hours. it’s a little bit bright from the citrus & warm from the spice. 

we layer the drink with muscovado at the bottom, cold brew over ice, the infused cream floating on the coffee, a sprinkle of nutmeg and a dehydrated orange slice to to top it off. 

no need for a straw, drink it through the cream, letting it mix slowly as you sip to get the layers. each sip changes slightly as the ice melts and it all mixes together as you go.

one hundred years ago, the joo chiat area used to be a nutmeg plantation, perhaps it was where our shop is now.

we hope you love this version as much as we do.

🌻 chapter five: summer 2025 - coming soon!

it's been a rollercoaster r&d journey this spring season and we are excited for you to try it. 

our team is constantly finding new inspiration and ideas, we have already got a big list of ideas and we are cracking on to get started with our summer 2025 menu!

seeya soon! 💙