A pet project of Joey Mah, the co-founder and coffee roaster of the famed Artisan Roastery, Someplace Beautiful is what you’d expect of a modern tea bar. A sleek white space offset by pale wood furnishings, there’s a minimalist calm to the space. A wooden frame of a house dominates the seating area, where there’s only a scattering of tables. There’s a lot of quiet space here, and it’s almost Japanese in vibe.
Well-known tea specialist HOJO supplies the tea. There are currently 14 varieties to choose from, ranging from black tea to white tea, flower tea, oolong, green tea and pu-er. The latter is the most interesting of the lot, as Someplace Beautiful also offers raw pu-er – this unfermented variety has a slightly sweeter aftertaste compared to its darker and bolder fermented counterpart.
Knowing Joey Mah, tea is given the artisanal treatment here. For instance, the Rose Damascena from the Xinjiang desert is brewed with white tea to give it extra depth and body. Milk tea is made by steeping whole tea leaves in cold milk overnight; as a result, you get a cold and creamy milk tea that’s richer and more refined in taste. There are also two types of soft serve ice cream (coffee and chocolate), and hats off to Joey for making a coffee soft serve that retains the nuanced flavours of the beans used. Besides the unmistakable coffee kick, there are also floral notes, much like a good medium-roasted coffee.
In the near future, the tea bar will transform into a casual restaurant at night, focusing on local produce, where classic Malaysian dishes are given the modern update. We had a sneak peek of the dishes in the making, and we’re glad that the food follows the same concept of the tea served here: clean tasting with fresh flavours.