Blue Bottle Coffee first found popularity in America, before expanding to Asia with stores in Japan and Korea. In May, the artisanal coffee shop and roastery’s long-awaited Hong Kong branch opened on Lyndhurst Terrace in Central, too.
It was founded, in the early 2000s, by a struggling freelance clarinet player called James Freeman who began roasting beans out of his small potting shed in Oakland, California. He was tired of the commercial coffee enterprise in America and the taste of stale, over-roasted beans, so decided to shake up the scene, selling brews made from his home-roasted coffee beans at farmer’s markets in San Francisco and Oakland. He promised to only use beans that were less than 48 hours out of the roasters, which he now maintains at 91 stores around the world.
Designed in collaboration with Japan’s Schemata Architects, the 3,000-square-foot space in Hong Kong has been given an industrial minimalist makeover. It’s two floors are decorated with brushed concrete, stainless steel and marble tiles, sleek wooden tables and mid-century modern chairs, all of which act as a neutral backdrop to the iconic blue bottle logo that’s threaded throughout the coffee shop in neon lights and signs.
A short menu features drip coffee – two blends and a changing single origin brew – as well as all the classics and their lauded New Orleans-style iced coffee flavoured with chicory. Plus, a selection of pastries and avocado, jam or almond butter toast. Blue Bottle Coffee will be open from 8am to 5pm daily, although that’s just for takeaway at the moment.
Blue Bottle Coffee, 38-42 Lyndhurst Terrace, G/F & 1/F, Central, Hong Kong
Editor
Emma Russell