A KEEN HOUSE EmSphere

📍Location: Bangkok, Thailand

This is the first time I've given such a low rating. For me, this place is a typical trendy café that looks good but doesn't taste great; it leaves me feeling deceived🥲.

EmSphere is a new shopping center that opened at the end of last year in Bangkok. It features many food restaurants and the latest popular lifestyle brands for clothing, fragrances, and sports, allowing you to collect numerous Instagram-worthy spots in one place. The mall's decor combines industrial style with fashion elements, which is novel and beautiful. I've never seen this style of decor in Taiwan; it truly catches your eye.

The café I visited this time, A KEEN HOUSE, is also a trendy coffee shop with a small branch in EmSphere. The counter displayed four attractive drink samples, making it hard not to take a second look.

Here’s what I ordered:

• Pistachio Butterscotch Latte (THB160)
  Caramel Cream Pistachio Latte; it sounds so delicious, how could I not try it? The result was that it was undrinkable… This might be their signature drink, but I completely couldn't taste its deliciousness. The top layer was a salty cream, and the latte underneath had little sweetness, so the whole drink tasted salty. The coffee flavor was weak, with a heavier milk taste, and occasionally a hint of sweetness, but that was fleeting. After a while, I even detected a bit of bitterness… perhaps that's just a reflection of my own bitterness. There was no pistachio aroma at all; I only remembered I ordered a pistachio latte when I bit into the pistachio pieces on top.

In short, it was a very mixed drink. If you want to taste the flavors of life, go ahead and order this one; it's got saltiness, sweetness, and bitterness all in one. Fortunately, it’s a seasonal drink; otherwise, I really doubt how they would manage to open more branches.

• Burnt Caramel Latte (THB160)
  The most eye-catching caramel latte. The caramel pieces on top were crispy and sweet, reminiscent of Korean sugar candy, but for some reason, there was an annoying burnt taste. The latte below had a slight sweetness, with a heavy milk flavor too, which made it taste more normal but also very ordinary.

All in all, both drinks were disappointing. However, the online reviews are quite good, which makes me wonder about my own taste buds—are we really drinking the same beverages? 😂 Moreover, a small cup costs 160 Thai baht, which is very expensive considering Thailand's cost of living. I gave 1.5🌟 for the decor, the visual appeal of the drinks, and the friendly attitude of the staff; the rest can't get any higher.