Coffee has been somewhat essential these days. Years ago, coffee is just a simple beverage mainly meant for caffeine booster. When you’re sleepy and you need to keep your eyes wide open, coffee is the solution. Then some people also used to enjoy it for its black bitterness, somehow an addiction in its own league. Then we wake up this time around and find that coffee is never really something it used to be. Coffee is now more complex than that.
I am a fan of coffee and my daily living starts with coffee. I called myself a coffee enthusiast, until I joined the Coffee Cupping and Appreciation Session by The Caffeine Dispensary. I am ashame for calling a coffee enthusiast with that less of a knowledge. I didn’t even truly know the difference between robusta and arabica.
To cut it short, The Caffeine Dispensary happened to slap me in the face a few weeks ago, quite successfully. Perhaps more than one big fat slap.
During the day of the session, I met some amazing people, the solid team of The Caffeine Dispensary. The people who work magic behind the counter. They are Ajie Permana, Edward Sanrio and Andri Saputra with each person has its own portion of work at The Caffeine Dispensary. But they complete each other. Ajie himself actually manages his own cafe in Singapore named Revolution Coffee and Rio has his own roasting company called Kujer Coffee Roasters in Jakarta.
Lemme shortly write about the big picture of this newly opened coffee house. The Caffeine Dispensary is fairly new and located in Kelapa Gading. It first opened its door in October. From the start, the general idea of its existence is to not only serve people with a gorgeous cup of coffee, but to share knowledge and connect/gather people with the same passion and that’s coffee we are talking about.
The Caffeine Dispensary was inspired by the old-day dispensary, an official Government-appointed facility and the only place available at that time to have doctors’ prescriptions filled and obtained medication. While waiting for their names to be called out by the pharmacists, people would chat to one another and share their life troubles. In the same spirit today, The Caffeine Dispensary aspires to do similarly by dispensing caffeine, a legal substance that has become a part of so many lives.
Before starting the session that day, we got to chat with Ajie. We then found out that besides being a cafe and roastery, they would host coffee appreciation classes and monthly public cupping sessions. As an additional plus point, they also provide assitance through their wholesale services including coffee consultation and coffee set up, coffee roasting customization services, cafe and equipment supplying and even staff training. In fact, they are doing it now with their customer in Bali!
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Let’s cut short to my experience at the knowledge sharing session.
At first, we were seated in front of a LED monitor and we were presented by Ajie. At this part, we were actually pretty captivated with the brief but clear enlightment about the history of coffee. Unlike the boring seminar or class, this session was done in an interactive kind of way to intrigue our curiosity. Without me knowing, I had asked endless of questions which Ajie answered with his knowledge and experience. Did I tell you that even though The Caffeine Dispensary is pretty new, the team is actually a bunch of old souls or veteran in the field.
To share a bit, coffee that we have every day with the range of prices from 6k – 50k is not as simple as it looks like. It’s not just a matter of brewing and serve. Behind it, there is a long complicated trail of growing, processing, to roasting which involves many people from farmers to roasters!
The awesome coffee that you had this morning is actually depended on the location it was grown, the method of planting, the height of its location, the method of processing it, and the roasting process.
Here’s two different samples for the before and after roasting the beans.
After the theory, we headed next to the action where the fun began. Cupping session! May the odd be ever in your favour! 😉
The cupping session was actually very tricky for me. It wasn’t easy at all, and I had super difficulty in defining the aroma/fragrance, body, aftertaste, etc.
Started with smelling the ground coffee, then pour the hot water at 93 degree celcius, break the crust three times with a spoon and smell the intense aroma. The last step will be straight on in slurping the coffee as loud as possible, and by doing that, the coffee will spread all around the corners of your mouth where you tasting sensors will do the job.
There were six kinds of coffee samples from different regions. Three samples were from Indonesia (Aceh Gayo, Bali Kintamani, and Toraja Sapan) and the other three were from around the world (Ethiopia Aricha, El Salvador Tatascame, and Brazil Formoso).
I honestly was overwhelmed by the excitement and also the many factors to score. This was my first time, so it is pretty normal, says Ajie to ease my mind. Afterall I think, practice makes perfect, right?
We ended the evening with a big smile and extra insight from the wonderful experience. Ajie, Rio and Andri did host the session really well and it couldn’t have gone any better!
Oh, there are a couple of things that I tried there too to mention and write about.
# Iced Latte Gula Jawa (IDR 45 k)
This is something rather unique created by The Caffeine Dispensary. The delicious latte is escalated with a touch of homemade ‘gula jawa’. The result? Simply refreshing and new. Somehow, the ‘gula jawa’ brought a sweet lingering after taste and it just sweetened up my tastebuds without being overwhelming.
# Lavender Lemonade (IDR 45 k)
Another interesting drink created by The Caffeine Dispensary. The ingredients involve original home-made lavender syrup and lemonade. The result was really unique and weird, in a very positive way. The lavender flavour was strong and it infused very nicely with the fresh lemonade.
# Smoked Beef & Cheese / Smoked Chicken & Cheese Croissant (IDR 55 k)
This ordinary-like croissant was apparently not that ordinary. The taste was super good with very good smoky chicken and savoury cheese. Between smoked beef and smoked chicken, I prefer the smoked chicken much better. It was perfect for this savoury croissant and I just loved every bit of it!
The sweet stuff was available there too. I don’t really know what it is called, but it was a soft cake with lemon peels and sweet glaze. Highly addictive! The cheese brownie was great as well! <3
We truly suggest you to join the coffee cupping and appreciation here whenever there’s a chance! The eye-opening experience is just too precious to be missed and it will definitely change your perspective and respect to coffee, and the people behind it. <3
THE CAFFEINE DISPENSARY | JAKARTA
Jalan Kelapa Kopyor Raya Blok 01 No. 16
Kelapa Gading, Jakarta
Phone: +6221-4520109
Instagram: @the_caffeinedispensary
Operational Hours:
Tuesday – Sunday (Monday closed)
11.00 – 21.00 WIB
