Looking for coffee at Chong Pang hawker centre, I stumbled upon this bouquet of shiny tin cans tied in a bunch with red raffia strings.
I felt a rush of nostalgia.
I mean, drinking coffee from a re-purposed milk tin was quite common, a way of life during my growing up years.
For kopi or milk coffee at coffee shops or hawker centres, it is always made with tinned condensed or evaporated milk in Singapore and Malaysia.
Fresh milk is costly and doesn't keep well in our hot humid climate, so is never used in Chinese (usually Hainanese or Hock Chew) coffee shops or stalls.
Stalls and coffee shops will inevitably accumulate hundreds of empty milk cans.
But, we don't throw away the empty milk cans. We clean, wash and use them instead for takeaway or dabao 打包 hot coffee or tea.
Nowadays, milk cans are used a lot less because (I guess) people are willing to accept plastic bags or styrofoam cups even for hot drinks.
But, I prefer coffee in a tin can whenever I can find it, though it is getting rarer in Singapore and Malaysia. It's not that the coffee tastes better, though some people swear by it. For me, it's just the way we did things in the past.
Just the memory of it, the instant reconnection, makes me feel good.
Drinking guni kong 牛奶罐 coffee in Hainan Island, China.
Nanyang coffee or kopi culture spread to Hainan Island lock, stock and barrel, including reusing tin cans.
Hainanese migrants pioneered kopitiam culture in Singapore and Malaysia from around the 1930s. In the 1950s to 1970s, some retired back in their hometowns in Hainan Island. They brought the kopi or coffee culture back with them. For kopitiam, the Hainan Island version is known as Lao Ba Cha 老爸茶 or Old Dad's Teashop.
Reusing milk cans is an eco-friendly tradition and an important element in our hawker culture. Hawker culture is not only about the food and drinks or even just people - it's also about how and why we do things the way we do. We lose something whenever we change the way we do things
My kopi kong today was from Sing Feng Yuan stall #01-180 at Chong Pang hawker centre. Do support them, or any stall that is keeping the guni kong tradition alive.
Where else can we get kopi in guni kong? Share in the comments and we go support them. Keep our hawker culture strong in all its aspects.
Written by Tony Boey on 8 May 2026
Who is Tony Johor Kaki?
This culture soon dies with my generation X. Those after, consider this unhygienic or unsightly. They fail to embrace how we once lived and the simple things in life was what we grew up strong and independent. Now the new generation only reap what our generation had sown; perhaps forgotten us entirely. Without us, you don't exists.
ReplyDeleteThe younger generation would find carrying this unglamorous and unsightly.
Deleteas it’s too hot to hold, it’s only good if you have to walk a long way and people are shooting arrows at you. plastic bags just don’t have the same durability.
ReplyDelete不小心被牛奶罐割到就痛苦了😣
ReplyDelete