Last Wednesday, I took a detour to Shaw Parade's Typica right after work before a scheduled dinner with the gang.
Although smacked right in the heart of the city, Typica is more of a tranquil haven that's collectively ideal for both serenity seekers and coffeeholics alike. Laden with wooden furnitures and a laboratory-like worktop cum bar counter, guests can choose from taking a seat by the counter to experience a hands-on coffee brewing journey toying with coffee beans and equipments or having a sip by the floor-to-ceiling window. I would personally recommend the former, because that's what makes Typica anything but your typical caffeine fix.
So, here's my account of what happened after grabbing a seat in front of the counter.
Fancy stuffs.
Being the clueless me, manager/barista Kai Yin had helpfully ran me through what Typica is all about. Established nearly six years ago, Typica serves a range of hand-brewed coffee beverages, which includes siphon, hand drip, ice drip, milk-based and liquor-laced. No sight of latte, flat white etc. When it comes to bean sourcing, the cafe practices coffee fair trade by purchasing beans straight from independent farmers (Kluang's being one of the local farms) with fair and reasonable price, thus justifying the cafe's slightly higher price tag for every serving. Some might call it overrated, but these people are indeed putting painstakingly delicate effort in ensuring the quality of both the beans and the drinks. From bean roasting to brewing, extra coffee profiling measures are taken to fully optimize the bean's potential into handcrafted cuppa.
Feeling particularly adventurous, I opted for The Forgotten Peaberry. For the uniniated, a peaberry bean is different from your conventional coffee bean (or flatbean) as only one out of two seeds is fertilized. The fertilized seed will develop with nothing to flatten it, hence forming an oval-shaped bean. Around 5% of all coffee beans being harvested are of peaberry, and this form of beans are said to constitute taste that is much intense or stronger than the flatbeans. On the other hand, a flatbean contains two fertilized seeds, which both will develop and flatten out.
Much like groundnuts, the peaberry beans were served on a plate. Before coffee preparation, I was instructed to smell and taste the beans. Hints of cocoa was what I registered.
Moving on, a grinder was provided. I had fun grinding the beans, but the process could get a bit tiring. Judging from how bad and clumsy I was when it comes to operating the RM 160-priced manual grinder, I killed the joy by letting the professional proceeds.
And that's how coffee is prepared using a vacuum siphon. Trust me, coffee brewing is very much like chemistry. Taste profiling was done by utilising the sense of smell.
Voila! My cuppa peaberry coffee is served!
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| The Forgotten Peaberry (RM 26) |
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| Viennase Unbaked Cheesecake (RM 18) |
Before heading off dinner, our chat ended at cold-brew. I was baffled of how others could distinguish the taste variation between an iced coffee and a cold brew, so Kai Yin gave me two petite samples to try on, one of Ethiopian origin (strong, pungent stuff indeed!) and another of peaberry. Yup, the cold-brewed peaberry have the most pronounced taste when compared to what I had previously. According to Kai Yin, cold-brew preparation ain't easy job as the process could take up days albeit meticulous steps of ensuring nothing goes wrong during the delicate steeping process.
Overall, it has been a pleasant experience having a cuppa Joe at Typica. Every cup of coffee has a story and knowledge of its own, and it's these little things that would make you appreciate a little bit more of what's in your cup. Big thanks to Kai Yin for the awesome coffee!
Note: In less than a year's time, Typica will move to its Ampang HQ!
Typica
GL-08, Ground Floor,
Shaw Parade Plaza,
Changkat Thambi Dollah,
55100 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-21450328
Business hours:
Monday - Sunday: 11.00 a.m. - 9.00 p.m.
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