Recently I’d been really enjoying coffee-tasting. It all started during my month-long stay in Ubud, Bali, where I frequented this cafe called Seniman. They roasted their own coffee, and is probably the best third wave coffee place in Ubud. I wasn’t much into coffee then, until I got used to and started expecting great quality coffee every other day. Now, in Kyoto, I’d been frequenting a cafe called Light Up Coffee Kyoto. They serve great single origin espresso-based coffee and drip coffee, and every cup comes with a tasting card to share where they sourced their beans, how it was roasted, and what tastes to look out for. I love it.

It’s like a riddle played with only your tongue and nose. Bloody fascinating. You can taste it like it’s wine - there’s flavours, feel and finish, body and acidity, light or dark roast, hard or soft water, espresso or drip or cold brew. Learning about how the coffee gets extracted and how it interacts with water, is like those chemistry lessons we used to have in school, only now way more fun and relevant. I dropped chemistry in school actually - it was too boring and technical and all the lab work just turned me off. But now I wish they taught chemistry through coffee! Wouldn’t that be great fun?!