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Hong Kong · Hong Kong

Knockbox Coffee Company

Since 2011 · Patrick Tam, Frances Lam

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Overview

Knockbox Coffee Company was opened in 2011 in Sheung Wan's Tai Ping Shan Street by Patrick Tam and Frances Lam — initially sharing a tiny shopfront with evening-gown designer Cerise Yip — and is one of Hong Kong's pioneering specialty cafes. Tam, an eye specialist by training and one of the first Q-graders in Hong Kong, runs the Project Origin direct-trade partnership with 2015 World Barista Champion Sasa Sestic, while head roaster CP Wong handles the day-to-day production at the Mong Kok roastery cafe.

Known for

  • Pioneer of Hong Kong's third-wave coffee scene (2011)
  • Founder Patrick Tam co-runs Project Origin direct-sourcing partnership with 2015 WBC Sasa Sestic
  • Mong Kok flagship is famously no-Wi-Fi, no-plug, no-sofa — built around face-to-face conversation
  • Friday-night free 'premiere' tastings of newly arrived beans
  • Vision For Coffee — Tam's nonprofit using his ophthalmology background to address vision impairment among coffee farmers

Why it matters

Knockbox was the bar that taught Hong Kong what specialty coffee could be at a moment when the city was almost entirely a milk-tea-and-instant scene, and Tam's combination of Q-grader rigor with a producer-development NGO has shaped the regional specialty community far beyond the cafe's tiny Mong Kok footprint.

Production

destoning
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head roaster
CP Wong
color sorting
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roaster machine
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filter equipment
AeroPress, Hario Halogen Beam Heater syphon, Hario V60, Clever Cup
cupping frequency
Weekly tasting events; refractometer-tested brews
roastery location
Mong Kok, Kowloon (in-cafe roastery)
espresso equipment
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annual volume tonnes
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Café

21 Hak Po Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon (roastery cafe); 50B Stanley Street, Central, Hong Kong Island (work-friendly cafe)

Recognitions

  • Two-time Hong Kong Barista Championship winner (team)

Sources

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