Charcoal Bean Cafe (华新茶室 / 华新咖啡店) is a family-run, retro Hainanese kopitiam located near Kulai Old Street. It preserves 1959 traditional hand-roasted coffee techniques — as used by their grandparent — to brew traditional Nanyang coffee using Liberica coffee beans and serving them with a diverse range of local delights.
The cafe is decorated with old vinyl records, classic oldies, vintage toys and television, and old-school cabinets that creates a 1960s retro vibe.
There are a ton of dishes on their menu, including a wide range of traditional toasts and sandwiches, white bee hoon dishes, roti canai, curry chicken, Hainanese chicken chop, braised pork rice, nasi lemak, mee siam, etc.
Their Kopi Butter (咖啡牛油) has butter added on kopi — no “no milk” option — but the condensed / evaporated milk is not a lot, just enough to give the charcoal-roasted coffee its milky flavour. Salt or savoury butter has traditionally been used to reduce the bitterness of coffee, thus the buttery kopi is non-bitter and carries a mellow aroma and balanced flavour of coffee, milk and butter.
The Hakka-style Yellow Wine Mee Sua with Chicken (客家黄酒鸡面线), one of the signature dishes, is a soupy mee sua dish with rich rice wine fragrance and added with tender chicken meat, a fried sunny-side-up egg and greens that have absorbed the winey flavour. The sweet-savoury soup, with strips of ginger and spices, has strong wine flavour and is delicious — the sweetness is from the rice wine. Another variant of this dish is offered with “extra alcohol”, but do try the original dish prior as the wine flavour is already pretty strong.
Charcoal Bean Cafe has a lot more to offer, especially their traditional dishes. I will try their traditional toasts on the next trip to Kulai.
Social Media:
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Address:
39, Lorong Isimail 2, Taman Kulai, 81000 Kulai, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
7am to 4pm | Closed on Thursday
How to Get There:
From JB Sentral, take BAS.MY J30 to Taman Kulai. Read: JB Bus / Train: To Kulai District in Johor (柔佛.古来).
Nearby:
More Eats @ Kulai:
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