[ad_1]
TAIPING: A Malaysian worker pours roasted coffee beans into a pot of bubbling melted sugar while an aging machine churns ingredients into a sticky black mixture over a roaring log fire.
The Antong mill, believed to be the oldest in Malaysia, has been using the same methods to produce its popular coffee for nearly nine decades.
“I want young people to know what the coffee factories were like 50 or 100 years ago,” Thian Boon Chung, head of the small factory in the Malaysian city of Taiping, told AFP.
“I want them to appreciate the old ways of making coffee.”
The mill, built by Thian’s grandfather and two others in 1933, is a small wooden building with a zinc roof.
It houses machines for roasting coffee, removing the husk from the beans and mixing them with sugar.
Many of the gadgets are original, dating from when the factory began operations, although their engines have been replaced.
Mill workers use wood collected from construction projects and abandoned houses to roast the beans, giving it a distinctive smoky flavor.
Thian said his wood-roasted coffee tasted better than other varieties: “It has a ‘power’ to taste that cannot be explained simply in words.”
After the beans are mixed with sugar, they are dried and crushed to a coarse powder before they are packed and sold to restaurants and other customers.
The mill can produce up to 2,000 kg of coffee products per day, half of its beans are sourced in Malaysia and the rest is imported.
The factory-produced type of sweet coffee has long been popular in Malaysia, where sugary drinks are liked by many and is commonly served in restaurants.
