Malaysian roasters facing difficulties in sourcing quality green beans with affordable price, thus resulting in higher price hike.

Back in Taipei, we can easily buy Ethiopian beans that can score 95pt in Coffee Review, with the price of 300NTD per kilo. When I worked as a roaster, we were capable of selling quality beans with relatively cheap price and offer wider selection. (It is normal to see a cafe offering at least 15 origins in Taiwan and our shop offered 21 origins). This is very difficult to happen in Malaysia due to the requirement of AP when importing green beans.

Yeah I have taste ymeng85 's coffee during the Indie Coffee Fest and their coffee are good.

Hawaiian KONA coffees are hard to source nowadays due to mainly 3 reasons:
1, Island-type country always faces problem in coffee production due to weather.
2, Because of the above-mentioned factor, they are insanely pricey.
3, The general flavor profile doesn't meet 3rd Wave specialty coffee drinkers' expectation.

Some coffees can be very pricey and used to be very famous during the 2nd wave coffee era but they don't really taste particularly good.
Just to name a few, Hawaiian Kona, Jamaica Blue mountain are extremely expensive but their flavor profile can only be described to be "so-so only".
That's why it is difficult to source now.

If you happen to visit Reframe, I strongly recommend you try their single origin coffees. It was a joy to talk to their roasters too, able to gain lots of knowledge.

Just curious. Any home roasters here?

Yes, I do. Currently facing problem sourcing green beans.

Used to roast on a Lysander 2kg Roaster when I worked as a roaster in Taipei.

Currently roasting on stovetop via old-school "hand-net". (don't know what people call it in malaysia)

Used to drink blends back then when blending was the norm. I was very lucky to study coffee under 2012's Taiwan Barista Champion and was amazed by how complex & unique Single Origin Espresso can be, thus starting my journey to exploring SOE.

But sometimes I do blend coffee for fun, as well as to utilize some left coffee, and I would say blending is indeed both art & science. Whenever we blend, we must try to break the "1+1=2" law and try to see if "1+1" can be more than "2".

When I was working as a part-timer in cafe, our seniors barista always reminded us that, you don't become a barista to study coffee, you study coffee to become a barista. He further emphasized that we do not serve amateur coffee to customers.
While he is certainly true, it is still OK to start learning as a part timer. It depends on whether the cafe owner willing to teach or not. Some are very friendly and welcoming to provide training & guidance.

One way to start is to look for online tutorials before you start your part-time job. There are lots of videos on YouTube showing you basic barista skills, providing knowledge on coffee & barista technique.

The WCE (World Coffee Events) which comprised of six championships, are a set of competition held by organization with reputation on defining specialty coffee and promoting the industry. People first compete in national level and become national champion first, before they are allowed to compete on world-stage.

Based on my experience with a few champions and visited some of their cafes (mainly Taipei's & recently Malaysia's), I would say most of them are truly guru in this industry.
In order to become a champion, you not only need to perfect your skill & be able to source the best beans, you must also provide a vision on how to improve the industry, how make something revolutionary. Most of the time, all drinks served by the 6 finalists are equally delicious (with their own uniqueness), but what makes one of them a champion, is whether he/she propose a vision to make the industry better. Be it a new processing method, some new concept on brewing, or a different approach to solve some old problems faced by baristas.

I used Hershey Cocoa powder and it tastes great, though a proper cappuccino does not require cocoa powder.

We clean ours twice a month in the shop. If you are not brewing a huge amount of coffee per day, I suggest you do it at least once every one to two months.

As for coffee retention I suggest using camera blower to get rid of the left coffee grounds before you grind for your next cup.

Heard of it but never worked with it before. However, I might suggest you to try two ways to check whether the grind size is right.

a, make a pour coffee using 20g coffee and 300ml water and see if it finish dripping within 2:00min to 2:30minutes. If it doesn't it's probably too fine.
b, brew as usual and check if it's too bitter, or contain astringent taste.

Correct accordingly to suit your taste. Sorry that I wasn't able to provide you with the exact setting number though.

Traditionally "processing methods" are the way farmers use to get rid of the cherry flesh in order to reach the beans.
Eventually the farmers discovered that different processing methods impart a different flavor profiles to the coffee, naturally.
The washed coffee usually tastes cleaner and much elegant; where the natural coffee tastes much complex due to more fermentation happening but sometimes it could lead to unwanted flavor.

However, how do we define "unwanted" flavor? I have tasted a coffee from an experienced roaster and it was strong in strawberry and peach flavor. Guess what, the roaster told me that the coffee was bad due to "strawberry" being an unwanted flavor from "over fermentation". However, if a coffee contain strong strawberry flavor note, it will score very high mark on the cupping table nowadays.

In my opinion, not only people's taste preference being subjective, it also links to the change of the coffee culture's trend.

Latest news, Malaysia's competitors have entered the finals of WLAC and WBrC!

Irvine won the champion of WLAC. Regine got the 1st Runner in WBrC.

Yeah. Good to be able to witness the history.

Yeah. Good to be able to witness the history.

Plastic ver of V60 drips slightly faster than the Ceramic, and it doesn't hold temperature as good as Ceramic does. So It could affect the taste of the coffee indirectly.
However, when it comes to deciding which ver is better, I think it depends on how you like your coffee. If you prefer a bright and cleaner cup, you might find the plastic version to suit you better.
If you want your coffee bold and strong, the ceramic one certainly does a better job.