Macau is witnessing a coffee shop boom, with more and more cafes opening up across the city. But not all of them provide customers with different kinds of coffee beans to choose from, let alone training courses so that they can become baristas themselves. Yet this is exactly what Blooom Coffee House is doing.
The coffee culture that Blooom is determined to promote, aims to make the public more aware of the depth and diversity of the world of coffee by introducing customers to beans from a variety of different origins and educating them about good roasting techniques.
Sitting inside the newest shop front of Blooom Coffee House, located near Horta da Mitra Municipal Market, the founder of the company, Keith Fong, tells CLOSER that despite what some people think, Macau is not actually that late in terms of catching the global trend of the specialty coffee movement.
“We think that there has always been a local coffee culture in Macau. It is only that up until recently there has not been a catalyst to trigger its blossoming,” he says.
Since its establishment in 2010, Blooom has set a unique goal for the business – to establish a professional barista culture in the city.
“We don’t want people to think that opening a coffee house is something dreamy. We want to tell people that opening a coffee house is a pursuit for professionalism in this industry,” says Keith.
“We think that being a barista is no different to being a chef. Both of them are tough jobs and both strive to become professionals in their own areas.”
When they first started their business, the Blooom team found that there was no space in Macau for professional baristas to truly show off their talents.
“So we had to create it ourselves, which is why we opened our first coffee house, Single Origin. We wanted to show others that coffee can stand alone, that a shop can survive by selling nothing but coffee. We also wanted to provide a stage for baristas to bring their skills into full play,” he explains.
When it comes to the art of coffee, Keith believes that the process of coffee making can be as innovative as cooking. Two cappuccinos can taste different even when they are made by the same barista, because the flavour of a cup of coffee can vary due to a range of factors, not least of which is the quality of the ingredients. How the beans are roasted is also crucial, and Blooom does all its own roasting.
“Just like when you are cooking, you need good ingredients. We felt that roasters in Macau could not satisfy us or supply us with specialty grade beans, so we decided to extend our business to coffee bean sourcing as well.”
Blooom has three shops in total, each offering different kinds of services. Keith explains that their shop Communal Table near Rua do Campo for example, seeks to offer a relaxed environment in the central district for people looking for professionally made, high quality coffee.
As for their new shop Blooom, Keith says that it will be a combination of training, roasting and espresso bar.
“This is a total coffee experience that really allows people to understand what roasting is about, and the fact that there are many types of coffee beans. For people who don’t know coffee, they will not find an experience like this in other coffee shops. Here we want to create a retail environment where you can explore the world of coffee,” he says.
Currently, Keith sees two mainstream local coffee preferences: traditional dark roasted coffee that is more of a classic coffee flavour; and specialty coffee, which still has potential for development. While the latter has fewer followers at the moment, he believes that once some drinkers of traditional coffee are introduced to specialty coffee, they will never go back to dark-roasted.
“Specialty coffee is more of a leisure expense, the pursuit of a better life. In today’s Macau, more people are seeking a better life, which is why we think that the development of specialty coffee is positive and the coffee market will become more competitive in the future,” Keith concludes.
