A Philippine Barista Champion Has Turned Coffee Into an Omakase Experience

For October, Henry & Sons founder and CEO Michael Harris Lim Conlin has collaborated with Grand Hyatt Manila on Grand Brew: A Champion’s Craft, a four-drink coffee omakase at The Florentine. It brings competition-level techniques to the table, from espresso served with and without crema to a coffee mocktail built on clarified ube, white grape, and Taiwanese pepper.

Grand Hyatt Manila has long treated coffee as more than an afterthought. Since opening in 2018, the hotel has treated coffee with respect. It has hosted global coffee personalities like Yemeni coffee pioneer and author Mokhtar Alkanshali for cupping sessions. It has partnered with Henry & Sons to source sustainable coffee, even going up to Benguet to plant coffee trees that they now harvest for their Grand Hyatt coffee blend brewed throughout the hotel.

A champion’s craft

Harris is a self-confessed serial barista competitor and three-time Philippine Barista Champion. He has the distinction of being the first Filipino to finish at the round of 16 back in the Boston World Barista Championships back in 2019. Last year in Milan, his Better Vessel got the attention of coffee world by producing the highest scoring espresso in competition.

Co-invented with his son Liam, the Better Vessel is a gadget designed to remove the crema from espresso.

Espresso without crema is nothing new. But manually removing it with a teaspoon, without taking too much of the coffee along with it, can be tedious. That’s hardly practical in a busy coffee shop or a competition where contestants have just 15 minutes to prepare an espresso, a milk drink, and their signature beverage.

I admit the Better Vessel doesn’t necessarily make espresso better for everyone, as some coffee drinkers like the punchy hit that crema brings. But in competition, crema can mask the prized flavors and notes of premium coffee beans.

Four drinks, four ways to experience coffee

Each drink in the coffee omakase showcases a different technique or idea Harris has explored through competition, turning the omakase into a tasting of what coffee can do beyond the usual espresso or latte.

The first course is the Better Espresso Duet, a demonstration of the Better Vessel’s ease of use and its impact on espresso’s flavor.

Ordinarily, a duet consists of a milk drink and a straight espresso. Here, it’s a split shot of espresso: one with crema and one without, prepared using the Better Vessel. 

Let the espresso sit for about a minute to allow the crema to settle on top, then place the gadget over the espresso cup. Once the crema is removed, you’re left with the syrupy espresso underneath. I’d suggest sipping the espresso with crema first, then have some water to cleanse the palate. Then try the one without crema to taste the difference. I liked the crema-less espresso so much I used the Better Vessel to process the leftover “normal” espresso.

The second course, the Better Iced Aerochino, looks like an iced, frothed melon milk coffee drink. But it isn’t. The baristas use coffee machines to steam and froth a mixture of espresso, melon powder, and plenty of ice, much as they would milk for a latte or cappuccino. The result is a drink creamy enough that I could swear it contained dairy. It doesn’t.

Speaking of dairy, the barista competitions have seen leaps and bounds when it comes to improving milk. Rules say that they cannot use any sweetener, so they found other ways to make the milk taste better. Harris imports milk from Hokkaido and removes the water with a rotary evaporator ending up with thick milk concentrate. The serving of this milk accompanies the espresso. Have sip of the milk before trying out the latte. It’s interesting to note that the cream is deliberately left on the espresso to keep that concentrated creaminess and sweetness of the milk in check. The milk is available in very limited quantities so best come early if you want to try this.

The omakase concludes with the Better Signature Mocktail. It does look pretty but there is a lot of wizardry that goes on behind the scenes. They start off with a chilled base of clarified ube for the sweetness, white grape for the brightness, and a bit of Taiwanese pepper for spice served in a flute. There is a bit of ceremony involved with putting the Better Vessel on top of the flute and letting the espresso sans the crema flow down and form a layer. They recommend sipping the espresso first, then swirl to mix everything up. The drink changes from a coffee forward drink to its final coffee peppermint mocktail.

While the drinks can be ordered individually, I’d recommend trying the full omakase at least once. It’s an opportunity to experience coffee in forms that go well beyond the usual espresso, latte, or iced coffee. That said, four double shots of espresso may be too much caffeine for one person, particularly anyone prone to acid reflux or palpitations after drinking coffee. The Grand Brew omakase might be better shared by two.

As for Harris, he’ll be doing more pop-ups and takeovers to get comfortable behind the bar as he develops his routine for the 2027 World Barista Championship in Tokyo. He is scheduled to do pop-ups in Vancouver, Canada, next month and will serve as an emcee at the World Barista Championship in Panama later this year.