Or build one
Tap what you want, and the order comes out in the box above.
Kopi-C siew dai peng? Type an order and see what’s in the cup. Or tap to build one, and say it like a regular.
Tap what you want, and the order comes out in the box above.
A kopitiam order is a string of short words, mostly Hokkien and Malay, and the drinks uncle or auntie hears all of it in one breath. They come in roughly this order:
So “Kopi-C siew dai peng” is coffee with evaporated milk and less sugar, iced. “Teh-O kosong tapau” is plain black tea, no sugar, to take away.
Plain kopi and teh are made with sweetened condensed milk, so asking for siew dai gets you less condensed milk, and ga dai more. That’s why “kopi kosong” makes the uncle stop: condensed milk can’t be unsweet. Most give you kopi-C kosong (evaporated milk, no sugar), but say C or O and there’s no doubt. With C and O, the sweetness is sugar, spooned in.
| Say | It means | From |
|---|---|---|
| Kopi | Coffee, with condensed milk unless you say otherwise. | Malay, from the English “coffee” |
| Teh | Tea, with condensed milk unless you say otherwise. | Malay, from Hokkien 茶 tê |
| O | No milk. Still sweet, with sugar. | Hokkien 烏 o͘, “black” |
| C | Evaporated milk, plus sugar. | Said to be Carnation, the evaporated milk brand, or Hainanese 鮮 “fresh”: nobody agrees |
| Kosong | No sugar. | Malay, “zero” or “empty” |
| Siew dai | Less sweet. Also spelt siu dai. | Hokkien or Cantonese: 少甜 “less sweet”, or 少底 “less base” |
| Siew siew dai | Even less sweet. | The same, said twice |
| Ga dai | More sweet. Also gah dai. | 加甜 “add sweet”, or 加底 “add base” |
| Po | Weaker: more water. | Hokkien 薄 po̍h, “thin” |
| Gao | Stronger: less water. Also gau. | Hokkien 厚 kāu, “thick” |
| Di lo | Strongest: no water at all, straight from the sock. Also tiloh. | Hokkien, 直落 “straight down” (some say 滴漏 “drip”) |
| Peng | Iced. | Hokkien 冰 peng, “ice” |
| Pua sio | Lukewarm, so you can drink it now. | Hokkien 半燒 poàⁿ-sio, “half hot” |
| Tapau | Takeaway: in a plastic bag with a string, or a cup. Also da bao, or bungkus. | Cantonese 打包 daa bau, “pack up”; bungkus is Malay, “wrap” |
| Yuan yang | Kopi and teh mixed. Also called cham. | Cantonese 鴛鴦, mandarin ducks, a pair; cham is Hokkien 參, “mix” |
| Tak kiu | Milo. | Hokkien 踢球, “kick ball”, after the footballer on the old Milo tins |
| Halia | Ginger, as in teh halia. | Malay, “ginger” |
| Tarik | Pulled: poured from jug to jug from a height till it froths, as in teh tarik. | Malay, “pull” |
| Gu you | Butter, as in kopi gu you: a slice of butter in your kopi. | Hokkien 牛油, “cow oil” |
| Dinosaur | Iced Milo with a heap of Milo powder on top. Godzilla adds ice cream. | English, because it’s huge |
| Michael Jackson | Soya bean milk with grass jelly: black and white. | English, after the song “Black or White” |
Checked in November 2026 against Wikipedia’s Kopi and Kopitiam articles, Seth Lui’s kopitiam codewords and other Singapore ordering guides. Spellings are the common ones; the words came by ear, so every stall writes them its own way, and nobody quite agrees on the characters behind siew dai, di lo or the C. Every stall pours its own, so the cup is a picture, not a measure.
Black coffee with no sugar: O for no milk, kosong for no sugar. It’s the plainest thing a kopitiam pours, and the one with no sugar at all. Add peng for iced: kopi-O kosong peng.
Less sweet. With kopi-C or kopi-O it means less sugar; with plain kopi or teh it means less condensed milk, since that’s where the sweetness comes from. Siew siew dai is even less, and ga dai is more. It’s also spelt siu dai, the way the Health Promotion Board writes it.
Kopi-C has evaporated milk and sugar: creamy, less sweet than plain kopi. Kopi-O has no milk, just sugar: black and sweet. Plain kopi, with neither letter, has condensed milk, the sweetest of the three.
“Pulled tea”: strong tea with condensed milk, poured from one jug to another from arm’s length, again and again, till it cools a bit and grows a thick froth. Tarik is Malay for pull. It’s the drink of the mamak shop and the Malay stall as much as the kopitiam.
How strong. Gao (Hokkien for thick) is stronger, with less water; po (thin) is weaker, with more water. Di lo is the strongest of all: the coffee straight from the brewing sock, no water added.
It depends on the uncle. Kosong means no sugar, but plain kopi is made with sweet condensed milk, so most will give you kopi-C kosong (evaporated milk, no sugar) or ask “C or O?”. Say kopi-C kosong or kopi-O kosong and there’s no doubt.
Nobody is sure. The usual story is that C is for Carnation, the evaporated milk brand; another is that it’s Hainanese 鮮, said “si”, for fresh milk. Either way, it’s evaporated milk, not condensed.
Iced Milo with a heap of Milo powder spooned on top, to eat with a spoon before it melts in. A Milo Godzilla adds a scoop of ice cream. Tak kiu, “kick ball” in Hokkien, is the old kopitiam name for Milo.
No. It’s read in your browser. It goes into the page’s address so you can share it, since a kopi order isn’t personal.
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