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2010-11-07
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Time flied as it’s been more than six months since Barista Jam opened. While I’ve been visiting this place all these times, changes happened almost every time I dropped by I think it’s time to put things into words.Awards/accoladesI like to congratulate Barista Jam as the winner of the title Cafe/Coffee Shop of Timeout's Dining Awards 2010. BJ deserved it. It’s quite hard to find a café that is so technically proficient and hospitable as Barista Jam in Hong Kong. In fact, it is one of a kind
Awards/accolades
I like to congratulate Barista Jam as the winner of the title Cafe/Coffee Shop of Timeout's Dining Awards 2010. BJ deserved it. It’s quite hard to find a café that is so technically proficient and hospitable as Barista Jam in Hong Kong. In fact, it is one of a kind.
Coincidental or not, I was at BJ last Saturday and it was jam-packed. It was amazing in that up until the moment I step in and out the shop, BJ is crowded all the way with customers taking turn get all the seat and in-and-out the shop non stop! William, the head honcho at BJ, didn't really talk to me for almost 10 minutes, a phenomenon indeed vs. my previous experience, as he was busy preparing all sort of coffee for customers both eat-in and take out!! I though BJ gave away free coffees or something and it felt kinda like market than a cafe but this is a good thing.
Also, all four employee there were fully occupied with orders but they coordinated it like a pro, seamlessly executing customers order with no hiccup and keep their cool as long as I'm there. This is the cafe that opened its door for only six months and managed to achieve this kind of ‘perfect’ execution, nice and very professional indeed!!!
Guest coffee – sound easy but very difficult to implement:
Most café in Hong Kong stuck to a particular blend since opening or changed it once in a while. Not at Barista Jam. Apart from its in-house blends which ran up to number 7, rivaling typhoon signals in Hong Kong, BJ is probably the only café in Hong Kong that consistently features ‘guest coffee’ from well known cafés/roasters which is a new trend among progressive Indie cafés. While it sounds so easy just importing/ordering the beans, lots of works were put in behind the scene.
Unlike other cafes that imports its coffee, the coffee that went through the door at Barista Jam was meticulously timed with overseas roaster/cafés so that it came in at its prime condition so you won’t have a coffee that is, say, one month or more after roast date. In addition, Barista Jam also searched far and while for the brewing profiles of each particular blend it features even though it only features these blends for one to two weeks so that coffee lovers will taste such blends/coffee at the best possible condition/brewing. You can ask for his ‘research’ on each guest blend including brewing recipe/origin/roast date, etc and William will be more than happy to show you all those things.
New grinder… Up the ante!
How can you improve the cup quality of one of the best cafe in Hong Kong? It's easy, just 'upgrade' your grinder. This is a $$$ Eureka Olympus...
Lots will question who cares about a thing that ‘breaks’ the coffee apart… Some even do away with it even though they say they like coffee… For coffee, grinder is as important as location in real estate. So, it wouldn’t be so wrong to say, “In coffee, it’s grinder, grinder, grinder (like location, location, location in real estate).
Good grinder will provide a more consistent in a grind size. Think how the food will be like if each piece of the food was cut in a different size.
With BJ blend #5, the cup is definitely much clearer than what I had with flat burr Mazzer Super Jolly (SJ), a venerable grinder for the industry, so much so I can sense some change that may be lost due to a murkier cup by SJ. I was told they change the roast profile of Sumatra, hence a somewhat darker/burn or something like that of the coffee which I thought it was initially due to high brewing temp. The clearer cup is not to be missed!!!
A nitpicking is the aftertaste which, at Barista Jam, seemed to lag behind other cafés even with the new grinder. Blame it on William’s policy of ‘no taste left behind’ then as it seemed all the taste was front and center one does not have to try hard to find all those tastes. This fits very well with his character of ‘anything, everything but bored.’
I’m sure there’ll be more new development to come in the future so watch this space as it’s my understanding that grinder is the first step in improving the overall cup quality at Barista Jam. We’ll see.
張貼
