Kopi

Coffee (from the Portuguese); then on top lime (not the fruit, the paste) and gambir (a medicinal plant, in processed form used for tanning & dyeing).

         There you have standard, pre-prepared kopi that looks like cough syrup, served at Kopitiam outlets.

         This newcomer has only recently been informed of the full ingredients by a reliable source. In Geylang there are Kopitiams without number. (Tiam is not a corruption of "time": Malay for shop.)

         To muddy the picture further, Kopitiams are mostly misnomers for beer joints, at least at the Chinese end of Geylang. Almost twenty months in, never passed these lips.

         Varieties as everywhere else:


         kopi O - no milk


         kopi C - condensed milk added


         kopi kurang manis—easy on the sugar. (You better not forget this if you wanna get up off the floor. A standard kopi or teh gets about two and one-half tablespoons. The sugar buckets stand a metre high on the counter; sweet-tooths abound. Kurang manis. Even better: kosong. None thanks.


         Don't imagine the waiter or waitress goes up to the work-station to hit the menu screen for the order. That takes place at Bugis and Orchard. Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir. Our pleasure…. Here in Geylang more often than not the bent and arthritic  old Auntie has the voice of a garroted canary: — Copy OooH!

         Rarely does one ever lay eyes on the maker in the corner. If they're peeing in your beverage in revenge at the gross inequity–you sitting high in your chair like a Lord while they slave in back–the froth over the evidence covers and best not dwell on the matter.


         Milo does a big trade. (Somehow ignorance led one to believe this was an Australian product.) Comes in regular and dinosaur. Hokkien and Bahasa speakers without a word of English to save themselves know dinosaur. The latter treat carries scoops added on top.

         The Kopitiams do teh of course too, in all the above forms for kopi, with two more added: teh lemun and teh halia (ginger). 
         A Melbourne sophisticate pays $4.50 for good Euro-style cafe at Geisha in the Burlington tower. For a bigger, quieter table with fewer Arts' students brainstorming at your elbow—Arts administrators worse still!—(Geisha is located opposite Lasalle College of Arts, an adjunct of the famous Goldsmiths, London operation), Dome at the other end of the Arts' precinct trades tall glasses for $5.20 (add 52 cents Service Charge and 40c GST brings it to $6.12. Well over five dollars Australian.) The Shanghai lads at Geisha offer a range of exotica $10 and upwards. Fukushima Miho chose top-of-the-range Panama Finca Esmeralda at $15 a pop at Geisha on the weekend without blinking an eye. (On freelance Translator wages).


         "Coffee-shop talk" is a common pejorative used by the Chinese business-class. (Naturally. Well, they are often not wrong!)

         Malays are famous for lepak (soft "k"): hanging out at the Kopitiams doin' nuthin'. Lazy. Not rats enough for the race. Wouldn't work in an iron lung &etc &etc. Soul-cousins of our blackfellas.