I was just sipping on my cup of early morning kopi (Singapore coffee) when I discovered that social food journal, Burpple, has just created a HelpKopiGoOverseas.com page. The website was inspired by Alvin Wang’s HelpAlvinGetIntoSchool.com, and was launched in conjunction with the launch of their kopi infographic for Singapore Tourism Board's (STB) upcoming “Get Lost and Find The Real Singapore” maze event, happening this weekend in Melbourne. The Singapore startup has cleverly adapted the beautiful elements from Alvin’s website and modified to create a hot pink site that aims to introduce Singapore’s local coffee overseas.
HelpKopiGoOverseas_screenshot
Perhaps the best part of this initiative is the copy at the bottom of the page, which reads:
Hello, my name is Kopi, and I'm 46 years old. I have many siblings - "O", "Gau", "Kosong", "C", "Siew Dai", "Po", "Peng" and a fat brother called "Gah Dai". I have always enjoyed hanging out at coffeeshops and kopitiams in Singapore, JB and some say Batam. My best friends are kaya toast and half-boiled eggs. Recently, I was invited by The Singapore Tourism Board to take a trip down to Melbourne, Australia. I'm kinda scared because I don't have many friends there. I last heard there's a Killiney Kopitiam somewhere but that's all. All my ang moh friends tell me no point don't go la, they say the Frappuccino, Cappuccino and Macchiatos are very hao-lian. They wear nicer clothes when mine is only made of styrofoam or metal tin. They hang out in some atas place called Café - actually it's just coffeeshop + air-con and music. The other time my uncle say he will pay me 90 cents for the same work I deliver, then I got quite upset cos' these ang mohs get paid at least 5 times more for doing the same thing, and they still get to mix with the toffee nuts, brownies and chiobus (hot ladies). If you like my family portrait below (nicely done by my friends from Burpple) it will encourage me to have more confidence when I make a trip to Melbourne, Australia this week. Help me by giving me a thumbs up and sharing this page if you like what you see. Thank you!If you're a Singaporean or someone who understands Singapore culture, you would probably be able to relate better to the content. It draws parallels between Singaporean local coffee and the international ones that we can find from cafes such as Starbucks. It also includes a video of two local coffee shop aunties promoting Burpple, and an infographic (pictured below) which introduces the different types of Singaporean coffee and their contents. There are so many that even I, as a Singaporean, am also sometimes confused about them.
Burpple Kopi Infographic
I thought it was a clever marketing campaign to piggy-back on the flavour of the week (Alvin’s issue), and spin it to do something entirely different.
The app is really pretty, and never fails to get make hungry in the middle of the night browsing all the food porn uploaded by my friends on the application. If you guys have an iPhone and are keen on checking out the food and kopi curated by its users, download the application here today.
