Kesan Coffee: Street Coffee to Laugh over Urban Life

Andre Barahamin
Nov 1 · 5 min read

Stands as the most air-polluted city in the world and world-wide popular for its hell of traffic jam, Jakarta is the capital city of Indonesia where more than 30 million people live within while competing against each other.

This is the city where the sound of horns of cars and motorbikes that slowly following each other, repeatedly will blow your ears, adding more depression into your mental cup and taking away a smile from your face. A perfect city for anyone who wanted to learn how to be an urban warrior, struggling for daily life and still seek for a temporary space to run away from this all weights.

There is no other place that can match Jakarta in its level of disorder on the road as the most complete manifestation of chaos.

Its traffic runs slower than the pain of being left behind by love. Here, you will experience the fatigue that has embraced the body mixed with resentment towards life that is the same from day to day. A five stars environment to learn how to be sarcastic yet funny before life.

It is very difficult not to be that kind of person if you live in Jakarta. However, it does not means that there is no hope left behind. Because all you need is a place where you can enjoy its most brutal presence of traffic jams live before your very eyes while enjoying a great-well brewed cup of different Indonesian coffee. Space where you have a comrade who will guide you to see through concrete walls of skyscrapers and lights that make you dazzled. A common room that will provide you no free-WIFI but warm, friendly talks with big smiles and fairly cheap prices.

After quite some time, I found that place. Right next to one of the most packed roads in East Jakarta, Jatinegara. A knock-down coffee shop which started to open from 07.00 pm and will be closed its activity of serving a coffee at 01.00 am next mornings.

For me, Kesan Coffee is the best place ever to see the peak of Jakarta’s traffic jam in Mantraman Raya Road. On Sunday evening, he will closed and packed his equipment when dawn call to prayer began to be heard from the mosques around.

The coffee shop was founded by Fadhel Achmad, a Betawi and native of Jatinegara. “Call me Icai,” he told me.

It was on August 6, 2018 when Icai finally decided to set his coffee shop. A year prior, he extensively learned how to be a manual coffee brewer in Bogor. Took a course at Dapoer Kaoum Telapak, an NGO who are focusing themselves on economic empowerment of rural and indigenous communities.

Kesan Coffee is unique in every of its aspects. There are only two tables which only enough to welcome about eight-person at the same time. The chairs are set on the sidewalk next to a temporary typical Indonesian fast-food stall.

“If you are hungry, you can order from food stalls around and enjoy your meal here,” Icai explained to me while his hand was busy preparing coffee for me. In terms of coffee, Kesan Cofee is known for its closed-ties with Indonesian coffee beans produced by indigenous peoples both arabica or robusta.

“Toraja is the most popular arabica yet I have couple of beans from Sumatera region and others from the eastern part of Indonesia.” My eyes caught a set of jars on a small table.

Behind that table, a banner is hanging with huge printed text: Kesan Coffee and its menu. Kesan is abbreviation stands for Kopi Enak Se-Nusantara or can be translated as Great Coffee of the Archipelago. Icai invented the name to mark his coffee shop signature and its main foundation.

“The coffee shop tagline is ‘refused to kneel before the instant coffee’.” Icai’s smile always makes you also want to do similar things.

He handed me a cup of Toraja arabica. It smells nice. Less than a half-hour later, I just order another cup of coffee.

Our first encounter happened in mid-July and I visited his coffee shop a couple weeks after. Since then, Kesan Coffee has become my regular live movie theater. It was a big surprise to see a great coffee shop standing in the open air before the bus stop.

“Don’t worry. There will be no rain tonight.” That was Icai’s first line when I was observing around and staring up to the dark sky of Jakarta. “If there is rain, it simply means that we are not lucky for tonight.” He smiled.

Icai is very popular in the neighborhood. You can easily judge it through every local that passed the coffee shop by always greet him. “Now, I moved to live in another place after I got married. After all, I was born and raised here. I watched how this neighborhood changed over time.”

For him, having the coffee shop in a lower working-class neighborhood, on the sidewalk of one of the busiest streets in Jakarta, might do not fit with blue-collar typical coffee shops. “If you’re looking for aircon, comfy sofa and quiet ambiance, Kesan Coffee is not made for you.”

However, for me, this is the best coffee shop if you want to laugh before the modern life that rushes before your eyes. The actors’ moves and all the scenes that taking place in front of you will help you to contemplate how current civilization had turned us to be more individualistic, full of fear and hatred.

More than that, you will have a great cup of coffee helping to boost up your mood and maybe clear your thoughts.

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