Kuching Coffee Week 2024: Brewing up for the future

This first-ever coffee event was held in Kuching on August 10 and 11, with over a hundred participants from Sarawak, West Malaysia, Singapore and international coffee professionals from Brazil and Columbia. It was an interesting platform created for the young and eager learners who were ready to learn, grow together and even craft their coffee destiny.

From regular ‘kopi’ to specialty coffee

No one knows exactly when or where coffee was first discovered. A legend says an Ethopian goat herder named Kaldi discovered that his goats were more energetic and not sleeping after eating berries from a certain tree.

The herder reported his findings to an abbot in a monastery, who made a drink with the berries and found that it kept him alert through the night.

Words got around and spread far and wide, so today we have the coffee beans!

That was the tale we learned from Thomas Hutchins. He is the Australian Brewer Cup Champion (2023, 2024), Code Black Coffee Roaster Melboune, and 4th at the World Brewer Cup (Chicago 2024).

(From left) are Madam Georgina, Miss Alicia, Thomas Hutchins, Patrick Dunn and Madam Ngui Ing Ing, the organiser of Kuching Coffee Week,and the owner of Borneo Cultures Museum Restaurant general director Ngui Ing Ing.

Thomas Hutchins, the Australian Brewer Cup Champion of 2023 and 2024.

Partnered by another Australian from Melbourne Patrick Dunn, a World Brewer’s Cup coach, roaster, and barista, they were here to share their knowledge and expertise on coffee and competitions at Kuching Coffee Week (KCW) 2024.

This first-ever coffee event held in Kuching City was a fun one, with over a hundred participants from Sarawak, West Malaysia, Singapore and international coffee professionals from Brazil and Colombia.

Supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts, Sarawak, it was endorsed by the Malaysia Specialty Coffee Association (MSCA).

The President of MSCA, Kelvin Ngow, spoke on how important it is to have a platform to help increase awareness of specialty coffee drinking and to help elevate the status of baristas who earned very low salaries in the past.

Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah with the three winners of the Mystery Latte Art Showdown.

The organiser of Kuching Coffee Week 2024 was Borneo Cultures Museum Restaurant (BCMR), led by the enterprising Madam Ngui Ing Ing from Sarawak. Together with the BCMR team, the event was successfully hosted together with Madam Georgina from Uchimono Coffee.

For two days (August 10 and 11), an interesting platform was created for the young and eager learners who were ready to learn, grow together and even craft their coffee destiny.

For those who drink only the common local coffee called ‘kopi’, they have acquired a new set of vocabulary.

Local baristas and champion baristas from West Malaysia were keener to taste the new coffees brought in by their international speakers and to find out more about joining up-and-coming barista competitions.

Apparently, there are dozens of tastes and aromas to describe coffee. The aromas of lighter roasts are often noted as fruity, flowery, or herbaceous. Medium roasts can be caramelised, spicy or nutty, while dark roasts are described as earthy or smoky.

Our sense of smell and taste were put to the test as we took turns to smell the different types of coffee and to describe the taste, flavour, and aroma. Activities such as coffee cupping took place.

Nicky Voon, Malaysian Latte Art Champion 2024.

A contestant works his way in the Latte Art Design Competition.

To have a fresh cup of coffee, you need to learn the art of brewing. We learn from Thomas Hutchins, even the Milk Theory.

Nicky Voon, the Malaysian Latte Art Champion 2024, shared her experience in the championship in which she had participated and skilfully demonstrated her latte art. The design of a unicorn was beautifully executed and looked so neat.

A latte art showdown took place where 18 participants competed, with the results announced only at the closing of the event on the last day.

Latte art is truly a thing of beauty, but not for the faint-hearted. Making designs in milk foam is a highly coveted skill. You cannot have too much milk, as it will overflow with the design. Too little milk resulted in an incomplete design. We held our breath for some contestants who had problems.

One of the invited speakers, Marcos Croce of FAF Coffees Brazil.

The second morning began with more sharing from Thomas Hutchins on specialty coffees, picking, growing, processing and roasting. Roasting transforms green coffee beans into the rich, aromatic beans we know. 

We learned that, whether light, medium, or dark, how you roast your coffee beans will influence the coffee’s final taste and aroma.

Jason Loo, the 4X champion of Malaysia Barista Championship shared his story of achieving success by placing in the top 7 of the World Barista Championship. He gave certain guidelines that are important if you are a competitor.

A practice cherished in the coffee world is coffee cupping, which is the process of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee. Patrick Dunn took charge of the activity on the second day. It was like a treasure hunt, where the participants had to discover the hidden gems in each coffee bean.

Describing a smell is challenging, and that is why coffee experts rely on the Coffee Taster’s Flavour Wheel for guidance on descriptive words for coffee.

Marcos Croce of FAF Coffees Brazil showed slides of a model of a regenerative farm with a message to treat the earth with care and not harm it with chemicals.

There was also Angel Barrera from Belco Coffee Colombia, who shared info on global quality in coffee, and we learned that Colombia is the biggest supplier of coffee in the world.

The closing speech was by the Minister for Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts, Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, who said that his knowledge of coffee is now enhanced by the sharing, which touched on the geographical location of the largest exporters of coffee, the history and growth of this industry, and the competitions. He hopes that one day Sarawak will have a champion in the World Brewer Championship.

He added that the Kuching Coffee Week event has indirectly contributed to more visitors to the State of Sarawak. The target set for 2024 is at 4.6 million and in the first half of the year, Sarawak recorded over 2.4 million tourist arrivals, marking a 23.26 percent increase compared to 1.96 million during the same period in 2023.

Some of the intricate latte designs.

At the closing ceremony in the venue at Swinburne University of Technology, Kuching, on August 11, Karim awarded the prizes to the three winners of the Mystery Latte Art Showdown.

The champion was Kevin Chew Hong Ung; in second place was Kevin Chung Voon How; and Angie Liaw Ern Chee was in third.

It was a successful first Coffee Week ever held in Kuching, and we look forward to the next in 2025!

Participants discover the different types of coffee and how to differentiate the taste, flavour and aroma.