If ever there was an unlikely pairing that nonetheless made perfect sense it is that of baristas and hypebeasts. On the surface, it seems like a Supremely bad idea to rock those pristine $300 Nike Air Force One collab sneakers for a bar shift where at the end of the day they’ll undoubtedly be Off-White. But on the other hand, baristas are often on the bleeding edge of fashion trends, so if anyone is going to show out like that, it’s for sure going to be your friendly local coffee professional.
It stands to reason, then, if barista-as-hypebeast falls under the jumbo shrimp category of acceptable enjambments, that the hypebeast-as-barista would play just as well. So that’s exactly what the website Hypebeast has done, opening their first-ever cafe inside their Hong Kong showroom. And the name? Hypebeans.
But the new cafe is more than just an excuse to make a silly pun (which I would be totally good with, were that the case); Hypebeans boasts a serious coffee program. As reported by Inside Retail, the new space was made in collaboration with world-renown (and globe trotting) coffee professional Hiroshi Sawada. Sawada, a World Latte Art Champion, has previously opened cafes in New York City and Chicago under the Sawada Coffee monikor, as well as over 20 more cafes in Japan as Streamer Coffee.
Per the article, a friendship and shared “interest in fashion and the culinary arts” between Sarada and Hypebeast CEO Kevin Ma led to the creation of Hypebeans.
“We want to promote a lifestyle surrounded by culture,” says Kevin Ma. “We encourage creative collaborations here as an extension of the Hypebeast community.”
The cafe, which will serve coffee “roasted by Japanese artisans,” will feature a menu designed by Sawada, including a Hypebeans cold brew and a full roster of espresso-based drinks, all made via a La Marzocco Linea espresso machine and Mazzer Major grinder. Hypebeans will also feature many of the specialty offerings for which Sawada’s cafes are known. The Forest Matcha Latte, for instance, is listed as a specialty of the cafe and is reminiscent of the sort of matcha-based lattes that can be found at other Sawada cafes, like the “Military Latte” we reported on earlier this year from the NYC outpost, containing matcha, espresso, vanilla, milk, and cocoa.
So if you start seeing $600 1 of 1 apparel from Hypebeast that looks suspiciously like other offerings but with more random brown stains (or green, could be matcha, who can say), you’ll know why.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
