Xen Coffee
# Xen Coffee

Xen Coffee is an independent siphon coffee bar in Hong Kong. Xen Coffee's first coffee shop was in Quarry Bay. Xen Coffee serves highly selective coffee varieties from Africa, Indonesia, Central and South Americas. Xen Coffee was awarded Best Fair Trade Cafe in Hong Kong for its effort as a pioneer in promoting Fair Trade products like chocolate from Ghana, organic coffee from Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and the rainforest of Guatemala in Hong Kong. Time Out magazine (Hong Kong edition) has selected Xen Coffee as one of Hong Kong's 20 Best Coffee Spots. Xen Coffee has also been covered in My Coffee Guide written by Moses Chan, a coffee geek and celebrity in Hong Kong. Helen Chow, the head Siphonist of Xen Coffee was awarded the title of World Siphonist by the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan (SCAJ) to honor her achievement as second runner-up in the World Siphonist Championship (WSC) 2010. The founder of Xen Coffee, Dixon Ip, is the first person in China to obtain certifications from both the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) as SCAA Cupping Judge and CQI Licensed Q Grader. Xen Coffee focuses on educating the local community on coffee beyond espresso and promoting the concept of enjoying specialty coffee from single origins.

## Siphon coffee history in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a unique city in China. Due to the strong influence of British colonists, Hong Kong has a unique mixed Chinese-Western culture. After British rule for more than 150 years, tea has been a more common beverage than coffee during the 1960s to 1980s. Thanks to the opening of Pacific Coffee Company, the first Seattle coffee house in 1992, coffee became a very popular drink in Hong Kong. Hong Kong people were then exposed to all kinds of European-style coffee such as espresso and latte. In Hong Kong, the very first appearance of a siphon coffee maker was in the 1970s, at a coffee shop (which may also be the city's first bona-fide coffee shop) on Patterson Street, Causeway.

