Specialty coffee café in Kampung Attap, Kuala Lumpur

Transparent Coffee

Coffee With Receipts

3.5 of 5

Transparent Coffee is named for a business model, which is a dull reason to name a café and a good reason to drink in one. The beans are bought directly from farmers and the café is open about the trade. That alone is not unusual any more. What makes the place is where it moved: from Bangsar to Sam Mansion Flat in Kampung Attap, an apartment block around eighty years old, grey and white, across from the ZhongShan Building.

Part of the fun is finding it. You climb old stairs in a building that has seen most of the city's modern history, and then the room opens up, wide and full of morning light, with rustic wood softening the concrete. It opens early, which I respect. The list is short and honest: batch brew, espresso drinks black or white, and a few house signatures such as a coffee blossom fizz.

The iced latte is the one locals point at, milky and thick and exactly what this climate demands. Eat a sandwich with it, three cheese or chicken and aubergine, on sourdough baked in house. Then walk across to the ZhongShan Building and poke around the shops and galleries inside. Kampung Attap rewards an unhurried morning, and this is the right place to start one.

Order this

Iced latte, Batch brew, Coffee blossom fizz, Three cheese sandwich on house sourdough

The damage

$

Go

Early, when the light is good; Time Out lists Thursday to Tuesday, 8am to 5pm

Find it

Sam Mansion Flat, Jalan Tuba, Kampung Attap, 50460 Kuala Lumpur

Website

thewaytocoffee.com