MANILA -- There’s fast coffee, and there’s slow coffee. There are some coffee shops that have both, but it’s a rarity to have a café that’s exclusively dedicated to the slow art of hand-poured coffee.

Yurari Kissa is nestled inside LAB Manila, a bar owned by the same people behind Japanese whiskey bar Lit a few doors away. LAB was conceptualized to serve other spirits like gin and sake that otherwise could not be included on Lit’s menu.

This slow coffee bar is a collaboration with Ros Juan, founder of Poblacion coffee shop Commune, and the Coffee Home Brewers Facebook group which helped push casual coffee drinkers into the bottomless rabbit hole of all things coffee during the pandemic.

The idea was to maximize the use of the space since LAB Manila would only open at 6 p.m. and before that, the space would be closed and unused. Thus, the Yurari Kissa coffee by day, LAB Manila liquor and cocktails at night idea was born.

To match the Japanese concept, Juan patterned this after a Japanese kissaten or Japanese tea shop that just so happens to serve coffee. Even before third wave coffee with pour-overs became a thing, the Japanese were already doing these with siphon and sock drippers preparing coffee. These kissatens often specialize in one style of brewing coffee, and that’s what Juan did focusing on hand poured coffee.

One thing strikes you when you enter Yurari Kissa is that it is very, very quiet. There’s no espresso machine endlessly churning out endless orders of drinks. Rather, there’s just a barista, several origami drippers, servers, a small electric grinder, beans, and that’s it. It’s a refreshing change of pace and scenery in contrast to the maximalist coffee shops that have been popping around.

There’s only one way coffee is prepared here: black.

The menu will look unusual for anyone used to a typical café. There are no americanos, flat whites, or Spanish lattes here. Instead, the menu features a curated selection of beans from different roasters and varied origins.

Juan jokes that this is her solution to being “brewdol’d” by acquiring too much coffee beans from her travels. That is, to share them instead of letting them go stale. Besides beans from Commune, the shop will be brewing beans from local and foreign roasters too.

The menu is divided into two sections: The NICE AND STEADY section contains beans that don’t stray away from what one would think of as coffee. These are the washed and natural processed beans that have that nutty, chocolate, and slightly bright brews.

The NOVEL beans are what Juan calls the “funky” coffee. These are brewed with beans that are not as common and taste a bit different due the where the beans are from, or the way they are processed. They defy common definition as they can be fruity, they can be fermented, and these are the beans to get for the adventurous coffee drinker.

Juan said there will be another category for extraordinary high-end beans such as hard-to-find exotic geshas and will be priced much higher per cup.

Exclusively slow coffee bars are hard to find since they are considerably more costly to run. Compared to a coffee shop that can serve espresso from scratch in about two minutes, this slower and more deliberate way of brewing coffee can take an average of 5 to 7 minutes.

Preparing coffee in these places is a ritual in itself. It all starts from the weighing of beans, heating of the water to near boiling point, heating and rinsing the dripper and the filter, grinding the beans, and then finally pouring and pulsing water onto the grounds. Yurari is Japanese for "sway slowly", and that is the sort of slow dance the barista does when pouring hot water on ground coffee.

Customers can even ask to sniff the beans during various stages of brewing for a true multisensory experience with even the recommended way of taking in these brews is slow and deliberate. The coffee’s flavors and notes change as the brew cools depending on the beans that are used.

Yurari Kissa brings back the romance of a slow coffee bar. A safe space where a coffeephile can stay reading a book or working on a laptop or have quiet conversations over several cups of coffee throughout the day, until the sun sets when the beverage of choice goes from coffee to booze.

Yurara Kissa can be found inside LAB Manila at Serendra, Bonifacio Global City and is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Please check out @yurarikissa for their constantly updated menus of coffee brewed at the slow bar.