Un Cafe S'il Vous Plait : Part Un

I was acquainted with this dark mysterious caffeine drink since I was five, when my grandmother would mix it in my formula to entice me to drink up the mix. Questionable parenting aside (my grandmother is AWESOME and I dare you to challenge that notion), it started me on my passionate journey to the perfect brew. I am always looking for new coffee blends and roasts, gadgets and extraction methods. Just like any wine connoisseur would, so was I about coffee.

So, from the humble corn and margarine robusta roast of the local ‘kopitiam’ to the delicately balanced blue mountain to the overhyped ‘kopi luwak’, I have one time or another, tasted them. There are a million and one ways to extract the elixir of morning life from out of these roasted miracles, however, with the arrival of the ubiquitous ‘green siren’ and its global manifestation, no one can claim ignorance to the fast, efficient and tasty method popularised by the Italians: the espresso.

Espresso is the term used to describe many things about coffee: it is a type of roast, it is a method of extracting the drink out of said roast and it is also the term to identify the drink.

That’s the easy part. The challenge, for any barista is to extract the perfect espresso drink from the grounds. It is a delicate synthesis of consistency of grind, quantity of grounds, amount of temping of grounds and the crucial water-to-grounds ratio.

Finally, the extraction, which is perfectly enjoyable on its own, can also be used in combination with various dairy creations to create a myriad of coffee based drinks. As a benchmark, I have always used the latte: it test the barista’s skills in abovementioned extraction AND the judicious method of steaming the milk with a careful milk-to-coffee ratio. A right balance creates a beautiful symphony of flavours that enhances the coffee while a poorly executed one is simply not worth the time nor the calories.

Here then, is a collection of tasting trips and sketches that I have done over the past few months of the cafes in Singapore. Allow me to humbly present “Un Café S’il Vous Plait: Part Un”.

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Series done in ink with fountain and brush pen on Clairefontaine Goldline Hardbound 20x20 Sketchbook.