🍂 chapter six : autumn 2025 - up and away

Nov 6

9 min read

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this season has been super fun, we’ve looked at everything we do, we’ve been reading, experimenting and testing, trying to understand what makes coffee truly satisfying.

this menu is our most ambitious yet. we’ve pushed ourselves harder than ever, experimenting with new equipment and mastering new techniques.

we are very thankful to you all and we appreciate all our customers coming to the shop, trying out our drinks and thank you for so many stories and posts.

we feel incredibly proud of how far the team has come. the process behind every drink has become more thoughtful and more intentional. this chapter reminds us that progress doesn’t always look fast or loud, sometimes it’s quiet, steady, and built one experiment at a time.

thank you for sharing this journey with us. whether you’ve been here since the first menu or just discovered big short this season, we’re so grateful to have you part of our community. we hope we can bring you a small moment of joy and a spark of curiosity, see you soon at the coffee bar! 💙

🍂 autumn 2025 : new seasons coffee

we’ve been tasting, tweaking, and reworking our recipes to let their natural flavours shine in different ways: in cold brew, as espresso and clarified. we hope you love them!

🇪🇹 rachia : yirgacheffe, ethiopia

rachia comes from the idido village in yirgacheffe, southern ethiopia, one of the most famous coffee regions in the world. the area sits high in the mountains at 2,000 meters above sea level, surrounded by forest and rich volcanic soil. this altitude, along with cool nights and dry harvest days, helps the cherries ripen slowly and develop sweetness and aromatics.

yirgacheffe coffee is known for it’s floral and fruit character and rachia captures that perfectly.

most of the coffee here is grown by farmers working small family plots. every cherry is handpicked, sorted and dried on raised beds under the sun. this natural drying process takes two or three weeks, concentrating sugars and building sweetness inside the bean.

rachia is made up of heirloom ethiopian varieties that have been cultivated in yirgacheffe for generations. we’re tasting strawberry, nectarine and earl grey. it is aromatic, bright, and tea-like, with a silky, medium body. its a super delicious coffee.

yirgacheffe, ethiopia

🇬🇹 huehuetenango : guatemala

huehuetenango, pronounced way-way-ten-ango, is one of guatemala’s most celebrated coffee-growing regions. located in the west near the mexican border, the farms sit around 1,500 meters above sea level. cool mountain air meets warm, dry winds rising from mexico’s dessert plains, creating a rare climate that protects the cherries from frost and allows them to ripen slowly. this long, gentle maturation builds sweetness and complexity.

the coffee here is grown by small family farms. the producers handpick their cherries at peak ripeness and process them in small backyard mills using the traditional washed method. the terrain is rugged and remote, so every step, from harvesting to drying is done by hand.

this coffee is made up of bourbon, caturra, catuai and typica varieties. the washed process highlights the region’s structure and sweetness. we’re tasting yellow stonefruit, praline, and cacao nibs. it’s a bit round and nutty with a little dark chocolate bitterness.

huehuetenango : guatemala

🍵 crema al hōjicha

this drink came from our love for japanese roasted teas. the last time we were in japan, we were invited to a tea tasting by a small co-operative that brings together farmers and producers from around the country. they served us a blend of hōjicha and genmaicha, we hadn’t tasted anything like it before. it was roasted, nutty and toasty.

when we got back, we started experimenting, the idea was to make something soft, creamy and light, but instead of coffee or matcha, we’d use roasted tea.

hōjicha is a japanese green tea that’s roasted over high heat charcoal, giving it a warm, nutty and caramel-like aroma with smooth, subtle smoky notes. genmaicha is a blend of green tea and roasted brown rice, known for its toasty, popcorn-like fragrance. together, they create a layered flavour that’s both comforting and complex.

uji, kyoto, japan

we blend super high quality charcoal-roasted uji hōjicha from kyoto with genmaicha and okinawa black sugar, then churn it slowly until it turns silky and cloud-like. the texture sits somewhere between gelato and cream.

to finish, we sprinkle roasted pistachios with genmai over a meringue we make at the shop and dust the whole thing with kinako, a roasted soy bean powder from japan.

take your first spoonful from the top. it starts smooth and roasted, then melts into layers of caramel and toasted rice.

we hope you like it as much as we do. 🍵

🥜 peanut milk

we’re big fans of bao london. when the founders were in singapore recently, we were lucky enough to have them drop by the shop and for them to try our coffee. it was one of those moments where you realise how much you’ve been inspired by someone without meeting them. we’ve always admired how they built their world, playful, creative and full of personality.

one of their cult drinks is their peanut milk, and we couldn’t stop thinking about it. it seems like a simple drink, but it’s not so simple to make. we wanted to take that idea and make our own version.

we start off by roasting red peanuts until the whole shop smells warm and nutty. then we simmer them slowly with oat milk for about an hour, add cocoa, smoked salt, coconut flower nectar and turn it into a deep, creamy base that feels comforting but not heavy.

on top, we make a freddo espresso, a cold emulsified coffee shaken with coconut flower nectar and smoked salt. then we pour it over the peanut milk and finish it with a sprinkle of prickly pear, caramel chocolate and buckwheat soil. the garnish adds a toasted crunch and a pop of colour from the prickly pear.

prickly pear is a kind of cactus fruit known for its bright pink-red colour and flavour that’s a mix of watermelon and pear with a hint of tartness.

take a sip of the top layer first to taste the freddo espresso, then a bigger one to mix the peanut milk below, then mix it all together as you go.

we call it peanut milk, a small tribute to our friends at bao london!

🍌 pisang kikkoman

sometimes our r&d team comes up with the craziest drinks. this one started as a bit of a joke. we wanted to make a clarified banana pancake coffee.

after a few rounds in the lab, we realised the drink needed something deeper. the banana and malt were sweet and fragrant, but it needed a little umami so we added a little kikkoman. a little soy sauce gives the drink balance, a mix of sweetness, salt and malt.

it’s a clarified drink made from banana skin oleo-saccharum, kikkoman, earl grey tea, malt, roasted bananas, milk and espresso from our big short blend. oleo-saccharum is a classic technique where sugar pulls out the natural oils and aroma from banana peels, creating a syrup that’s sweet and full of flavour.

we roast bananas with malt and milk, then combine everything and filter it slowly until the liquid runs clear. we garnish it with a dehydrated banana slice.

we call it pisang kikkoman, a name that always makes people laugh before they take their first sip. it’s our reminder that the best ideas sometimes start as a joke. 🍌

🎈 up & away

we first came across the edible balloon from alinea, the three michelin star restaurant in chicago. the first time we saw it, we were completely blown away. the way chef grant achatz creates food, art and experience all in one moment has always been something we look up to. it’s playful, technical and emotional all at once.

we wanted to bring a little bit of that feeling to big short. we might not have any michelin stars, but we wanted to give our guests a bit of surprise and magic. so we started working on our own sugar balloon. it took a year of trial, error, patience and obsession. sugar work is unforgiving. the wrong temperature, a few grams off, or a humid day and everything fails. but when it works, it’s beautiful.

the drink is our first experiment with nitro coffee. first up we make a cold brew with rachia yirgacheffe, we blend it with roasted french oak and jasmine tea, fresh orange and passionfruit. its creamy from the nitro, somewhere between sweet, sour and lightly smoky. when it pours from the tap, it cascades like a guinness.

we garnish it with a dehydrated apple slice, and above it floats a helium sugar balloon. you can pop it and eat it first, or even take a breath of helium before your first sip. 🎈

🌸 saint germain

we’ve always loved elderflowers. anytime we’re at a bar, we’ll usually end up ordering a saint germain spritz if it’s on the menu.

the first time we tried a proper saint germain spritz was in paris. it was the middle of winter and freezing, but everyone still sat outside, rugged up under the heaters, eating and drinking.

since then, we’ve been thinking about how to create a coffee with elderflowers.

we cultivate a ginger bug in-house and use it as a natural starter for fermenting dried elderflowers with western australian wildflower honey from the rare honey company and fresh red grapes. it's a drink with a soft purple colour, light natural bubbles and a bit funky and alive.

to build the drink, we start with the elderflower fermentation, then add our house-made ginkgo and orange jam for a touch of nuttiness and warm citrus. we finish it with a cold brew of rachia yirgacheffe from ethiopia,

take a sip of the coffee first, then stir it well before drinking. as the layers mix, the drink shifts with every taste. you’ll catch gentle sweetness from the honey, light acidity from the grape, and a fragrant finish from the coffee and elderflower. it’s bright, layered and complex.

we ferment everything in the shop, from the ginger bug to the elderflower base, and boil the ginkgo nuts for the jam ourselves. every batch is slightly different, depending on how the ferment behaves, its super good for your gut and part of fun of playing with natural fermentation. 🌸

🍊 mont blanc

this season we went deep into the mont blanc. it’s always been one of our favourites, but we wanted to rebuild it and continue to improve.

we’re using a new guatemala coffee from huehuetenango with notes of yellow stonefruit, praline and cacao nibs. it gives the drink a rich base that holds up beautifully against the citrus and spice.

this season, we use our rotary vacuum evaporator to create a mace hydrosol. mace is the delicate, lacy covering of the nutmeg seed.

it has a warm, mildly sweet and slightly peppery flavour, similar to nutmeg but more delicate and aromatic. it gives the drink an elegant, floral lift that sits lightly over the cream.

the drink begins with a cold brew of guatemala coffee, muscovado sugar and a touch of orange zest. we top it with our vanilla bean french cream, then finish it with a spray of mace hydrosol right before serving so the aroma hits just as you take your first sip.

the coffee is a bit chocolatey, the orange is bright and the spices are warm. it’s still the mont blanc, just a quiet evolution of one of our most loved drinks. 🍊

🌽 corn hub

there’s a famous beach in bali, at jimbaran bay, where you can smell grilled corn long before you see it. it’s a little touristy and a bit overpriced, but it’s good fun sitting by the beach with some fresh seafood and maybe a bintang in hand.

a long line of pushcarts stretches along the beach, each with a small grill and a stack of corn roasting over charcoal. they brush each one with sambal butter and the smell alone is enough to stop you in your tracks. i still remember that first bite, sweet, spicy and a little smokey.

back in singapore, that memory kept replaying in our heads. we started wondering if we could turn that taste of bali into a drink.

we start by layering creamed corn mochi at the bottom of the cup. it’s soft, chewy and a little salty. then we pour in magnolia milk tea with a touch of gula melaka. instead of sambal butter, we make a gochujang caramel and mix it with french cream.

gochujang is a korean fermented chili paste made from red chili powder, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans and salt. it’s savoury, spicy and a little sweet, which gives the cream that same smoky depth as the sambal, but in a smoother, more balanced way.

to finish, we garnish the drink with a dusting of paprika powder and a few puffed corn kernels for crunch.

take your first sip from the top to get the gochujang caramel cream, then use the straw to pull up the corn mochi from below. it’s a great drink for anyone who doesn’t usually drink coffee.

we call it corn hub, a cheeky name and a reminder of the beachside corn stand we hope to visit again soon.

we hope you enjoy it! 🌽