The Brew Culture, Kuala Lumpur

Coffee is freedom.

The first thing you notice is a tray of Farmhouse milk cartons next to the staircase. Upon closer inspection, these turn out to be emptied cartons filled with spent coffee grounds. A sign says “FREE” and the fine print reveals the used grounds are good as plant fertilizer and deodorisers for kitchens, toilets and any rooms with strong smells.

Surely an unusual introduction to a café but after walking a flight of stairs, it’s easy to understand what sort of café The Brew Culture is. The brainchild of fellow high schoolmates and former engineers Hiew Kuei Yin and Jeffrey Ng, this new café was built with the environmentally friendly 3Rs motto in mind.

Hiew shares that they believe in the 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and from the looks of the café, that is clearly the direction they have taken it. From collecting used pallets and converting them into the café’s wall decorations, book shelves and benches to reusing industrial crates as coffee tables, there is a strong green energy imbuing the café.

Old wine bottles are used as water containers for their complimentary (and naturally, house-made) pandan and lemongrass flavoured table water. The same milk cartons that held spent coffee grounds downstairs is now used as café lamps upstairs, albeit colourfully decorated by hand.

This is a place one can safely assume Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio would feel at home at. In fact, it could be a great place to show ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘The 11th Hour’, if the café owners are so inclined.

They certainly seem in favour of saving the environment over a nice cuppa joe. Jeffrey reveals, “90% of our lamps used are either LED or energy saving lamps; they cost much higher but we still prefer them not just for energy-saving reasons but for their impact on the eco-system.”

“A lot of things we consume can still be reused if we think twice before just dumping them. For example, we charge extra for every takeaway cup to encourage our customers to bring their own tumblers to reduce the usage of disposable paper products,” adds Hiew.

Hiew had worked as a production engineer after returning from the United States while Jeffrey had studied in Tasmania and worked as a Scada engineer locally before they both decided it was time for a career change.

“I was trained as an electronic engineer and wasn’t expecting one day doing something totally different,” says Hiew, before adding, “In a way, I am still an engineer though, only now I am involved in engineering of coffee.”

It was more than engineering of good coffee that Hiew got involved in; it was due to his influence that his old friend Jeffrey first got interested in coffee:

“Hiew told me espresso can actually taste very good if the barista made it right. I was doubtful in the beginning as I still remember my first cup of espresso during my younger years. I had it in one of the branded coffee houses. It was an awful experience and it totally put me off coffee.”

Jeffrey’s future café partner had good reason to be so zealous about coffee being a convert himself: “I once tried an espresso and that astringent cup of black juice didn’t impress me at that time. The whole experience changed for me when I took up a coffee appreciation seminar in Singapore in early 2011. I finally had a properly extracted espresso that was so sweet with unforgettable flavours and body. It was unlike anything I had tasted before and was the starting point of my venture into coffee.”

What was their most memorable coffee experience, then? For Hiew, it was that first properly-extracted espresso he had mentioned earlier while Jeffrey’s favourite coffee experience was an espresso brewed by Ryan Tan, the Singaporean Barista Champion.

These are a couple of guys who really love their espressos.

The Brew Culture is currently using a blend of Columbia, Brazil and Papua New Guinea for their espresso-based coffee, with plans to rotate other good espresso blends in the future. They also have various single origin coffees from different parts of the world. These are mostly brewed via the pour-over method, but customers may choose from other brewing options such as AeroPress®, French press and Chemex as well.

Their roasted beans come from a reputable roaster but they have been experimenting with in-house roasting so who knows? Maybe we will be able to try some Brew Culture house blends soon.

我們喜歡泡咖啡館，尤其是週末沒什麽事做時，
一人一本書加上相機和電腦筆記本，就能呆上一個下午。
這一兩年來巴生谷的咖啡館開了一間又一間，
除了咖啡的烹煮手法各有千秋，咖啡的口感味道各有特色外，
每間咖啡館在佈置裝潢方面也下足了心思，各有各的風格和情調。
那麼多咖啡館裡頭，有五家是我們常去的。
其中一家就是位於 Plaza Damas 3 的 The Brew Culture。
大片的落地窗，寬敞明亮的室內和木質的桌椅，
是這間咖啡館給我們的第一印象。

如果仔細留意的話，還能找到許多有趣的發現哦。
像是每張椅子的椅腳上都帶了套子，躲在一角的‘退休’了的烤爐，
還有落地窗前用牛奶盒製成的燈罩，再加上牆上有趣的繪圖，
是一間很討喜咖啡館。
老闆們是兩位大男生，混熟后才知道他們都跟我一樣‘不務正業’，
明明讀的是工程系，最後從事了和工程系沒關係的行業。
不過嘛他們至少還做了幾年的工程師，
而我則從一畢業到現在都還在‘不務正業’。
（說到這裡，你相信嗎？我竟然在同一家公司里不務正業了十二年啦！）。
如果是經常來這的朋友，應該會發現這的擺設不時就會有所改變，
除了桌椅的位置經常變動外，還會不時加入一些新元素。
偶爾還會播放一些大自然的聲音。
如果你在這聽到鳥叫蟲鳴，或是海浪的聲音，
請不要驚慌，這都是背景音樂的一部份。