Factory & Labo Kanno Coffee

For Kanno Coffee, the goal is to sharpen all five senses the moment you take a sip of the coffee, with a sensation as if you've been drawn into another world. They hope that each cup of coffee can stimulate the customer's imagination, in order to experience a new world beyond that of just taste. To that end, they are particular about the entire coffee process from the coffee beans, all the way to the way they are roasted, each step done with a human touch to achieve that level of human intuition to achieve the highest quality of coffee. Each step is always carefully considered, and there's no such thing as a perfect taste, their journey to find the ideal end goal will continue unendingly. That's what is "coffee" to Kanno Coffee.

For their coffee blends, they always hope to match the seasons and accompany it to craft the ideal cup of coffee. During each season, the method of preparing the beans is slowly adjusted, because the condition of coffee beans varies greatly with seasons, humidity, and temperature. Each month, there's a certain image that they have of the seasons, and the coffee is carefully selected, roasted, and blended to match that image. For the coffee sweeteners, they only use wasanbon (和三盆), an extremely expensive and luxurious traditional sweetener in Japan that harmonises well with the calm taste of the coffee. To them, the use of wasanbon is indispensable in bringing out the absolute harmony of the coffee. By constantly tuning the coffee bit by bit, the sharpness and vividness of the taste gets drawn out better. To the extent that it can truly resonate with you five senses and you sip into the coffee.

For the brewing the coffee, to them, the process is as important as that of Japanese tea ceremonies. Each cup is only made to order, one at a time, with each cup being prepared one by one and never left to sit. In order to bring out the best of the coffee, Kanno Coffee decided on drip coffee as the best method. When the coffee is just extracted by drip and the temperature is at its highest, the aroma comes out easily, and the fragrance is delightful. How high the hot water is poured from, how much is poured at once, and even the method, all of these affect the bitterness and acidity of the coffee. And so, each cup is carefully and conscientiously brewed in order to produce the best coffee. Coffee is a drink whose flavours change with its temperature, and so as it cools down, the taste of the coffee also gradually changes.

The atmosphere of Factory & Labo Kanno Coffee is what sets it apart. The glasshouse design is a marvel of modern architectural design, with an all-glass exterior facade, with an industrial interior design that uses wood and metal to give a modern rustic feel to it. We love just chilling out here on a weekend, sipping on some coffee, having some desserts and relaxing in the environment.

The open-concept coffee roaster in the centre also lets you watch the staff at work as they roast coffee beans right in the centre of the shop. We're not coffee connoisseurs, so we can't pass judgment on whether the coffee would meet the exacting standards of specialists. But they do have a wide variety of beans on sale, and also drip and espresso options for the dine-in drinks.

Their range of desserts is pretty good though, we are always stuck between choosing the matcha cake or the strawberry shortcake as both are equally delicious. The matcha cake is rich and creamy, and packed with the fragrance of matcha (抹茶, Maccha, Powdered Green Tea), while the strawberry shortcake is light and fluffy with that delicious fresh cream that the Japanese love to use in desserts.

Do note though, that the place can get crowded on weekends as it's super popular with locals. On weekdays you typically won't have a problem finding a seat, but if you visit and see a line of people on the stairs, well, they are queueing up for seats. Please don't go straight to an empty table, and join the queue instead.