A taste of Penang’s real coffee

“When Malaysian Chinese people started to become really crazy rich Asians, they also wanted to follow Western trends, and of course having seen many foreigners enjoying their coffee, even the Chinese wanted to try.”

I am sitting in an old-world food court, long and horizontal, covered by a metallic gable roof and listening with attention to the charismatic Teoh Shan Tatt, better known as Tiger — partly because of his exuberance, and partly because of his birth year according to the Chinese zodiac.

Tiger is retelling the story of how the Chinese community of Malaysia got to create their unique version of the brew, Nanyang coffee.

We met just half an hour earlier in Padang Tembak, or the Rifle Range, an area sandwiched between a slope of Penang Hill on the namesake Malaysian island.

“You know, the Chinese never liked the English coffee because it was too sour… that’s why they experimented to adjust the flavour to their liking, and that’s how the Nanyang variety, which means South-East Asia, was born,” Tiger says.

He explains as the Chinese were used to stir-frying everything, they put coffee beans inside a wok and then added butter to make them smoother to fry.

Nanyang coffee was generally made from robusta beans grown on the island of Java in Indonesia. Still, over time, parts of the southern Malaysian Peninsula began producing their own locally grown liberica beans.

As I listen, we have a breakfast of local dim sum, rice cakes, and, obviously, a cup of local coffee from the 118 Coffee Stall. It’s as barebones and traditional as the old Rifle Range Market we are sitting in — think a fortune teller with a hat emblazoned with symbols among the available stalls.

The coffee is thick, almost liquor-like, and velvety on the tongue, and comes in vintage-looking cups adorned with flowers, filled to the brim and spilling the stuff on to the saucer, turning it into a dark swimming pool for microbes.

“See?” says Tiger, dropping even more coffee inside his saucer and then lifting it and using it as a bowl to drink. “This is how we local Chinese drink coffee when we think it’s too hot.”

As soon as we met at a local kindergarten, resourceful Tiger handed out a little booklet explaining the differences between northern, central, and southern coffee ordering methods — a sort of dictionary for the Malaysian coffee uninitiated.

That was when I learnt that, even after 15 years in Penang, I didn’t know coffee served with ice cubes in a tray around the cup is an “aircond” — a way to cool down the brew without making it “ais” (iced) by pouring ice cubes directly into it.

The coffee experience Tiger curates is part of Penang Hidden Gems (penanghiddengems.com), a bespoke local tour company focused on going beyond the obvious George Town trails. He pairs Nanyang coffee’s curious history with an exploration of his native Rifle Range flats, market and food courts. Tourist itineraries entirely overlook this area, but it holds great significance for Penang Island’s history.

“And it still has a bad reputation because it was kind of a bad neighbourhood filled with gangsters, a bit like Hong Kong’s Kowloon,” says Tiger with a hint of pride.

“But, in fact, it was and still is a very tight-knit community where everything is in walking distance and accessible — even the cemetery.”

He points at a line of traditional Chinese graves strung on the foothills next to the flats.

“Let’s say, born, live and die all within a few minutes’ walking,” says Tiger before cracking into a hearty laugh.

It was in Padang Tembak/Rifle Range that, shortly after Penang lost its free port status in 1967 and many jobs with it, the island entered a period of severe recession.

The Federal Government then decided to build many affordable housing units quickly and cheaply by using a novel French prefabricated housing system imported by a German company, Hot Chief, which worked with local company Chee Seng.

The whole nine blocks of the Rifle Range flats were completed in less than three years using the current PBA building (Penang Water Company) as a building materials factory. Upon completion in 1969, the 17-storey Padang Tembak flats was the tallest building in Malaysia.

Tiger keeps telling stories as he finally takes us inside the Rifle Range Flats, going up to the second level and showing the Art Deco-style staircase between the rows of facing balconies — a jump into a past that no Penangite is very comfortable remembering.

We enter a 28sqm apartment Tiger’s family owns and uses as a showpiece lab to explain and demonstrate how the roasting process starts — the bulk of the experience.

This, Tiger clarifies, is a very different culture and process for making coffee that would probably horrify Melbourne’s Lygon Street baristas — but again, the aim here is to make coffee the way Malaysian Chinese like it.

This happens by adding so many unorthodox things that distort entirely the taste of beans which, remember, are necessarily unrefined.

It’s our turn to learn the art of Nanyang coffee: Tiger puts butter, sugar, and flaxseeds (not necessary, but good to make the beans taste nuttier) on the side, warms a deep frying pan, and pours in half a kilo of beans.

“Stir up,” he says to me and another customer from New York before leaving us to spin the beans in a circle, always in the same direction.

We add butter until it melts into a blackish sauce, then it evaporates into the beans, turning into a molasses-type binder that makes them sticky. After the coffee is roasted, we set it aside for a while, then smash it to smithereens with a hammer and grind it into the powder that will brew the stuff.

The final test is to bring our mixture to Teoh Sing Kong, aka Ah Kwang or Pek Moh Kwang — Tiger’s father — for approval.

Hailing from a family of coffee makers who made their start by peddling the brew on the streets of Kuala Kurau in Perak State, Ah Kwang has owned Kwang Coffee Stall since 1982.

It’s a rickety blend of metal tables, an awning and some stacked furniture to hold cups and hot water tanks together, and sits right at the bottom of the Rifle Range’s block F and G.

When Ah Kwang tests our stuff while preparing some drinks, I must admit I shudder a bit, thinking I might fail.

“Good job,” says Tiger as he serves some cold hor ka sai, which means “tiger eats lion” in Hokkien (a misunderstanding of “you’re great” in Cantonese, he explains), which is a mix of Milo and coffee.

“Dad says you all passed.”

My stomach relaxes as the friendly Kwang comes over to serve us his special Deities Coffee — a mix of milk, coffee and barley that’s unique to this stall.

And if the master himself approves by bestowing a special drink for a prize, I can pretend I have mastered the art — or just realise that fine art can be simple, besides being utterly delicious.