The Place
As you walk through the Wuyangcun neighborhood on a cold winter’s night, you may crave a space to sit and contemplate your work and life, fueled by caffeine and sugar. Perhaps the space you seek is colored in calming shades of black and white, with cakes served on geometrically pleasing hexagonal platters.
Well, such a space does exist. It goes by the name of Nokpi Collection, and there you can sit and collect your thoughts while staring into the heart-shaped foam of your chrome-colored coffee cup.
The Food
Nokpi Collection, like any cafe worth its salt, serves up your typical selection of caffeinated drinks (think espressos, Americanos, mochas and flat whites), priced between RMB18-30. For those who have an early flight to catch the next day and could do without the caffeine, there is also a selection of non-caffeinated hot drinks on offer.
The mark of a good cafe is its cappuccino (RMB26), and at Nokpi Collection, the barista knows what he is doing. Often, we could not detect where the delicate foam ended and where the curative elixir of wakefulness underneath began, although the coffee itself is less robust than the original Italian version. Meanwhile, the interestingly named Gothic latte (RMB26) consisted of black sesame and peanut, sans caffeine, and was reminiscent of a Cantonese sesame-paste dessert. Despite being an unappetizing shade of grey, it was very smooth. For both drinks, only a highly meticulous barista would be able to steam milk to produce such a consistency.
The cafe also serves a selection of flavored Swiss rolls. These were very fresh, but tasted unremarkable. The strawberry roll (RMB32) had a red velvet cake base with a giant strawberry chunk wedged within the cream; although the elements were individually tasty, the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The matcha roll (RMB32), meanwhile, was creamy, but otherwise unmemorable.
The Vibe
The food and drink are only half the reason to come to a cafe. You likely also want a clean, brightly-lit sanctuary to ruminate while working on your next Oscar-winning screenplay.
Given this, you will find the black-and-white color scheme a welcome escape from the bustle and chaos of Guangzhou’s streets. Those literate in Chinese may appreciate the philosophical quotes printed on transparent plastic boards and suspended from the ceiling. The cafe has a large, open ground floor and a smaller second floor, from where you can spy the barista fastidiously doing the washing-up below.
On the day of our visit, the cafe was playing Leonard Cohen songs as a soundtrack. It’s appropriate background music for an evening spent churning out a philosophically complex short story on your laptop, before counting up your ever-increasing empty espresso cups, paying your bill and disappearing into the darkness of the Cantonese night.
Price: RMB25
Who’s going: coffee lovers, tortured artists
Good for: relaxed vibes, chrome cups, caffeine kicks
Nearest metro: Wuyangcun (Exit A), 8 minutes
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