The Hainanese Coffee

When we talk about a traditional Hainanese coffee shop, what’s the picture that comes to our mind? It will be an ordinary shop with lots of ceiling fans, marble-topped tables and wooden chairs. There will be a counter right at the front of the shop, which is the payment counter cum vending counter for cigarettes and candies.

Many years ago there would be a spittoon underneath every table and an essence-of-chicken bottle containing salt on each table. The cash counter would be manned by an old man or old lady who was the first generation who hailed from China. The cigarettes being sold were in packages of three sizes-6 sticks, 12 sticks, and 20 sticks. They were also in loose forms kept in different tins. There was a little oil lamp and strips of paper cut from empty ciggy boxes for smokers to light their ciggy.

 Today the traditional Hainanese coffee shops have not changed much. The spittoons and salt bottles have long been phased out. The marble-topped tables are being gradually replaced with Formica tables. Cigarettes are being sold at only one size-20 sticks. The oil lamp for lighting is no more around.

One also does not see crates of both empty and unopened bottles lying around because drinks are all in cans.

The hot drinks remained unchanged. They still serve Milo, Horlicks, Coco, tea, coffee, and ‘cham’.

What’s ‘cham’? One might ask.

Cham is the Chinese word for ‘blend’. It is actually a blend of tea and coffee. Cham is popular only in peninsular Malaysia, but not so in East Malaysia and Singapore. In Hong Kong, a blend of coffee and tea is called ‘Ying Yong’.

 Regular customers of a particular coffee shop, especially the ‘cham’ drinkers, will pick the person who brew his cham. Different customers may prefer different brewers. Why? This is because different brewer has different ratio of blending tea to coffee. The customer will like ‘cham’ from a brewer whose blending formula suits his taste. Some customers prefer a cham that is strong in coffee weak in tea, some the other way round, and some 50-50.There are coffee shop attendants who could remember the tastes of various customers and adjust the blending ratio to suit each and every one.

 So now we know why our parents and grandparents always went to the same coffee shop and insisted on being served by a certain attendant.

A hot beverage without milk is - -o, eg kopi-o; without milk and sugar is--kosong, eg teh kosong; with evaporated milk is --c, eg cham-c. If you want it thick it’s--kau, eg kopi-kau kau. If you want it thin it’s ---bok, eg teh-bok. If you want it with ice, then it’s ---bing, eg Cham-bing.

All those mentioned are common practices, but there are exceptional cases where people do not follow the norms. I have seen people drinking Milo with raw egg added and coffee with margarine added.

 Besides the Hailam coffee they also serve roti and half-boiled eggs. Roti can be either steamed or bakar, spread with kaya, and/or margarine, and/or butter. The kaya is normally made by the shop and is therefore fresh and without preservative.

One can see that the traditional coffee shops are dwindling in numbers. Younger generations prefer to hangout at Starbuck, Coffee Beans, Mc D and KFC. The art of making Hailam coffee will soon become lost. Soon nobody will know what’s ‘cham’, let alone appreciating it. So before it becomes extinct, just visit your nearest Hainanese coffee shop, eg King Lam Fung of the Mantin town, to have a taste of ‘cham’掺. I suggest you order ‘cham-c kurang manis’.