What if coffee was fun again?
Locals to Hyunah Coffee Club in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, have the elite coffee world at their feet. The incredibly well-outfitted brewing lab, which opened in 2025, affords members (yes, members) the opportunity to play with a sea of espresso and coffee brewers, using unique, exceptional coffees from around the world. Appointment-only slots ensure enough time—and space—to be inspired, mess up, dial in, and enjoy. And the opportunity for hands-on tinkering and fellowship with similarly passionate enthusiasts is unmatched anywhere in New York City (or maybe anywhere?) There’s even a comfy couch.
Founders Kate Hyunah Lee and Hafiz Mangalji, partners in real life as well as business, came from the hospitality world, where the membership club model has already proved out as desirable to many—especially in a city like New York, where third spaces are essential to human survival. The couple does not have a coffee background; their passion for the craft and all the toys it comes with began to flourish during COVID lockdown.
“We thought, what if we don’t make it a laboratory or a retail store, but a lifestyle lounge environment?” explained Lee (who holds both a BFA and an MBA and experience working with luxury brands.) Mangalji nodded, saying the pair was inspired by the “social magic” of coffee, another reason that inspired them to make it a club, rather than, really, anything else.
Indeed, it’s anything but a cafe. Enter Hyunah’s space—so homelike, you’ll instinctively move to take off your shoes—and take in a coffee bar where you’re spoiled for choice, and doing every step yourself. You’ll select your own coffee, which during our visit included more than two dozen brands: from Ottawa’s September, to Chengdu, China’s Goût & Co., to Paris’ Tanat, to Brooklyn’s Sey, just a couple miles away. You pay by the gram, which allows the ability to sample anything you fancy in only the quantity you need.
Once ready to brew, you’re still not ready. First you get to select from two dozen grinders (think Zerno, Weber) more than a dozen manual brewers (basically all of them), and multiple espresso makers (from folks like Flair, Decent, and Meticulous). You can enjoy the full list here. And rest assured anything recently popularized online—like an OXO Rapid Brewer to try out Lance Hedrick’s coffee SOUP method—is likely to be on hand for you to try.
There is, of course, also a premixed brewing water bar.
For Mangalji, offering such a broad selection is a way of reducing barriers for the coffee aficionado. “The equipment is often cost prohibitive, or even if you can pay for it sometimes it can be difficult to source. The latest and greatest can be hard to try.”
“I know that we contribute to the consumption and the FOMO,” he continues, “But a lot of our goal was to alleviate the FOMO—to try things before purchasing.”
The Hyunah model works like this: become a monthly member (and it’s not expensive—at least by NYC standards), and book reservations anytime (including on weekends, which are strictly members-only) as well as receive discounts on coffee and equipment purchases. There are also day passes available, to those who wish only to dabble now and then. There’s also membership in the online community, for people too far to visit, but who still want to geek out together.
Lee and Mangalji tell us the average “dwell time” for a member visit is around three hours (that’s a lot of cups of coffee!) and that members who get to know each other at Hyunah connect on Discord and schedule their sessions together. Despite the friendships formed, the hyperfocus stays specifically on the craft.
“No one here ever talks about anything but coffee,” says Mangalji.
Though the founders freely admit they were Nespresso drinkers until the COVID pandemic, they’ve clearly gained coffee people’s trust, and rapidly. Their facility is used on off-days for professional development for other NYC coffee companies, and most famously, Hyunah collaborated on the Sey House activation in San Diego in April.
The space—perhaps despite the insured value of its equipment—is unpretentious. Lee and Mangalji, warm and approachable, have translated their goals of accessibility to the room itself. Natural light, warm tones, and a good sound system. One wall of the room houses a small vintage pop-up, softening the feel of brushed metal coffee equipment and masculine vibes. (Hyunah “recently got a couple monthly members that are women,” laughs Lee.) Plans are in the works to relocate to a more convenient space in Williamsburg, where it’s likely the calm vibes—which allow experimentation to take place in a relaxed setting—will continue.
For now, members—and member-curious—can turn to Hyunah to nourish the spirit of experimentation that too many of us leave behind in childhood. Though Mangalji says, “We believe the best coffees are made by home enthusiasts,” he and Kate provide them so much more than a place to try out equipment. Hyunah creates a space for the kind of enthusiasm and curiosity that needs other people to flourish, and lets them excitedly pour each other a cup.
Liz Clayton is the Associate Editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Liz Clayton on Sprudge.
