For many people, becoming a barista is not a dream. It is simply a way to earn some extra pocket money. The pay is rarely high, the job is often seen as temporary, and for students it can feel like a practical stop before moving on to something more serious. That is why so many people enter coffee casually. They work a few shifts, learn a few recipes, stand behind the machine for a season, and expect to leave once they find the career they really want. Coffee, at that stage, is not supposed to become a life. It is supposed to help pay for one.
Two Jin
But coffee has a habit of changing those plans. More than a decade ago, that was how Tow Jin first entered the industry. He was studying at the time and working part-time at Starbucks, not because he dreamed of becoming a coffee professional, but because he needed extra income. He was not even much of a coffee drinker then. Coffee was simply part of the job, nothing more. Then one day he visited a small café in Kuala Lumpur, ordered a milk-based beverage, and tasted something that immediately stayed with him. It was not a competition coffee or some rare auction lot. It was simply different enough to make him pause.
“It wasn’t even an espresso. It was just a milk-based beverage. I was very intrigued by the flavors I was getting. I kept asking myself why it was so different from the coffees that I drank back then.”
That question was small, but it was enough.
What followed was not a dramatic life change all at once, but something quieter. One question led to another. Curiosity slowly took the place of routine, and coffee began to mean more than a temporary job. Later, Tow Jin would write that he “stumbled upon coffee at one of the lowest points in my life, and somehow, it rebuilt me into who I am today.” That line gives a different weight to the whole journey. Coffee was not only a career accident. It became a way of rebuilding—through work, through skill, through discipline, and eventually through purpose.
Over the years, that curiosity kept pulling him deeper into the industry. He went on to co-found The Roast Things, the micro-roastery he still leads today, and became one of the familiar faces within Malaysian specialty coffee. His path widened far beyond roasting. He became involved in judging, competition organizing, and the early building of the Malaysian specialty coffee scene itself. He helped found the Malaysian Specialty Coffee Association, spent years contributing behind the scenes, and continued to develop his palate through quality control, green buying, and cupping. None of those roles seem to have been planned in advance. They feel more like the natural result of someone who kept following the next question.
Even now, after more than eleven years in coffee, the part he enjoys most remains close to where everything started: tasting. Not the title, not the stage, not even the public side of the industry, but the quiet moment of discovery at the cupping table.
“Buying new coffees, experiencing new coffees either through the seasons or maybe just cupping a new roast profile, it’s something that I really enjoy the most even till today.”
That sentence says a lot about him. The curiosity never left. It simply matured.
While Tow Jin was growing in coffee, Malaysia was changing too. When he first entered the specialty scene, specialty coffee still felt niche. Today, consumers are far more informed. They know more about varieties, processing, and what they want from a cup. Specialty coffee is no longer unusual in the way it once was, and Tow Jin has been part of that change long enough to witness it from the inside. But the lesson he returns to most is not about market growth. It is about people.
“Coffee isn’t just about coffee.”
That belief shapes the way he talks about baristas, cafés, and professionalism. For him, good coffee alone is never enough. A professional needs not only craft, but maturity, communication, and the ability to deal with people. Technique can be taught. Learning how to work with others, lead a team, and serve people well often takes much longer.
“If you really want to be treated as a professional, you have to really start acting and thinking like one. A professional barista needs to master both the craft and skills of making coffee and also the skills of managing people and dealing with people. Coffee isn’t just about coffee.”
That same mindset also helps explain why competition remained part of his journey.
For Tow Jin, competition was never just another title to collect. One of the things that first fascinated him deeply was the triangulation test during his Q-grader exam. He loved it enough that it led him into Cup Tasters, where he won the first competition of his life. In that moment, a quiet dream began: to one day represent Malaysia. He carried that dream for years while doing many other things in coffee, building businesses, judging competitions, organizing events, and helping others grow. It was not always the loudest part of his journey, but it never disappeared.
Eleven years later, he finally stepped onto that world stage as Malaysia’s Cup Tasters Champion. He did not make the final at the World Cup Tasters Championship in Bangkok, but that was not the whole meaning of the experience. What mattered most was that, after carrying the dream quietly for so long, he had finally stood there himself.
“Representing Malaysia at World Cup Tasters this year felt surreal. Not because of the stage itself, but because it made me reflect on how long this journey has been. Somewhere along the way, I quietly carried my own dream too. So to finally stand on that stage myself after 11 years in coffee felt deeply meaningful.”
That reflection reveals something important about his story. Competition is not the center of who he is, but it remains one of the ways he stretches himself. It is another form of curiosity, another place where he tests his focus, his discipline, and his ability to keep learning. He once wrote that his biggest competition was himself. That feels true beyond Cup Tasters. It feels true of his whole life in coffee.
What makes Tow Jin’s story meaningful is not that it is dramatic. It is meaningful because it is familiar. Many people in coffee begin exactly where he began: behind the bar, earning a little extra money, not yet realizing that the temporary thing in front of them might one day become their profession. Most leave before that happens. Tow Jin stayed. One cup made him curious. That curiosity became work, then discipline, then purpose, then a life.
What began as pocket money became a life in coffee.
And in the end, one question was enough.
