Yuan yang, the original cha chaan teng tea-coffee drink enjoyed by Hongkongers since the 1960s, might not be a good representation of the city's tea tradition, but the nostalgic milky concoction may have found a place in Hong Kong's relatively recent coffee story.
Above Causeway Bay's busy Leighton Road, Caffe Habitu's Coffee Academy & Roasting Studio buzzes with the caffeinated energy of a new enterprise. Opened in September, the converted tong lau - a hip warehouse space filled with old sofas, retro furniture and coffee paraphernalia - is primarily a training space for the small chain's 80 baristas, but it's also a hub for educating a niche and enthusiastic public about the nuances of coffee.
Donning a smart white shirt and brown apron, district coffee trainer Carol Wong is conducting a Hong Kong Explore workshop, using the anecdotal history of yuan yang to describe how the city's coffee has evolved. The original combination of 'weak tasting Lipton teabag tea with cheap Indonesian over-boiled pot coffee' was comforting but underwhelming in every sense, she says. The contemporary version, Habitu's own oolong latte, is a carefully blended combination of Taiwan's famous tea and a shot of good Italian espresso coffee, topped with frothed milk.
'If we think of espresso, we relate it to Italy,' Wong says. 'There's not much of a common image for the Hong Kong coffee culture, so we wanted to make something signature for the city.'
If a little under-researched, it's a good anecdote, certainly one that tourists will latch onto. But do Hongkongers buy into the idea of a local coffee culture, however it's dressed up? Serious coffee drinker Alvin Hui Hau-wing, from Discovery Bay, thinks so.
Hui believes the past five years provide evidence of a growing local coffee culture. In 2007 and 2008, Hongkongers favoured the branded chains such as Starbucks and Pacific Coffee, he says. They were using coffee machines but making Italian-American coffee not Italian-style coffee.