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OLD KUCHING: CARPENTER STREET PART 4. BLACK BEAN COFFEE

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H
idden away at the edge of Carpenter Street, you might be wondering why such a small café might be full (It’s not just because they only have three tables). Being a café located in the part of town where cafés are usually designed as “tourist bait”, selling expensive foreign coffee equivalent to black watery dirt and faking their way into unsuspecting hearts with their “local” decor, Kuching-ites may feel wary in trusting just any café. Besides, who could blame them?

If you can suspend your scepticism and stop by to soak in the stained columns, white coated walls and charming setup, this shop which epitomises Classic Kuching might just entice you to grab a seat. If you have, you might have also been enticed to grab a cup of coffee. Once you’ve had your coffee and taken your first sip, congratulations! You now understand why so many stay and why it’s worth the wait even when this place is full. You now understand that this is not just any “tourist bait”. Quite the opposite. You’re experiencing the real deal of what Local Sarawak Coffee is like.

Opened in 2001, Black Bean has managed to take local Liberica coffee beans to new heights by steering away from the norm of promoting Arabica beans. Arabica beans have rightly so been the Coffee species of choice, yielding a large array of different flavour and aroma profiles. What Liberica beans do provide though is a different matter. Not better, but different. What kind of different though? The good kind of different.


Unlike beans that we are used to that are pre-roasted and packed for us, Black Bean is one of the two prominent cafés that roast their own beans. What in-house roasting does is present us with a flavour that is exactly the way the owner intended for us to taste. It is the attention to detail from the way these beans are personally picked after acquiring them from a local plantation, to the way it is roasted to form the flavour you are picking up with your palates.

Now the way you’ll want to pick up these flavours starts from a single cup of espresso which is the base for our favourite coffee drinks. The water to coffee ratio in the espresso here is estimated to be 1:3 so it makes for easier drinking and upon first sip, you will want to take a whiff of your coffee before spraying it on your tongue by said sipping.


Before we continue, I might add that it takes years to pick up all the notes from your cup of coffee and though I do not have the experience, I can do my best tell you what most of us who are not coffee aficionados might pick up.

You will be able to pick up hints of berry and nutty aromas while the flavour spraying your tongue will carry an earthy and mildly dark chocolaty flavour. It must be noted as well that this espresso is a blend of Liberica and Robusta and the latter brings about a pleasant bitterness that we are so fond of in our coffee. This is only possible due to the care that is taken from the roasting process all the way to manually pulling the espresso unlike many cafés you might encounter. You will not find many places in Kuching that not only do this, but proudly serve beans that make up 2% of coffee produced in the world.

There are many things that could have gone wrong with this cup, but for all the things that could have gone wrong.. What Black Bean has done by no easy feat, is create a good cup of coffee.

Now because the base of your coffee is done right, we know that we do not have to worry too much about how the rest of our coffee choices will turn out.



As for these choices, you may choose to add brown sugar which is a good additive if you like something a little sweeter while adding a fuller body, or even milk that Black Bean does well to add enough of said flavour and body that you require to enhance your coffee experience.

Iced Latte 
Iced Cappucino
Cappucino 
Latte
Regardless of what you choose to add, I will never go so far to say that these additives will contaminate your coffee experience, but done well like in Black Bean, these will enhance what you enjoy most with your coffee and trust me; Black Bean is one of those rare cafés that does it well.

 Black Bean is open from Monday to Saturday and from 9:00am to 6:00pm.

 You may find them using the following Google Map Location found below and if you have liked reading this post, please like, share and comment to share your views! Much Love!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEAN? RUSTY BEAN & BATTER

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One of the better signs in Kuching. Taken from their Facebook Cover.

I adjust my expectations accordingly whilst always doing my best to give the benefit of the doubt to situations that call for it. Hipster cafés being one of them. With many sprouting like mushrooms and good ones being hard one to find among the bunch, it does no one any good to come in with a negative approach.

Rusty Bean & Batter is one of those hipster cafés that desires you to believe in how good it is. In fact, it tries very hard to inform you of how good it is from its vintage décor to the custom tumblers with their logos on them. The pleasant atmosphere is enhanced with the warm light bulbs that are scattered throughout the ceiling by use of vintage looking pipes.




Hipster cafés can be pricey, and this place is no exception. It is in fact pricier than most if you are in it to try their specialty items or their food menu.

I love coffee, so give me a long black or cappuccino on those cold rainy Kuching nights and I’m in a happy mood for the whole day but seeing as I was here and the item known as the Rusty Fairy ate up 1/6 of the menu board, why not give it a try? As they say, when in Rome.. Do as the Romans do.


If you haven’t been on Facebook or Instagram to see the flood of pictures circulating the interwebs on it and if what you are imagining is based on that illustration on the board, do not be fooled. The cotton candy is big. Really big. And the cup of steamed milk is big as well while the amount of espresso is tiny. Really tiny. 
  
That's a latte a friend ordered next to the "Rusty Fairy". She refused to comment on taste.

As I drank from the cup after I followed instruction to put the cotton candy into the steamed milk, then the cup of espresso after, I was not surprised when the first flavour that came to me was how sweet it was. Apart from that and the warm body of milk, the taste of coffee I was looking for was left wanting. It neither mattered what roast the beans were, nor how good the extraction was when it was busy being drowned in all that sugar and milk.

It must be noted that it was a busy day and the staff were too busy to tend to the confused look on my face as to how much cotton candy is to be put into this drink. From blogs I later learned that you’re supposed to twirl it all while condensing it to be small enough to put into your cup. This is insanity as I only took 1/10 of  that amount which was more than enough.

What I tried next was one chosen because of its complexity in its simplicity. The Eggs Benedict. Poached eggs drizzled with a generous serving of creamy Hollandaise sauce, sitting on a bed of grilled ham and a toasted buttery English muffin. Simple enough right? You’d be surprised. A lot can go wrong with making the sauce and poaching an egg.

 I did fear though when the cashier mentioned to me that the one who prepared it was only trained by the owner who himself wasn't a chef, but worked in an Australian restaurant. 


 The Eggs Benedict took a while to arrive on my table but still managed to be lukewarm. The Hollandaise, which is supposed to be creamy and bright from the zest that lemon brings was both runny and had a very flat flavour. 


The eggs were poached nicely I have to admit which is quite a feat, but didn’t come to my plate warm and wasn’t seasoned enough barring the generous amount of pepper. 


The ham that it was resting on was not grilled and crisp while the English muffin, wasn’t an English muffin but a thick slice from a French Baguette. If I were to go even further, what was the use of the flat and wilted few leaves of "salad" and one slice of a sad and dull looking tomato?

I’m not trying to knock the fact that you’re not using all the essential ingredients, but for RM16.90 for a plate I should be getting what I paid for.

Don’t get me wrong. This absolutely is a nice place to sit and chat with your friends while enjoying the ambience accompanied with comfortable seats, beanbags or sofas while listening to Indie music, but it can be lacking in the food and beverage department in terms of what I’ve had. I’m not saying that you can’t enjoy their food and drinks, but if sweet drinks and marketing gimmicks are what you’re into, this is for you and you are free to part with your hard earned money as you please.




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