Hat Yai — Kopi, Kaya Toast,
and the New Specialty Cafés

The heart of Hat Yai's traditional coffee — Chinese coffee shops in old shophouses, open for decades, brewing kopi, a dark-roast coffee through a cloth sock, served hot with condensed milk (kopi) or black with sugar (kopi-o) in an old porcelain cup. You eat it with crisp kaya toast and two soft-boiled eggs. The mood is marble tables and ceiling fans, a step back into the city's Chinese-southern past. These shops are spread through the downtown core near the markets and open very early. It suits you if you want traditional coffee and the genuine old Hat Yai atmosphere.

In Hat Yai, dim sum is breakfast, and it's usually eaten with coffee. The dim sum shops open at dawn, with people eating shumai, har gow, steamed buns, chive cakes and steamed ribs, served in little bamboo baskets you pick one at a time, alongside a kopi or hot Chinese tea to start the day. It's the Chinese-southern breakfast ritual that defines a Hat Yai morning. The one people mention most is Dim Sum Dee Dee in the city centre — round tables, busy from 6 to 9am. Come early and it's all out and fresh, and you can order a lot to share.

Hat Yai is a university city with a big young crowd, so it has more specialty cafés serious about coffee every year. These places do espresso, latte art and single-origin hand drips, with both Thai and imported beans, aiming for a clean, fruity cup. They're well designed, air-conditioned, with power points and Wi-Fi, good for working or meeting friends, and you'll find them in the downtown core, around Municipal Park and in the Lee Gardens area. To be straight, they cost several times what a kopi does, but you get the atmosphere and a quality cup in a different lane from the old shops.

For non-coffee drinkers or anyone who wants a sweet with their drink, Hat Yai has air-conditioned dessert and bakery cafés across the city, serving cake, croissants and fresh bread plus the drinks the young crowd loves — matcha latte, cocoa, milk tea and fruit smoothies. Many are cutely done and good for photos, and they're a meeting spot for the city's younger set. Hat Yai is hot and humid most of the year, so cold drinks sell well. These cafés suit a late afternoon out of the sun, a cake and a cold drink before you head out to the night market in the evening.

A drink culture many visitors overlook is Hat Yai's Thai-Muslim southern tea shops, serving teh tarik (cha chak — milk tea "pulled" to a froth), iced tea and hot coffee, alongside roti or rice dishes at southern eateries. Prices are very light. It's a local drink that reflects Hat Yai as a southern border city with both Chinese and Muslim cultures mixed in. These shops are spread across the city and open from morning till late — good for a hot teh tarik and roti in the morning or late at night, a different lane from both kopi and the specialty cafés.

If you want a quick cup before a full day out, the easy-to-find chains are the answer. Café Amazon is all over the city, including in petrol stations, cheap and steady. Starbucks and the cafés in the Central Festival Hatyai and Lee Gardens Plaza malls are easy to find with air-conditioned seating. They're good for a morning coffee before you hit the markets, or a mid-day top-up in the heat — predictable, no surprises, handy when you're in a hurry or when you just want an air-conditioned mall seat out of the city's humidity.

The most Hat Yai cup there is — kopi, a dark-roast traditional coffee brewed through a cloth sock, served hot with sweet condensed milk; if you want it black, order a kopi-o (black with sugar). Served in an old porcelain cup, it's strong and rounded, made for a Chinese-southern breakfast. Order it with kaya toast and two soft-boiled eggs in the morning and sip it slowly at an old downtown coffee shop — it's how locals start the day, and it costs very little compared with a modern café.

Kopi's partner in a kopitiam breakfast — crisp toast spread with kaya (a jam of egg, coconut and sugar), with some shops tucking a slice of cold butter inside for sweet-and-savoury. You eat it with two soft-boiled eggs cracked into a bowl and splashed with light soy sauce and white pepper, dipping the toast into the egg. It's a simple, light, cheap breakfast you'll find at old coffee shops across the city — a dish that tells the Chinese-southern story of Hat Yai as well as the kopi does.

On the modern side, the drinks that sell in a hot, humid city like Hat Yai are the iced latte and the matcha latte. Specialty shops do latte art from quality beans, while dessert cafés have matcha, cocoa and milk tea for the non-coffee crowd. An iced drink in an air-conditioned room around Municipal Park or the Lee Gardens area, with space to work or meet friends, is the picture of Hat Yai's other coffee world that the young crowd loves. Order a slice of cake with it for the full café feel. It costs more than a kopi, but you get the cool air and a comfortable seat.

A southern-Muslim drink worth trying at least once is teh tarik — milk tea pulled back and forth until it's softly frothy, served hot or iced, strong and sweet. Eat it with roti, crisp outside and soft within, dipped in condensed milk or curry, or alongside a southern meal. These tea shops open from morning till late across the city, and prices are very light. It's the drink that tells you Hat Yai has both Chinese and Muslim cultures mixed in — a hot teh tarik in the morning or late at night gives you a southern-border flavour neither kopi nor a specialty café can.