Drip & Drool is a cafe in Lavender where you can unwind with cold brews and zines

Would you be willing to lock up your phone for an hour in exchange for a chocolate chip cookie? 

This premise might be reminiscent of some twisted childhood folk story, but it’s an actual thing at this cafe at Lavender. 

Say hello to Drip & Drool, which brands itself as Singapore’s first slow brews and zines cafe, as well as the world’s first concept bar dedicated to cold drip coffee and slow brews.

We also think this might be one of the few cafes (if not the only cafe in Singapore) that offers to lock up your phone for some sweet treats.

The cafe is nestled within the shophouses located along Lavender Street, in close proximity to popular cafes such as Moonchild, Hey Slow Joe, and Marymount Bakehouse. 

Drip & Drool’s space is sleek and minimalistic, draped in white hues with the occasional silver and wood accents from the furniture. 

Lining the walls is the owners’ personal collection of zines and books, all available for customers to browse at their own leisure.

The space is small but there is a good mix of tables for groups of varying sizes if you’re visiting with company, as well as nooks and crannies with individual seats and beanbags to unwind solo.  

Started in mid-2025 by friends Sin Yee and Yahui, Drip & Drool came about because the duo wanted to create a place where people could slow down and be present in the moment.

This also explains why the coffees and teas on its menu are mainly made with methods that are a tad more laborious — cold drip, cold brew, and steeping — all of which are notoriously long processes. 

Besides encouraging customers to browse the shelves, they also want to challenge customers to put a pause on their scrolling and remove themselves from endless notifications by locking their phones up for an hour. 

Named “The Hour of You”, this weekday-only digital detox challenge also comes with a delicious reward — a free chocolate chip cookie (S$5.80) — if you make it past the one-hour mark.

Through these little touches — from the absence of digital distractions to the abundance of analogue materials — the duo hopes that Drip & Drool will be a safe haven for people to disconnect from the hustle and bustle of city life, within its quiet four walls. 

No espresso, only cold brew and drip coffee   

If you’re a frequent cafe-goer, one thing that would probably stand out quite prominently at this cafe, is the absence of the familiar humming and whirring of an espresso machine. 

Aligned with its approach of slowing down, Drip & Drool doesn’t serve espresso-based coffee. Instead, the cafe only offers drip coffee and cold brews. 

There’s no hot coffee here either, since the coffee is brewed through one of two methods: Cold drip, where cold water is slowly dripped through a bed of coffee grounds to extract flavour over several hours, or cold brew, where ground coffee is steeped in water for anywhere between 12 to 24 hours. 

This might take some getting used to especially if you love your hot espresso-based beverages, but we think it’s the perfect opportunity to try something different. 

After noticing that we were browsing the extensive menu for quite a while, the helpful crew recommended the Tebe Burka collection, 74110 varietal (S$16.50), a cold drip coffee made with beans from Ethiopia.  

Drip & Drool’s cold drips are served with a wine goblet, to encourage customers to consume the beverage slowly in order to fully appreciate the taste, as you would at a wine tasting. 

The staff also asked us to make a mental note of how our first few sips tasted, and to compare it against the taste at the end. 

If you’ve had pourover coffee, you might have noticed that the initial few sips carry the most intense flavour. However cold drips start at a milder point, with the flavour getting more intense and pronounced as the temperature of the beverage goes up. 

I found the flavours of the Tebe Burka opening up as I drank, with its peachy, floral notes becoming increasingly prominent over time.

It’s not every day that I’d pick a cold drip over my usual espresso-based order, but this cup certainly made me rethink that habit. At the very least, I’m now curious enough to explore more of what this brewing method has to offer.

Encouraged by the outcome of the first drink, we took the staff up on another recommendation, the Finca Campo Hermoso (S$18.50), a limited-edition option on rotation when we visited. 

I’ll admit that its tasting notes of pistachio ice cream, pineapple, and sage made me a little apprehensive, but my worries were unfounded — as promised, it tasted just like pistachio ice cream, and in the best way. 

The brew was robust and slightly creamy, brimming with a nutty aroma without the heaviness of an ice-cream dessert.

If you haven’t already noticed, the cold drips run a little pricier than your average cafe menus, starting from S$10 for a Urabeast Guji, 74110 and 74112 varietal and going up to S$18.50 for a cup of Finca El Paraiso, Yellow Geisha. 

While the prices are steeper than usual, hearing the staff talk about the labour-intensive sourcing and observing the brewing process helps put things into perspective. 

Admittedly, at this price point, these brews may not become your daily order, but the experience — both in the cup and beyond it — makes them well worth trying at least once.

If you’re looking for something a little more mainstream and moderately priced, the oat cold brew (S$8.50) would be a good choice. 

I’ve always found cold brew coffee to have a faint grainy aftertaste that I’m not particularly fond of, but Drip & Drool’s oat cold brew has none of that — smooth and well-balanced, it showcases rich, nutty coffee notes while the oat milk melds seamlessly into the drink. 

If you’re usually an iced latte drinker, this — together with the white cold brew (S$7.50) — is probably the easiest entry point on the menu. 

Steeped teas   

While you can’t find hot coffees at Drip & Drool, it does serve up hot brew teas, alongside cold brew ones, too.  

A must-try is the hot Alishan Jin Xuan oolong (S$12). The tea is naturally sweet — Drip & Drool doesn’t sweeten its drinks — with a mildly milky aftertaste. If you love your milk teas, this would be a natural choice. 

We also tried the honey pear pu’er cold brew (S$7), an intense cup of cold brew tea with a prominent aroma of sweet pears. Teas don’t usually strike me as strong or intense the same way a double-shot coffee does, but trust me when I say this cold brew was strong. 

For those who prefer not to take caffeine, non-caffeinated options include a hot organic roasted cacao husk mint tea (S$8.50) and the Grainy Gritty (S$8.80), a cold multigrain oat latte. 

Bites for your brews    

In case you get peckish, there’s a small selection of bites for you to pair with your brews. 

We opted for its bacon and cheese scone (S$5.50) and chocolate chip cookie (S$5.80) to have with our brews.

I’ll admit I didn’t have particularly high expectations for the bakes — after all, Drip & Drool is first and foremost a coffee and tea-focused cafe — but both turned out to be pleasant surprises, holding their own comfortably alongside the drinks.

The bacon and cheese scone had the perfect texture — crispy on the outside, with a fluffy, soft interior that falls apart in your mouth. Coupled with the savoury richness of the bacon and cheese, this scone is easily one I’d re-order in future. 

If you prefer your scones plain or non-savoury, there’s also the original scone (S$4.50) and a cranberry lemon zest scone (S$5.50) available. 

Drip & Drool’s chocolate chip cookie (yes, this is the one you get if you lock your phone up for an hour) is worth highlighting, too. 

Warmed up upon order, the cookie is slightly chewy with a gooey-chocolatey core, making for an indulgent treat. The hints of sea salt also helps balance out the sweetness of the chocolate. 

If you don’t see yourself being able to tolerate the digital detox to get the cookie, we’d still recommend purchasing it because it’s that good. 

As you sip on your brews, and savour your bites, you might notice that there’s quite a handful of house rules here at Drip & Drool: Customers are required to purchase one drink per person, dine-in seating is limited to an hour during peak periods, and if you’re visiting as a group, and groups are capped at four diners.

The cafe is also child-free — a policy we’ve often seen at higher-end restaurants, but not so much at cafes here. 

That said, after spending an afternoon here, it becomes apparent that each rule has been put in place with good reason. Together, they help preserve the calm, unhurried atmosphere that the cafe is trying to cultivate.

Perhaps, what sets Drip & Drool apart from the many speciality coffee spots in Singapore is how considered and intentional the entire experience feels.

From the meticulously sourced and brewed coffees and teas, to the curated collection of zines for you to browse and unwind with, every detail is geared towards encouraging one to slow down and linger. 

So the next time you have a free afternoon or are looking to detox from the hustle and bustle of city life, why not unwind at Drip & Drool with a cup of drip coffee or tea, and a zine or two? Who knows, you might even get a free cookie while at it. 

Looking for more coffee spots? Check out this new speciality coffee spot at Punggol Digital District, or this speciality coffee spot at Clarke Quay with great focaccia sandwiches.