From Coffee Chemistry Cafe to Coffee In Love, Antipodean to The Red Beanbag, Real & Wholesome to Artisan Roast, we've encountered cascades of enjoyable coffee in the past year, but none blew our minds until we had Espresslab's.
No food is served; roasted-bean prodigy JH Yee _ who won this year's Malaysian Barista Championship _ concentrates on brewing cups of caffeinated perfection.
If all lattes taste this way, we'd have 'em everyday. Deeply fragrant & flavorful, everything from the froth down to the smooth last slurp seems unimpeachable; even the temperature is terrific. We wonder when, where else & whether we'll ever have coffee this wonderful.
Espresso & hot choc. The beverage selection is limited (no icy drinks). But note: single-origin & house-blend whole beans are offered for sale, with prices starting from RM14 per 100 grams.
TWG tea, soothingly pleasurable. Espressolab opens 9:30am-6pm (closed Sundays).
Downstairs, a cafe called Ettora (not affiliated with Espressolab) sells cookies & chocolates that can be eaten at Espressolab, which generously allows customers to bring their own food.
Gift boxes at Ettora, probably too pricey for most of us; one even exceeds RM1,000.
Added April 21 for clarity: one of the boxes costs more than RM1,000 but the others cost less, starting at about RM150.
Melting Moments, White Chocolate Cranberry, Chocolate Chip Macadamia & Oat Almond _ mostly fresh & crisp, though we prefer our cookies creamier. Strangely, all six of these taste somewhat similar. Each cookie costs about three ringgit.
Belgian chocolates; the service team couldn't say what these flavors were. They look promising but fall short in cocoa decadence, tasting instead like supermarket-bought milk chocolate.
Fruit cakes & brownies are sometimes available. Ettora's business hours are nearly identical to Espressolab's, except it closes earlier on Saturdays.
My Espresso Lab Coffee Roaster,
D1-G4-6, Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.
Ettora,
D1-G3-7, Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.
