Clean Coffee opens a tap-and-go coffee concept in Tsim Sha Tsui!

Clean’s tap-and-go concept dispenses coffee from taps without compromising on taste or quality. Inspired by beer and cocktail taps that serve ready-made drinks at the pull of a lever or a click of a button, the company worked around the flavour and time restrictions of traditional espresso machines to create its own coffee taps. Co-founder Cynthia Lok stressed that “serving instant or vending machine coffee was out of the question.”

Head down to the basement inside Chungking Mansions—which has been revamped into a retail and culture destination called Heath—to find Clean Coffee’s corner shop, decked out in warm pink and sage green. A collection of taps line the back wall, with flavours of the day listed out in digital signage. Choose between drinks such as oat milk coffee, matcha latte, sesame latte, regular black coffee, or single-origin coffee.

Clean's newest Tsim Sha Tsui location might seem fully automated, but behind the new coffee taps is an entire barista team working hard to top up the coffee banks with freshly brewed coffee whenever needed. The same goes for the pastries in the vending machine! Baked fresh every day from Clean’s in-house kitchen, each item is refilled once purchased to keep the quality of the food products at their highest.

Clean is determined to break through the norm of traditional coffee culture with this first-of-its-kind opening. Inspired by the rapid pace of Hong Kong life, Clean’s tap-and-go speciality concept was born out of a need to do things quickly and effectively. 

Worried that its traditional café set up in Sheung Wan would still keep busy customers waiting for a freshly brewed cup of joe, the founders of Clean got to work looking for a solution that would offer patrons delicious coffee in the shortest amount of time needed. 

Lok says the inspiration behind this concept is to bring coffee lovers more insight as to where the café scene in Hong Kong is likely headed: “The whole aim of the new shop is to create quality and sustainable coffee at a click of a button for our customers.”

Sustainability is part and parcel of Clean’s café concepts. With this second opening, the founders hope to set an example for a sustainable coffee industry in Hong Kong. Clean encourages customers to bring their own reusable cups to the store in favour of a speedy coffee takeaway experience, as getting a disposable cup from the vending machine creates waste and adds an extra step to the coffee run. Oat milk is the default in Clean’s drinks, and the beans used are sustainably and ethically sourced.

While sustainability is at the forefront of Clean Coffee, so is the customer. Acknowledging the steady increase of coffee prices across the world due to ongoing environmental crises, Clean is determined to “slow down the pace of the price increases” with “new business models and innovations” to bring affordable and sustainable coffee to Hong Kong.

Clean Coffee, Shop 12, Basement, Heath, 36–44 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui