Getting to know Yat Chun - Founder of Phoenix Coffee Roastery.
What's the story behind Phoenix Coffee Roastery and how did it all start?
Back in 2020, COVID-19 hit the world hard and every business suffered from the lockdowns. I lost my job during that period and had no idea what to do next. At the time, I was living in Hong Kong on a small outer island named Peng Chau — a small island with only 7,000 residents. The island doesn't allow cars, only bikes, which is something we rely on daily to get around. I was determined to build something of my own, and I wondered, what if I combined my love of coffee with the island's bike culture, and started serving coffee on Peng Chau?
That's how the initial image of Phoenix Coffee appeared: the "bike coffee man" project. You may be curious why we named ourselves Phoenix. That's a story dating back to 1960s – 1980s Hong Kong. Back then, gas tanks were delivered on giant, metal-built bikes under a brand called Shanghai Phoenix. When I first developed the concept of brewing coffee on a bike, that brand came to mind. So we rebuilt the bike and named ourselves Phoenix.
I ran the bike coffee project for a year or two before starting to realise its limitations. I began thinking about doing something I had never tried before — coffee roasting. So we changed our name to Phoenix Coffee Roastery, transitioning from a bike coffee project to a roasting company, and from a barista and coffee man to a coffee roaster and business owner. That's how we started!
Can you share more about your approach to sourcing and roasting coffee?
We love exploring lesser-known coffee origins like the Philippines, Yunnan in China, and Nepal. Origins that are seldom talked about, especially in the specialty coffee world. We understand there's a reason why these origins aren't widely discussed: quality. But after all these years and all the evolution in processing and farming knowledge, are they still where they were 10 years ago? Are they still making poor coffee? I don't think so.
I started visiting these origins and talking to the people who are truly on the ground making great coffee. What I found was that the coffee isn't poor quality — it's simply unseen. I believe these producers are worth introducing to the world: who they are and what they've created. Although the quality might not yet match that of more popular origins, they are absolutely worth a try.
In roasting, we are more into letting the coffee speak. We believe roasting isn't about changing the coffee, but about providing a structure for the people who brew it. We could roast super light to enhance a wider flavour profile, but that often lacks body and requires a higher skill set to brew — and that's not what we want. We want our coffee to be something everyone can enjoy, whether you're a serious coffee brewer or someone who brews casually for pleasure. We want people to buy and brew without pressure. That's why our roasting style leans toward light-to-medium, with good expansion and the right amount of development, resulting in an easy-to-brew coffee.
What motivated Phoenix Coffee Roastery to explore the capsule coffee format?
Coffee should be something casual that everyone can enjoy. Capsules are a brewing format with the largest and widest audience, yet somehow people don't believe they can be high quality — and that really motivated us to explore the possibilities and see what we could do as a roastery.
I also want to say a genuine thank you to the MORNING Machine, which showed us how a capsule machine could work when you truly invest in developing it. Honestly, I wouldn't have ventured into capsules if I hadn't encountered that machine. You really opened my eyes to what a capsule could be.
We all have our morning routines, and coffee is often a crucial part of it. What is your morning ritual like?
Honestly, my morning routine has nothing to do with coffee, haha. As a father of two, a husband, and a business owner, I try to find a balance between work and family. Every morning, I wake my kids up, get them dressed, make breakfast, send them to school, take a short walk with my wife, and then head out to work. It's funny, when I get into roasting, I just roast and rarely drink coffee while I'm roasting. I'm a bit different as a coffee business owner!
What are you most excited about right now and for the future of Phoenix Coffee Roastery as a brand and business?
When Phoenix Coffee started, I set a goal for myself: spend three years trying and learning; spend another three years developing and creating; and spend the last three years showing our coffee to the world. This is my sixth year with Phoenix Coffee, so I'm now entering the chapter where it's time to show people who we are. We are a coffee roastery, not a specialty café, but we still believe we are doing things right. I hope people start to know that in Hong Kong, there's a roastery named Phoenix and a roaster named Yat.
