If you visit The Ann Coffee and stand under the soft neon lighting and look inside their fancy glass cabinet you’ll find an array of appealingly colourful snacks and treats like mini macaroons, salted egg cake, cookies and tiramisu that will trigger your cravings to indulge your sweet tooth.

Despite that impressive panoply of sugar-based confections, the real stars of The Ann Coffee are the drinks topped with cute polar bears or sleeping piglets.

Whether it’s a snack or drink, the shop serves its patrons in style as each item is beautifully presented in a cafe with attractive interior decoration and an overall positive vibe.

The cute concepts behind this small coffee shop come from its expat owner, Vivi Do, who travelled to South Korea to learn the creative recipes they now use.

The soft colours and “kawaii” (cute) designs provide an ambience that adds to the sweetness of the drinks and snacks.

Opened in October 2020, The Ann Coffee – not far from Independence of Monument – has proved enormously popular so a second branch was recently opened in Boeung Keng Kang I (BKK I) commune to expand the reach of their services for their growing number of patrons, many of them young people.

The cafe manager Lok Anlika, 23, tells The Post “We have so many customers coming in now, both locals and expats. Especially in the morning, foreigners love to come for a cup of coffee and a snack before going to work.

“It helps that we are located near a popular expatriate area but they wouldn’t come in if they didn’t like the cafe,” Anlika says.

Anlika says they probably serve around 200 to 300 customers per day, including takeaway orders.

The baristas at The Ann Coffee are constantly busy with the preparation and packaging of desserts and drinks for delivery during peak hours.

Part of their popularity is due to the cafe’s 30 types of distinctive snacks and homemade beverages.

They use coffee beans imported straight from South Korea. The owner grinds the coffee herself and has an extensive knowledge of every variety of coffee on the market.

“The owner does all the staff training directly and watches us do everything at first in order to make sure we are learning to do everything in the exact way that she does,” Anlika says.

The snacks most loved by the patrons are cheese teokbokki, crispy kimbap, tiramisu, The Ann rainbow sandwich and their special bread.

The special bread is incredibly delicious, with a combination of fresh veggies like sliced cucumbers, carrots, onions, chillies and mint along with a pate and minced meats. It looks and tastes great.

The Ann rainbow sandwich is as flavourful as the special bread. When customers tear it apart it oozes out colourful and fruity jams of several varieties. Be sure to check both the special bread and the rainbow sandwich out if you visit.

The top selling coffee drink is the special egg coffee, a drink which their youthful manager doesn’t hesitate to boast about.

“For this recipe, we mix chicken eggs and coffee. It sounds really strange but it adds an extra dimension of flavour to it. It’s worth a try.”

Another top-selling drink is the orange lemongrass peach tea, which tastes amazing and shouldn’t be overlooked by customers looking for a change of pace from coffee.

The lemongrass in the tea gives it a wonderful fragrance and the taste is absolutely satisfying.

Every drink served at The Ann Coffee has a cute little bear on top of it that is themed with various colours.

Ice Lattes are another well-loved drink at the cafe. The coffee, milk, glass of ice and sugar syrup are all served separately so that the customer can mix their own drink and customise it for themselves. And the frozen coffee piglet that comes perched on the top of it is adorable.

Prices for snacks and drinks there are very reasonable and range from around $1 to $3.50.

Anlika says she loves managing the cafe and feels like they’ve really put together a winning formula with the decor, drinks and snacks.

“I definitely love how it is now. The only thing we want to work on is expanding and because the location here is not that wide we want to open up in a bigger space,” she says.

Three months after opening its first branch, The Ann Coffee is already growing with impressive speed. When the original location started getting overflow crowds they expanded and opened another gorgeous cafe in BKK I with a grand opening for it back in January.

“As a response to the demands of our loyal customers, we opened up a cafe with an upper and lower level. We hope to better accommodate the patrons that used to have to line up against the walls in our more humble original location,” Anlika says.

Anlika says the amount of positive feedback they receive daily is almost overwhelming. Most of the customers are enamoured of the richly flavoured food and drinks being served along with the friendly and welcoming employees who have a knack for winning customer’s hearts on their first visit.

Anlika hopes that anyone who hasn’t stopped by yet will come and give their drinks a try because she’s sure they’ll keep coming back again if they do.

“Most of the drinks we have here, you just can’t find elsewhere. From the beautiful presentation, lovely setting and tasty coffee, our cafe has everything you’d ever want,” she enthuses.

If you’d like to try out their selection without taking any unnecessary Covid-19 risks, right now The Ann Coffee has a promotion where anyone who spends more than $5 can get free delivery to any location within 5km of the cafe.

Customers can place orders through the NHAM24 or Foodpanda apps, or by calling 092 807 888.

The Ann Coffee 1 is open every day from 6am to 9pm and is located near Independence Monument on Preah Sihanouk Blvd in Daun Penh district.

The Ann Coffee 2 keeps the same hours and is located on the corner of St 63 and St 334, near the Thai Huot supermarket in Boeung Keng Kang district’s BKK I.

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