PAHANG – At Kopi Empat Petang , a brightly lit, independent cafe nestled in Temerloh, owner-barista Akmal Zamri was preparing specialty beans for a cupping session with friends. Cupping – the coffee equivalent of a tasting – helps baristas assess aromas, flavours and acidity, by pouring hot water over freshly ground roasted beans. “This is how we determine whether it is floral, or bold – those notes you see mentioned about coffee beans,” Akmal, 35, told The Straits Times. Kopi Empat Petang is Malay for
Four O’Clock Coffee. Such scenes are common in Kuala Lumpur or Penang’s bustling urban hubs. But they are increasingly found in smaller towns across Pahang, where independent cafes are reshaping social life, drawing visitors and breathing new life into communities far beyond Malaysia’s major urban centres. Even on a recent Wednesday – when Kopi Empat Petang is normally closed – the space remained active as Akmal and his team huddled inside, evaluating African and South American coffee varieties and a signature Brazilian-Nicaraguan blend called ‘Blockbuster’.
Tucked away in a back alley, this minimalist indie cafe serves carefully brewed espressos and matcha concoctions. Kopi Empat Petang is in Temerloh, a quiet riverside town of fewer than 150,000 people in Pahang, the largest state in Peninsular Malaysia, about 130km from Kuala Lumpur. Temerloh is better known for tempoyak patin – fermented durian gravy served with river catfish and eaten with rice – than for flat whites or long blacks. The freshwater fish is so closely woven into the town’s identity that its
image adorns streetlights, benches and other public features. Yet alongside these old tastes, a new cafe culture has quietly taken root. Temerloh now has about 30 cafes, including Kopi Empat Petang and other independent local operators such as Kopi Senja (Twilight Coffee) and PamBrew, serving up carefully crafted coffee drinks to a growing clientele. Some of these cafes also incorporate local ingredients like indigenous gula kabung (palm sugar) and fresh coconut water into their drinks. “We’ve been in business since 2020. Physically at this shop
since 2022,” Akmal said. He said that the first three years of business were difficult, but now the cafe sells around 100 cups a day, and even more on weekends. Customer traffic on weekends is heavy enough that throughout much of Pahang, cafes commonly close on Wednesdays, the slowest day of the week. Like many young Malaysians, Akmal left Temerloh after secondary school for Kuala Lumpur, where he worked as a photographer and developed an interest in specialty coffee. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in
2020, he returned home and began selling brewed coffee online. “That’s when I realised there was demand here. I’ve kept making coffee since then,” he said. The spread of cafe culture has become noticeable enough that Giatmara, a network of government-run vocational training centres, introduced basic barista courses in 2025. Unlike Kuala Lumpur’s cafe scene, which is increasingly shaped by high rents and intense competition, Temerloh’s lower operating costs offer young entrepreneurs more room to experiment with specialty coffee and lifestyle businesses.The town’s location –
roughly midway between Kuala Lumpur and Pahang’s state capital of Kuantan, as well as along routes used by travellers heading to the country’s largest national park, Taman Negara, to the north – has also helped bring a steady stream of visitors.This includes international travellers heading to the region, particularly during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer holiday season from July through September, Akmal said.Serving the community The spread of cafe culture is no longer confined to Pahang’s larger towns. From Temerloh, and on to the hills of
Janda Baik and the remote northern district of Kuala Lipis, cafes are emerging as new social spaces. In Kuala Lipis – a former colonial administrative town of just 20,000, surrounded by rainforest – Sidang Kopi (Coffee Session) has become a gathering spot for professionals, students and weekend visitors. The peaceful, riverside haunt located in a heritage shophouse was born from Firdaus Abdillah Hamzah’s desire for good coffee and a comfortable place to enjoy it while writing or hanging out with friends. “I am a coffee
drinker, and previously there were no cafes in Kuala Lipis,” said the cafe owner, who is a writer by profession. “I saw many professionals and middle-class people in Kuala Lipis who would travel to Kuala Lumpur every weekend to spend their time there,” he recalled. Market demand was not something Firdaus thought much about when Sidang Kopi opened in April 2019. But he believed there was business potential. And he was right: today, about half a dozen similar independent cafes operate across the small town.
Those big-city doctors, lawyers and government officials who are “forced” to work in Kuala Lipis due to work assignments or family obligations, eventually became his regulars. “Most of our customers now are locals, and it gets crowded with (out-of-town) visitors during weekends or school holidays,” he said. Beyond coffee and desserts, Sidang Kopi hosts gigs, readings and community events, making it a go-to arts venue for Kuala Lipis residents. Drawing locals and foreigners Further south in Kuantan, the question of who actually frequents the state
capital’s booming indie coffee scene has long been debated. As the earliest city in Pahang to develop a specialty coffee culture, Kuantan remains the state’s definitive cafe hub. Centred along Jalan Besar – which links the city centre to Telok Chempedak beach – modern cafe culture has transformed pre-war shophouses into popular lifestyle destinations. Mirroring the trend in smaller Pahang towns, Kuantan has seen a proliferation of low-overhead micro-cafes and hidden laneway espresso bars breathing new life into the old quarter. Helping pioneer this revival
is Kula Cakes, which opened in 2013. An institution in Kuantan’s cafe scene, the establishment is known for desserts like its bestseller mango cheesecake and crème brûlée. “Back then the neighbourhood was considered ‘black’ (rough) — full of abandoned lots and drug addicts,” said co-founder Farisha Mazlan. “But it’s on a main route with high traffic. It made sense.” Today, the former fruit shop has expanded into neighbouring lots, supported by a production kitchen and a 40-person workforce. This kind of transformation has turned the
cafe scene into a key draw for local tourism – a sector poised for a significant boost with the 665km East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) slated to open in January 2027, making the city a highly accessible weekend getaway for out-of-state travelers Yet, local market saturation remains an uphill battle. According to 29-year-old local Muhammad Najwan Kamarul Aiza, who works at a Kuantan coffee roastery supplying local businesses, there are now more than 40 such cafes operating across the city. These include go-to spots such
as Muka Coffee and Kuantan Pickers & Kedai Kopi. While the scene is thriving, he notes that Kuantan still trails Kuala Lumpur’s mature culture of nearly 800 indie cafes. “While we do have local customers, there are actually more cafes than customers here,” he noted. Malaysia’s domestic coffee market is valued at US$1.05 billion (S$1.35 billion), with over 6,400 cafes operating nationwide, according to the Plantation and Commodities Ministry. Almost half of these cafes are located in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, with the remaining spread
out across the rest of the peninsula. To bypass these high fixed overheads and tap into crowds at scheduled events, Najwan is taking a flexible approach through his mobile venture, Peaberryproject, bringing specialty coffee directly to public events. “We recently set up a coffee stand at a local running event on the May 1 public holiday,” he said. The response was telling: an unexpected influx of runners lined up for artisanal pours, proving that the demand exists if met in the right context. “We are
trying to bring coffee and running culture together, creating spaces for people to gather beyond just home or work,” Najwan added, noting that pop-ups and temporary venue takeovers allow indie operators to compete with prominent local chains like ZUS Coffee and Gigi Coffee, as well as international names like Starbucks and Gloria Jean’s Coffees. “For now, the big brand franchises still win, but local cafes are slowly fighting them for market share.”
Pahang, Temerloh, Kuala Lipis, Kuantan, Kopi Empat Petang, Sidang Kopi, indie cafes, specialty coffee, barista courses, Giatmara, East Coast Rail Link ECRL, Taman Negara, gula kabung