Matters

Was going around the Bukit Merah Central neighbourhood and a couple of new stalls situated within the SG Kopitiam at Blk 161 Bukit Merah Central caught our attention — this would be the very same coffeeshop which houses prominent stalls such as that of No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle and Wong Kee Wanton Noodle. Matter is a new entrant to the coffeeshop sharing its space with 161板面 Ban Mian that occupies a space that is half the usual size of a stall unit at the coffeeshop: these folks had taken over the stall that used to serve up economic Bee Hoon there. Matter is a beverage specialty stall that supplements the coffee stall situated within the same coffeeshop; a concept that mentions that it is being supported by Compound Coffee Co. (itself a local coffee micro-roastery that also runs a cafe situated at Kaki Bukit), the menu features specialty coffee, matcha latte, drinking chocolate and chai.

Noting that Matter does serve up an Espresso Tonic, we found ourselves going for the same — whilst most specialty coffee establishments that we had visited tend to serve up their versions of the Espresso Tonic with more commercialised brands of tonic water, we did note that Matter uses Grapefruit & Thyme Tonic Water sourced from Alchemy & Tonic for their Espresso Tonic; the shot of espresso being extracted from the espresso machine and steeped into the tonic water with ice. Perhaps it is the use of flavoured tonic water here that seems to make the Espresso Tonic here feel a little less punchy from the caffeine; nonetheless there is that slight zippiness going on amidst all of the carbonation that does make it quite a refreshing beverage to have especially given the heat these days.