Penang Kopi Tiam

In Penang, the term "kopi tiam", which is pronounced in Penang Hokkien as ko3pi3 tiam3 refers to eateries occupying a shoplot or shophouse. Traditionally, this would be a Straits Eclectic-style shophouse where the business is conducted below, while the owner and his family occupy the living quarters upstairs. Except for the old family-run coffee shops in the inner city of George Town, this practise has come to past, and nowadays, the upstairs is more likely to be occupied by the shop's foreign workers.

There would be one or several individual hawkers selling food while the proprietor of the coffee shop sells coffee as well as other beverages. If this is done on a bigger scale, then the establishment will be known as a "hawker centre", and if it is in an air-conditioned space such as a shopping mall, it is known as a "food court". , though ironically none but the newest ones have the word "Kopitiam" to their names. More likely, the traditional coffee shops will be known as "Kedai Kopi", "Kedai Makan", "Kedai Makanan", and even "Cafe" or "Restaurant".

Ordering at Coffee Shops

I have created a page to help you place your order at coffee shops. There is also another page listing the various local drinks available at coffee shops.

Updates

7 February, 2014: The Independent newspaper ran an article quoted edited extracts from The Food Book, a Lonely Planet publication, stating that Penang is the #1 destination for foodies. Read my response here, Penang is World's Number One Destination for Foodies.

Directory of Coffee Shops

In this directory, the term "coffee shop" refers to all eatery premises in Penang where street fare is sold by hawkers. Traditionally, coffee shops are link shophouses built in the Straits Eclectic style where the eatery business is conducted below, while the coffee shop owner and his family live upstairs. Most coffee shops occupy the corner lot of these link rows.

Once most hawkers were itinerant vendors. Today the majority have found their station in coffee shops or hawker centres. Only a fraction continue the itinerant trade, pushing their carts or three-wheelers through the city streets.

Gone are the days - in George Town at least - when coffee shops stand out for the quality of their freshly brewed coffee. The litmus test of coffee quality in Penang is the coffee-black, or ko₃pi₃-orh₁. By default, if you called for "coffee" without specifying "-orh", you will be given coffee au lait.

Today it is the hawkers that are the true stars of the coffeee shops. Many coffee shops derive fame from the hawker food sold there. However it should be pointed out that the food and the location often fuse as one - many famous hawkers discover to their great dismay that once they move to a new location, they lose all their existing clientele and don't make any new ones. This combination of food-and-location is so entrenched that many of the most famous Penang food stalls have been occupying the same spot for decades. Some may have spawn outlets elsewhere, in big air-conditioned malls, but it is always the one at the original spot that matters, the one that continues to attract a devoted following, even if it's the humblest of stalls.

On this page, I celebrate the coffee shops of Penang. From the famous to the obscure, they are all listed here in alphabetical order. In addition, check out also the related lists of other eateries below.

Other Types of Food Outlets in Penang

Private Guided Tours of Penang

If you are seeking private guided tours of Penang, message Penang Tour Guides at penangtourguides@gmail.com and enquire with them.

 Buy, rent or sell properties in Penang

Do you have a property for sale or to rent out? Are you looking to buy or rent a property? Get in touch with me. WhatsApp me (Timothy Tye) at 012 429 9844, and I will assign one of my property agents to serve you. I will choose the agent for you, according to your property needs. So when you message me, provide me some details of what you need, whether to sell, to buy, to rent or to rent out, and what type of property, is it condo, apartment, house, shop, office or land.

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.