Our very first post: how K and AA went from late-night uni coffees and a home-based brew project to a shared obsession with coffee beans.
Since this is our very first post, we thought we'd start from the beginning.
Kaafei (咖啡, ka fei) is the Chinese word for coffee. It's also a little nod to the two of us: K and AA. Put our initials together and you get Kaafei.
Before it was a project, coffee was simply part of our days; whether a kopi-c kosong, kopi siew dai or both. It was our bread and butter, the thing that got us through midnight oil in university, when deadlines were close and sleep was far away. Later it became the cup beside the keyboard at work, keeping us awake through long hours in front of the computer.
Coffee has been there mostly in the early mornings, and everything in between. It was only a matter of time before we wanted to understand it better, and here's why.
It's 2020. The world has slowed down, and we're both still in university. K has been a part-time barista since 2013, back when it was a McCafe counter. Years of making other people's coffee and cafe hopping had turned into a real curiosity.
So K and AA did what felt natural: we started brewing at home. Cold brew coffee, teas, customizing iced chocolate, and whatever else we felt like trying. It was a small home-based operation, ran in between lectures and assignments, and it was one of the happiest things we did.
Then university got busy, as it does, and Kaafei had to go on hold.
But we never really stopped. We kept tasting, experimenting, and chasing the next interesting cup.. Basically, everything!
Somewhere in that stretch, K fell down a deep rabbit hole. Why does one coffee taste bitter and another bright and sour? Why do some cups taste almost like tea, or like fruit?
The answer kept coming back to the same place: the beans!
Coffee bean is the heart of it all. Where it's grown, how it's processed, and how deep it's roasted, decide so much of what ends up in a cup. Once we saw that, we couldn't unsee it.
That's why Kaafei is now focused on coffee beans. We want to help you discover how different coffee can taste, and maybe find a cup that surprises you the way those first few surprised us.
This blog is where we'll share what we're learning along the way: the beans we love, the things we get wrong, and the small discoveries that make us say "OMG that's amazing!" or "That's kinda cool".
You don't need to know anything about coffee to be here. If coffee is what gets you through your long long days, you're already one of us!
Cheers with a cup of coffee, K & AA Kaafei