White Coffee and Kopitiams in Ipoh

Part of the Ipoh travel guide — see every topic in All Ipoh Guides.

Ipoh white coffee is the city's most successful export and one of the few genuinely local coffee traditions in South-East Asia. Ordinary Malaysian kopi is made from robusta roasted with margarine and sugar, which caramelises and produces a dark, slightly bitter cup. Ipoh's Hainanese coffee shops roasted the beans in palm-oil margarine alone, without sugar, which gives a lighter, nuttier, less bitter coffee — hence "white", referring to the roast rather than the milk. The originating shops are still on the same streets.

The original shops

Sin Yoon Loong on Jalan Bandar Timah has been roasting and serving since 1937 and is generally credited as the origin; Nam Heong, next door, is the other claimant and the two have a long friendly rivalry that the city enjoys. Both are plain kopitiams with marble tables and ceiling fans, both are busy from early morning, and both serve the coffee alongside kaya toast and half-boiled eggs. Old Town White Coffee, now a national chain, began here too. A cup is 3–6 ringgit.

How to order

White coffee by default comes with condensed milk and is sweet. Add kosong for no sugar, O for black, C for evaporated rather than condensed milk, and peng or ais for iced. Iced white coffee, thick and sweet, is what most people drink in the heat. The accompanying breakfast is kaya toast — charcoal-toasted bread with coconut-egg jam and cold butter — and two half-boiled eggs seasoned with dark soy and white pepper, which you break into a saucer and drink.

Dim sum

Ipoh's other breakfast institution, and it is taken seriously: a strong Cantonese dim sum culture that starts at six or seven in the morning and is largely finished by eleven, served from trolleys and trays in large noisy halls in New Town. Ming Court, Foh San and Yoke Fook Moon are the long-established names and all draw queues at weekends. It is cheaper and, many Malaysians will argue, better than Kuala Lumpur's. Go early; the good items go first and the halls close at lunchtime.

The modern scene

Alongside the traditional shops, Ipoh's old town has filled with restored-shophouse cafes doing specialty coffee, third-wave brewing and modern brunch, concentrated around Jalan Sultan Yussuf and Concubine Lane. Several roast their own and several also serve a properly made white coffee, which is the interesting overlap. Expect 12–22 ringgit for an espresso drink against 3–6 for a traditional white coffee — and the honest advice is that both are worth having, in that order, on the same morning.

White Coffee and Kopitiams at a glance

What makes it white	Beans roasted in palm-oil margarine WITHOUT sugar
The original shops	Sin Yoon Loong (1937) and Nam Heong, Jalan Bandar Timah
Price	RM 3–6 traditional; RM 12–22 specialty
Order	Kosong (no sugar), O (black), C (evaporated milk), peng (iced)
With it	Kaya toast and two half-boiled eggs
Also famous	Dim sum — from 6am, finished by 11