Mouthing Off | Why are there so many artisan coffee shops opening in Hong Kong? How city’s drinking habits have evolved
- Specialist coffee shops are popping up all over the city, with their baristas, latte art, Dalgona and fancy brews
- Hongkongers used to have simpler tastes, preferring milk tea and the Hong Kong tea-coffee hybrid yuen yeung
Who knew we were in the midst of a caffeine boom when the whole Hong Kong hospitality sector was supposed to be in the doldrums?
Where once stood old neighbourhood vendors and small snack stalls, now there are new and trendy coffee houses, all of them with a beanie-wearing barista putting his or her art school degree to good use on latte foam.
If I sound dismissive of these pretentious cafe owners and staff, I’m sorry, not sorry.
I’m equally disdainful of the customers too. Where do all these deadbeats come from – the laptop guy squatting at a corner table for hours or the wannabe Instagram star styling her selfie oblivious to the inconvenience it is causing everyone else.
When chains like Pacific Coffee and Starbucks first started expanding around the turn of Y2K, there was some scepticism as to whether Hong Kong people would embrace their kind of American-style coffee culture.
As a drink, coffee wasn’t particularly popular then, not compared to local favourites like milk tea and yuen yeung (coffee mixed with strong tea). A cup of Joe was a cheap liquid dose of caffeine that sleepy-eyed white-collar workers grabbed on the way to the desk.