☃️ chapter three: winter 2025 - my smoky bu

time flies when you're having fun and our little shop has now been open for five months. we are super excited to launch our winter 2025 menu, it's our third menu already since we opened! our r&d team has been working very hard each day, learning, researching, travelling and playing to put together a menu that we really adore and love to drink.

we have had a great autumn season and it is really incredible to see everyone's posts and videos each day of our lovely customers enjoying their drinks in our little coffee bar. we have been very humbled these last few months, especially having us featured on straits times and a heap of other articles. this sort of thing really means alot to us and it's incredible to be featured after our team put so much effort and focus into our craft. 

in this season we have really doubled down on what we do. we have really been thinking about setting new goals for ourselves & improving what we do. making everything fresh from scratch at the shop, and putting a lot of time into sourcing the best quality ingredients we can find. we really want to push ourselves to create the next revolution in coffee and we are excited about what the future can hold. each day we keep thinking and refining. 

☃️ winter 2025 : new season’s coffee

this season, our r&d team has been playing with single origins from brazil with a natural pulped process and a natural process single origin from ethiopia. 

catuai araponga

this winter we came across some new catuai araponga beans. they're from the araponga region in matas de minas in brazil. this region is famous for its very fertile soil which gives the beans really complex flavors. it’s grown at a bit of a lower altitude of 1000 to 1400 meters above sea level. this is a little warmer climate where the cherry growth and maturation is a bit faster, giving the coffee a strong depth of flavor and helping to create more nutty and chocolatey flavours.

the catuai araponga goes through a pulped natural processing or what they call a semi-washed method. this helps to bring out the sweetness and nutty flavours that we love, and creates a balance between the heavier body of natural processing and the clarity of fully washed processing. 

we thought this bean would be a perfect addition to our updated mont blanc version 3.0. we’re tasting milk chocolate, roasted nuts & toffee caramel notes and it tastes delicious as a cold brew. 

araponga, matas de minas, brazil

bobea uke

next up we were on the hunt for a bean with big fruit flavours. we found a standout ethiopian coffee from the oromia region with a fully natural process. 

it's from the oromia region in ethiopia, grown in bobea uke. this area is well known for producing vibrant and fruity coffee. grown at very high altitudes at 2200–2300 meters above sea level, these very high altitudes and cold climate produce very slow coffee cherry maturation, which creates very complex sugars and flavors.

74110 is an ethiopian heirloom coffee grown for producing coffee with bright, fruity, and even a bit tea-like characters. we love coffee with natural processing. first up the grower dries the coffee cherries whole, imparting intense fruity flavors and a lush, syrupy body and mouthfeel.

in this coffee, we’re tasting tangerine, yellow plum & red tea. it's a little delicate, floral and slightly tannic. we’re excited to use this coffee in our new pear pressure & smoky bu drinks!

bobea uke, ethiopia 

🍠 yeast coast

this season we aimed to create a very, very special tea drink for our friends who don't enjoy drinking coffee. we have been lucky to be traveling to china a bit recently and for supper our friends took us to a traditional dessert shop where we tried a fermented rice mochi for the first time. we loved the texture and almost boozy sour flavour from the koji wine yeast they use to ferment the rice. 

this drink is complicated for us to make but fun to drink and we have been working on refining out the process for the past couple of months. we love to ferment and create new flavours and textures from familiar ingredients. 

first up we take glutinous rice, soak it and wash it in hot water. then we steam it, add a touch of koji wine yeast from china and ferment it at 30 degrees for 36 hours. this yeast is very powerful and it starts to ferment and bubble up quickly, creating a runny mochi with a lot of texture. 

next we steam up some japanese purple sweet potatoes, add a little honey and create a nice puree. 

after we extract some assam black tea and mix it with fresh milk to create a black milk tea. then we take a fresh cream cheese and combine it with cream for a nice topping. to finish we combine it all together, sprinkle a little sugar and blowtorch it to create a toffee brulee. 

start off by cracking the brulee, tasting a little cream, then use a straw to taste the mochi and sweet potato individually, then mix it all together as you go to create a great flavour profile. 

🍞 great in bread 

when we were going out to the fruit shop near our house these past few weeks, we saw a lot of super plump persimmons around. when i was younger my mom used to make a steamed persimmon pudding that i loved and this flavour gives us memories of our childhood. 

we aimed to create a hot drink for our winter menu, this is the first time we have created a hot specialty coffee. we thought of taking the persimmon pudding flavour profile, and combining it with the flavour profile of a mulled wine and create a special new coffee. 

first up we get the spices and roast them to bring out their toasty flavours. then we chop the persimmon and cook them with some sugar until they are nicely caramelised. we then blend it all up and mix it through the milk and coffee. then we top it off with a little cute house made gingerbread man that we make at the shop, it makes the whole shop smell like gingerbread. this drink nicely represents winter for us, and we hope everyone who enjoys hot coffee can try this drink!

💨 smoky bu

as we have been spending time in china these last few months, lately it's been freezing and we have been drinking alot of hot tea. we’ve been trying all sorts of different types and we were lucky to try a tea we had never tried before. we tried this incredible lapsang souchong with a very unfamiliar, smoky taste.

this tea is grown in the wuyi mountains in china. they dry tea leaves over pinewood fires, giving it an intense smoky flavour. it reminded us of when we would go camping when we were younger, we thought about how we could create a coffee with this amazing tea. 

wuyi shanmai mountains, china

first up we make a candy with a little bit of sugar, lapsang souchong and some litsea pungens. this is another super interesting ingredient, they look a bit like peppercorns and adds a lemony and slightly peppery taste. 

to finish the drink, we take the lapsang souchong & litsea pungens candy, juice some fresh apricots and oranges, add some bobea uke cold brew and shake it all up to aerate, slightly dilute and chill the drink, then to serve we add a couple of drops of fresh yuzu juice. 

this drink is a bit different for sure, a combination of coffee and tea, smoky and sweet along with some acid from the orange and yuzu. we love it and we hope you’ll enjoy it too!

🌲 black forest

sometimes our r&d team create mind blowing things that i have never seen before and this is one of them. our clarified coconut milk happy valley punch was one of our most popular drinks that we ran for the past two seasons. our team love to make clarified milk punch coffees and they spent the last few months playing around with clarifying chocolate milk, it's really clever and something we haven't seen before.

we thought about how we could take the flavours of a black forest cake and turn it into a coffee drink. first we get a heap of big short blend espresso, make a coulis with morello sour cherries and add some wildflower honey from western australia from the rare honey company and a little vanilla bean. next we take some fresh milk and a little bit of cream, gently bring it up to 50 degrees, add some chocolate and mix everything together. this causes the milk to separate the curds from the whey, we let it clarify and remove the curds with a 24 hour gravity clarification, letting it drip slowly. 

over the past months we have all been seeing the fix chocolate from dubai on our socials and we were working out how we could try it. our r&d team were lucky to travel there recently. it's really hard to find when you're there, it's only sold on deliveroo for two hours a day and it sells out in a few minutes. they timed it and were able to buy one and bring it back for us all to try. we were so surprised and excited. we thought about how we could create something like it for everyone to try in singapore by making it in house and sitting it on top of the drink!

the black forest has an incredible dark maroon and purple colour, hold it up to the sunshine and see the colour and clarity of the drink and it has a nice mouthfeel. we can taste the chocolate, each of the components and all blended together is a great combo. this is one of our favourite drinks and we really love it!

🍐 pear pressure

we love to go snowboarding in japan, and we are super lucky and excited to go again soon this year for our winter holiday! when we were there last year, we were drinking japanese sencha tea each morning when we woke up. it was a lovely warming start to the day to help rehydrate after snowboarding all day the previous day, and perhaps to cure a small hangover after a little sake, umeshu or beer the night before!

sencha and matcha is grown from the same green tea plant, but are grown, processed and consumed differently. sencha is grown in full sunlight until harvesting, where matcha is covered 3-4 weeks before harvested and grown in the shade, this increases its chlorophyll levels giving matcha a super green colour. we take this sencha and brew it at 80 degrees for five minutes, this lower temperature ensures there is low bitterness and less tannins. 

then we sous vide together fresh nashi pear, lemongrass and rock sugar at 60 degrees for one hour. then we grab some pomegranate juice and bobea uke cold brew that we brew at a 10:1 ratio for 18 hours. 

to assemble the drink we gently stir to combine and add some dehydrated nashi pear. this drink is more refreshing and has a light flavour profile with a little sweetness. it's a real wintery drink with winter fruits!

🌰 crema al caffè 

sometime last year we travelled to italy in the europe summer. the coffee culture is different there. there are no seats and people stand around the coffee bar to talk with the barista. in some ways, this gave us inspiration for our shop.

there was this little bakery at the top of the hill near where we were staying. along with their espresso, we kept seeing people drinking this coffee slushy out of small cups. we tried it and it changed our life. it was sweet and refreshing for the summer sun.

we researched how to make it and found they use a pre-made powder for this drink, it's a bit like a three-in-one coffee using instant coffee powder, powdered milk and sugar. we wondered what it would taste like if we recreated it with specialty coffee and proper ingredients. 

after a lot of testing, we decided to use our big short blend in espresso to get a super punchy coffee flavour and churn it with full cream milk, condensed milk and a little brown sugar. then we add a heap of hazelnut & almond praline on top that we make to add some nutty flavours and a crunchy texture. we hope you like it!

🍊 mont blanc 3.0

our mont blanc is one of our best selling drinks from the start and this will be the third version we are refining. each menu we keep tweaking and playing with the ingredients and recipe. this time we improved the coffee to have an even better flavour profile and enhance the cream and technique by changing to a french cream and improving the process. 

we love to travel to find new inspiration and to take others on our learning journey as we learn more about coffee. as we were developing this drink we shared with our barista team about this new trend in australia, mont blanc.

they hadn't travelled far from singapore before and were lucky to explore and experience coffee in melbourne for the first time, he went to good measure in melbourne, the creator of the mont blanc and described it with a great coffee aroma and smooth texture. we thought of making our own version of this popular drink and sharing it with you all.

we make a 10:1 ratio cold brew with our catuai araponga beans from brazil. this coffee has some milk chocolate, roasted nuts & toffee caramel notes and tastes delicious. 

to put this drink together, we take some muscovado sugar from mauritius, and make a sugar syrup with a little orange zest inside, add this to the cold brew to sweeten it a little, then we take some french cream and soak it for 48 hours with more orange zest, vanilla beans and nutmeg. 

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

🌸 chapter four: spring 2025 - coming soon!

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

our team is constantly finding new inspiration and ideas, we have already got a big list of ideas and we have some interesting new science lab equipment and techniques we are playing with. we are super excited to see what they come up with for our spring 2025 menu!