Joo Chiat cafe fuses fine-dining techniques into cocktail-like coffee drinks

SINGAPORE – Ms Daphne Phee gingerly lifts a cloud of flavour-infused bubbles, made by a foam machine using water that has been boiled with ginger and peppercorn.

This could have been the piece de resistance in some dishes at fine-dining establishments. Instead, the 32-year-old places the foam on a honey-infused base of osmanthus tea and cold brew coffee.

The resulting creation is the Bus Uncle, one of several cocktail-style coffee drinks available at the two-month-old Big Short Coffee in Joo Chiat.

The use of various molecular gastronomy techniques – including emulsification, or the incorporation and stabilisation of air bubbles in a liquid mixture – was born of a desire to stand out among its competitors, Ms Phee said.

“The food and beverage industry is very competitive in Singapore, and it’s challenging to open a new cafe with conventional speciality coffee that everyone is doing, selling lattes and flat whites,” she added.

“Our aim was to be unique and create a new concept that no one has seen before.”

The cafe was co-founded by Ms Phee, a Singaporean with 18 years of experience in the F&B industry, and Mr Harry Grover, an Australian who started the popular local chain, Common Man Coffee Roasters.

The duo spent a few years researching and experimenting on cocktail-like coffee drinks before opening their physical store.

Since its opening on July 26, these drinks, which cost $8 to $8.50 each, have been making the rounds on social media, thanks to netizens and food bloggers.

“People have fun with the Bus Uncle. They try to bite the foam off and it sometimes gets on their nose,” said Ms Phee.

Another cocktail-like concoction is the Happy Valley Punch, an espresso-based drink that incorporates fresh orange and bergamot. It contains clarified coconut milk, made in-house via milk clarification – a process that safely curdles milk to remove its bitter and astringent tastes, and is often used in the world of cocktails. 

At the cafe was Ms Chana Clark, a tourist visiting from Hawaii with her sister, Ms Brandy Mamizuka, who said: “It was so neat to watch them make the drinks right in front of you, and the care they take to make them.”

The two had found the cafe online and decided to give it a try.

“We were surprised to see the ingredients. Being from Hawaii, there’s coffee with different types of milk, but Big Short Coffee uses fruit and tea, and it’s really cool.”

Big Short Coffee is among the latest establishments to offer such Instagram-ready cocktail-like drinks, with the likes of King’s Cart Coffee Factory already having such beverages on their menus.

To King’s Cart’s founder Ronald Tan, the creative drinks help to bridge the gaps between the two factions of coffee drinkers: the “coffee snobs” and the uninitiated.

“Sometimes, coffee can be intimidating, especially if you do not know the vocabulary or lack coffee knowledge,” said Mr Tan, 37.

“The other group tends to find the former pretentious and simply wants a cup of coffee without all the fluff. We witnessed on multiple occasions these two factions of people bickering and that got me thinking – am I able to bridge this?”

He was inspired by his visits to cocktail bars, some of which had menus with illustrations of their drinks, accompanied by “the expressions they want to showcase in the beverage”.

“For a person like me who did not understand cocktails at first, the menu itself was an interesting read,” Mr Tan recounted.

Monk’s Brew Club, a cafe and community space in the East Coast neighbourhood, also has a line of cocktail-like coffees, which took founder Alaap Tatwawadi and his team of baristas two months to create.

“There are people from different parts of the world who live in the neighbourhood. Therefore we said, okay, we need to bring in flavours that cater to every palate,” said the 45-year-old.

Even with its molecular gastronomy-inspired creations, Big Short Coffee has introduced new creations to its line-up of drinks to keep things fresh for its customers in a competitive coffee scene.

The Little Black Sheep, a cold brew-based drink, is a new addition to its menu. The drink comes with an orange-flavoured cold smoke bubble on top, which is produced with a smoking gun and dissipates upon touch, leaving a lingering aroma as one sips the drink.

“Coffee beans change with the seasons and fruits change too,” said Ms Phee.

“Each day, our research and development team is learning new techniques and flavour combinations, so this allows them to constantly create new things.”

Correction note: The spelling of Mr Harry Grover’s name has been updated in this version of the story.