Mention tea time and we would probably think of English style afternoon tea with tea sandwiches, scones, biscuits, and drinking tea from a tea cup with the pinky up in a posh setting. Malaysian tea time is not quite fancy like that.  Like food, Malaysians have tea or coffee anytime of the day. At any given time, you would see coffee shops or mamak stalls filled with people, either passing their time, chit chatting, talking about football (the real football, of course), making business deals and so on. Tea time is truly the time when people get together, take a break, and lepak (hang out in Malay). Often you’d also hear friends calling one up and say, jom gie mamak, or yum cha or lim teh; They all mean the same and goes to show how serious Malaysians are about catching up over a cuppa.

We do have plenty of western style cafes like Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaves, or Austin Chase, but unless you can afford it given how expensive it is, very likely that many people would lepak at a kopitiam or mamak. In my recent visit to Kuala Lumpur, I was shocked to find that there are many modern style kopitiams in every corner of the city. But kopitams have very humble beginnings. They are little coffee shops in pre-war shophouses (see picture above) serving tea, kopi (local term for coffee), and other beverages with toasts and other titbits occasionally. There’s also nothing fancy with the decor, with marble and wood tables and white ceiling fans but as simple as they are, one would feel a sense of colonial charm and a laidback airiness to it. It’s quite an indescribable feeling if you ask me. The prices are dirt cheap as well with many beverages ranging around RM2 or less.

Lately, the concept of kopitiam has been given a modern edge and out came franchises like Pappa Rich, Old Town Coffee and the likes. Their decor is definitely cleaner and slightly more sophisticated. The menus also offer wide choices of beverages, much more than an old fashioned kopitiam, and they serve Malaysian favourites that all of us love from the hawker centres. I’ve had nasi lemak and curry laksa at Pappa Rich and their tastes are by no means top notched but it’s something I would order again. I love that free WiFi are offered at their outlets as well.

But as the franchises grow bigger and more popular, I am afraid that local food will be treated like crappy fast food chains that standardized everything from measurements to flavours. In order to cater to more and more people, they make bigger menus but the quality might suffer in the end because it is not possible to cook everything fresh to order. What’s lost in the end too are the personal touches that people put in that makes their food special, as in the case of hawker food. I am certainly not anti Pappa Rich but I also hope that people will continue to patronize the smaller establishments so that they continue to make the food that we’ve come to enjoy.