Kopi Sock

In the kopitiams, the traditional coffee shops of Malaysia and Singapore, coffee is brewed through a long cloth sock hanging in a tall pot. The coffee is Nanyang-roasted: usually robusta, roasted dark with sugar and margarine or butter, which gives it a deep, caramelised, slightly smoky flavour. It’s steeped, strained through the sock and served sweet, most often with condensed milk. This is kopi. Here’s how it’s brewed.

The short version

• Nanyang-roasted coffee: usually robusta, roasted with sugar and fat.
• A cloth sock in a tall pot.
• Hot water poured over, steeped about 3 to 5 minutes, then strained.
• Often poured back and forth between pots to aerate and cool it.
• Served sweet: with condensed milk (kopi), or black with sugar (kopi-O).

What makes kopi different?

Mostly the roast. Nanyang coffee isn’t a brewing method but a roasting style: the beans, usually robusta, are roasted slowly, traditionally in a wok, with sugar and margarine or butter added late in the roast to caramelise them. Wikipedia describes one roast as 80% beans to 20% sugar and margarine, roasted for 25 minutes at 180°C, with salt added halfway. Some blends include liberica or arabica too. The result is dark, oily and intense, and it’s brewed strong and usually served sweet.

How is kopi brewed with a sock?

1. The coffee goes into the sock, a long cloth bag on a wire ring with a handle, hung in a tall metal pot.
2. Hot water is poured over it, just off the boil.
3. It steeps for about 3 to 5 minutes. Longer is stronger.
4. It’s strained: the sock is lifted out and drained. Kopitiams often pour the coffee back and forth between two tall kettles, which Wikipedia says aerates and cools it.
5. It’s poured into cups with the milk and sugar already in them.

How do you make kopi at home?

Use Nanyang-roasted coffee, sold ground for kopi, and a coffee sock in a jug or pot. Singapore Food Shows’ recipe uses 4 tablespoons of Nanyang coffee powder to 500 ml of water at about 95°C:

1. Put the coffee in the sock and hang it in the jug.
2. Pour the hot water over it and stir in the sock.
3. Steep 3 to 5 minutes, then lift the sock out, letting it drain. For a smoother, more aerated finish, pour the coffee through the sock into another jug 2 or 3 times.
4. Pour into a cup with condensed milk, or sugar, to taste.

Brew mode on this page times the steep for you.

What are kopi, kopi-O and kopi-C?

Order	What you get
Kopi	With sweetened condensed milk and sugar
Kopi-O	Black, with sugar
Kopi-C	With evaporated milk and sugar

There are many more ways to order, which belong more to the drink than the brewing, and I’ll cover them in the drinks section.

Why a cloth sock?

One popular story says local drinkers found Western coffee too bitter and created their own. It isn’t well documented, so I treat it as tradition. In practice, a cloth sock is cheap, reusable and strains a coarse, oily roast well.

How do you look after a coffee sock?

Empty the grounds, rinse the sock well in hot water without soap, and let it dry. Replace it when it smells stale or drains slowly.

General guidance only. Take care when pouring hot coffee between pots, and dry the cloth between uses.

Kopi sock vs other methods

• Chorreador: Costa Rica’s cloth filter on a wooden stand.
• Colador: the Caribbean coffee sock.
• Vietnamese phin: another Southeast Asian coffee, often with condensed milk.
• South Indian filter coffee: a strong decoction mixed with hot milk.

Explore every cloth-filter method in the cloth chapter.