Why a drinks stall?

Ordering at a kopitiam drinks stall has its own language. Say “kopi-O kosong peng” and you get iced black coffee with no sugar. Say “teh-C siew dai” and you get tea with evaporated milk, a little less sweet.

Kopitiam Order puts you behind that counter. The customers speak in kopi lingo and the buttons are in plain English, so every drink you make is a small translation. Get it wrong and the customer tells you what the order meant, then you fix it.

What it practises

It practises the words used to order drinks at a Singapore kopitiam: kopi and teh, O and C, kosong, siew dai and ga dai, peng, gao, po and di lo, tak kiu, tiao he, Milo dinosaur and da bao. Each shift adds a few new words, and the Menu card keeps them all with their meanings.

The voice that reads the orders is a standard English one from your device. A real uncle or auntie will sound different, and spellings vary from stall to stall.

A bit of real kopitiam history

Kopitiam joins two languages. Kopi is the Malay word for coffee, and tiam is Hokkien for shop. In the early days many coffee shop owners in Singapore were Hainanese, along with Foochow families. One of the oldest names still around, Killiney Kopitiam, began in 1919 as Kheng Hoe Heng Coffeeshop, run by a Hainanese family named Foo.

The ordering words are just as mixed. O comes from the Hokkien word for black. Kosong is Malay for empty. Po is Hokkien for thin, and di lo is Hokkien for straight down, meaning coffee poured straight from the brew with no water added. Siew dai and ga dai are probably Cantonese, though sources do not agree on exactly how.

Nobody is sure about the C in kopi-C. One story says it stands for Carnation, a brand of evaporated milk. Another says it is the Hainanese way of saying the word for fresh, from fresh milk, which was the old name for evaporated milk. The game gives you both.

Some nicknames come from packaging. Tak kiu means kick ball, after the footballer on Milo tins. Tiao he means fishing, because you dip a tea bag on its string like a fishing line. Milo dinosaur, iced Milo under a heap of Milo powder, is a newer favourite, and the story of its name is not settled.

Every stall has its own way of saying things. If yours says it differently, or we’ve got a word wrong, tell us on the contact page.

How to play

• Read the order in the speech bubble, or tap 🔊 to hear it.
• Make the drink: pick the drink, then change the milk, sweetness and strength only if the order asks. Add ice, Milo powder or a takeaway bag when needed.
• Plain kopi or teh already comes with condensed milk and sugar.
• Tap Serve. A wrong drink gets a kind explanation. After two tries, the buttons you need glow, so every order can be finished.
• Stars per shift: ★★★ for all but one order right first time, ★★ for half or more, ★ for finishing. Finish a shift to open the next one.
• Smiles: 3 for a drink right first time, 1 for a fixed one, and a bonus smile for quick serves in the busy shifts.

The ten shifts

Shift 1 is just kopi and teh. Then come O, C, the sweetness words, peng and tak kiu, gao and po, then the specials: di lo, tiao he and Milo dinosaur. Shift 8 adds da bao. Lunch rush brings a queue and longer orders, and the last shift uses every word in the spellings you might see, such as siu dai, gau and ta pau.

Tips

Read the order in parts. First the drink, then O or C for the milk, then strength, then sweetness, then peng, then da bao.

Watch the ticket. The line under the cup says in plain English what you have made. Compare it with the order before you serve.

Use the Menu card. Hints show new words in each shift. Turn hints off in Settings when you want a real test.

Your turn

The first customer is already at the counter. Open the stall, make a kopi, and see how far you get before someone asks for a teh-C gao siew dai peng, da bao.