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Ipoh white coffee is a popular
Traditionally, Malaysian style ‘black’ coffee roast (Kopi-O) is produced by roasting the beans with sugar, margarine and wheat.
‘White’ coffee, on the other hand, is produced with only 
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
drink which originated in Ipoh
, image_map =
, map_caption = Location of Ipoh in Perak
, pushpin_map = #Malaysia#Asia#Earth
, pushpin_mapsize = 275px
, pushpin_map_caption = Ipoh in Malaysia
, coordinates ...
, Perak
Perak () is a state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, and Selangor to the south. Thailand' ...
, Malaysia, resulting in Ipoh being named one of the top three coffee towns by Lonely Planet. The coffee beans are roasted with palm oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced fr ...
margarine, and the resulting coffee is served with condensed milk
Condensed milk is cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of ''sweetened condensed milk'' (SCM), to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condense ...
.
Origins
The term ''white coffee'' originates from the literal translation of its Chinese name, which was introduced in the 19th century by Chinese migrants who came to work in the local tin mines. The coffee beans themselves are not actually white; the colour comes from the milk stirred into the end product. In Malaysia, the original white coffee started in the Ipoh and was a drink made from beans roasted in margarine and served with sweetened condensed milk. This style of coffee continues to be popular throughout the country. However, “White Coffee” in Malaysia often simply refers to how the drink is prepared and presented - with margarine. Overseas visitors finding the margarine-roasted coffee beans unorthodox (due to their slight caramelized flavor) are often misled into believing that there is a type of coffee bean endemic to Malaysia called the "white coffee bean". The beans used are invariably imported beans roasted to a light color. Local coffee manufacturers now mix instant coffee powder with non-dairy creamer or whitener and sugar, and market the 3-in-1 mixture as white coffee as well. The mixture is preferred by Malaysians at home or in the office as a convenient easy-to-prepare coffee drink. The advisability, however, of consuming instant coffee mixed with non-dairy creamer and sugar daily is slowly coming into question, with some manufacturers now taking the sugar out of the mixture, and marketing the 2-in-1 mixture as sugar-free white coffee.Styles
Traditionally, Malaysian style ‘black’ coffee roast (Kopi-O) is produced by roasting the beans with sugar, margarine and wheat.
‘White’ coffee, on the other hand, is produced with only margarine
Margarine (, also , ) is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was or ...
and without any sugar, resulting in a less dark roast. Ipoh White Coffee is also widely available in an instant
In physics and the philosophy of science, instant refers to an infinitesimal interval in time, whose passage is instantaneous. In ordinary speech, an instant has been defined as "a point or very short space of time," a notion deriving from its ...
version. It is sometimes consumed after dinner.
The generic term ‘Ipoh white coffee’ in Chinese is "白咖啡"(Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates fo ...
: Ji4bou2 Baak6 Kaa1fei1). Baak6 "白" (pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
: bái), commonly meaning white, has nothing to do with the colour in this instance, but is rather a reference to the way the coffee is roasted. In Chinese, Bái also means ‘without’ or ‘unadulterated’.
See also
* Oldtown White coffee *List of coffee drinks
Coffee drinks are made by brewing water with ground coffee beans. The brewing is either done slowly by drip, filter, French press, ''cafetière'' or percolator, or done very quickly under pressure by an espresso machine. When put under the p ...
References