Hong Kong · Hong Kong
Knockbox Coffee Company
Knockbox Coffee Company is one of 3 Hong Kong roasters tracked on day9, in Kowloon.
Since 2011 · Patrick Tam, Frances Lam
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
- head roaster
- CP Wong
- 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)
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)