What Makes Kluang Coffee Different

The coffee at Kluang's railway station is not specialty coffee and does not want to be. It is kopi, which is a different drink made by a different process for a different purpose.

The roast

Traditional Malaysian kopi beans are roasted with margarine and sugar in the drum. The sugar caramelises and then burns, coating the bean and producing the dark, slightly bitter, faintly smoky character that defines the style. Modern specialty roasting does the opposite — it works hard to avoid exactly this.

Neither is wrong. They are aiming at different things.

The brew

Ground fine, packed into a cloth filter — the "sock" — and repeatedly flushed with boiling water. The result is thick, strong and holds up against condensed milk, which is the point.

Ordering it

• Kopi — with condensed milk.
• Kopi-o — black, with sugar.
• Kopi-o kosong — black, no sugar. This is where you taste the roast.
• Kopi peng — iced.
• Kopi-c — with evaporated milk instead of condensed.

If you want to know what a Kluang roast actually tastes like, order kopi-o kosong once. Then order it however you like it.

Taking some home

Vacuum-packed ground coffee is sold in the shops near the station and survives a flight. Buy the roast grade the shop recommends rather than the one with the best packaging.