Shy & Duy from Osoi

‍Tell us about yourselves.

SHY: My name is Shy and this is Duy. Welcome to Osoi. We are a specialty coffee and matcha cafe. We opened two months ago at the bottom of Nightingale Wurru wurru biik in Brunswick.

DUY: We also have a corgi named Winston. He is the real owner of this shop.

What does Osoi mean?

SHY: Osoi means ‘slow’ in Japanese. It can also be translated to ‘late’.

DUY: We chose the name because of the dual meaning. While ‘slow’ can have a negative connotation in English, the purpose of our shop is to create space to slow down and embrace the art of being slow.

SHY: Our shop is a place where time can freeze. It’s OK to be late, especially when everything in the world is so rushed. We don’t want to be a place where you order your coffee, look at your phone, and mindlessly drink it. Our goal is to create a really intentional experience. Perhaps it’s OK if your train is running late. Perhaps there’s a reason beyond your control. It’s OK to take your time.

SHY: We have little toys and interesting details throughout the shop. The purpose is to bring your attention to the current moment. You’re noticing things, you’re being present. We hope they bring a little bit of joy. Although, honestly, it’s just because we are two big kids. 

Is this your first business?

DUY: Yes, we both came from the corporate world.  I studied law for seven years and was on track for lawyer life but I found out it’s not really what I want to do.  We wanted to leave the fast-paced corporate life for a more intentionally slow life.  Even though it’s still hectic, it’s a different kind of hectic.

SHY: It’s more enjoyable. 

DUY: I grew up in hospitality. My Mum owned a bakery for 25 years. When I was young, I totally rejected it, but then I realised I actually really enjoy hospitality, chatting with people, and getting to know them. You don’t get that in the corporate world via email.

SHY: It’s so great being underneath the apartments and starting our morning with the residents with a routine together. 

You were open on Christmas Day, and it was such a vibe:

SHY: Yes, I think it’s the best Christmas that Duy and I have ever had. Spending it with our regulars, our new friends, and old friends. Everyone was hanging out in the amphitheater. At the end of the day, we had Christmas dinner with Duy’s family.

What inspired the design of your shop?

SHY: Our shop is heavily influenced by Japan. Growing up, I had a deep love of Japanese culture. I always found so much soul and magic in it. I love Sailor Moon. While the shop is a love letter to Melbourne and Melbourne’s coffee culture, it’s very Japanese inspired.  We source all of our teas from XXXXX, a Japanese tea shop. We have lots of Japanese art around the place.  

DUY: We love the Japanese art of patience - people spend years perfecting a single skill by hand. It’s very inspiring.

SHY: We try to embrace that. Each matcha we make is hand-whisked. Each drink we make deserves proper care.

What brought you to Nightingale Studios to open your first shop?

SHY: We did a lot of searching! We were originally looking at something much bigger but it didn’t feel right. Good community was really important to us. Duy’s originally from the South East and I am from the West and the City but we’ve always been drawn to Brunswick and the North. We found this space and learned about Nightingale, it’s community and sustainability focus. It really resonated with us. 

DUY: This space is about the size of a bedroom and it’s perfect!  It’s been great being part of this community. I’m not really used to it.  It’s so great seeing the residents come together. Sometimes in the suburbs, you don’t know your neighbours. Whereas here, everyone knows everyone. They include us. They’ve invited us up to the rooftop to hang out. 

SHY: On the first day, we didn’t have an ice cream scoop or any vases and one of the residents popped upstairs and brought some down from her place. The residents are always looking out for us. When we’re working late, they pop by to give us words of encouragement and to say hello. It’s lovely.

Who did the fitout?

DUY: Local architects, Humble, did the design, and I project managed the fit-out. There were a lot of speed bumps along the way but we managed to get there eventually and learned heaps throughout the process.

SHY: Our shop is designed to feel like a home kitchen. We wanted people to feel like they are coming to someone’s house and being served a tea or a coffee. My background is Bangladeshi and tea and hospitality is so huge there. Duy’s Asian heritage is the same. Osoi is the accumulation of our upbringing.

What's the most popular order?

DUY: Definitely the Matcha Cloud and the Strawberry Matcha.

What’s a Matcha Cloud?

DUY: It's coconut water with thickened cream mixed with matcha and XXX on top. The Viet coffee is also really popular. It has amazing yuzu cream on top.

SHY: And I make my own chai. I’m still playing around with it but I want to make Melbourne’s best chai. It’s fun to be able to experiment. We’re moving to a seasonal menu. We used to have many more items but it was far too much prep. So we’re focusing on the real heroes for now.  We had an amazing dirty chai drink - a filter coffee base with a chai cream. We would make the chai extract ourselves, spend hours boiling the syrup, making an extract, and mixing in the cream.  It would take hours and would all be gone in half a morning. We’ll bring it back one day though because it’s delicious.

Running a small business can be a lot of work, do you get any downtime?

DUY: Not yet. But the funny thing is, because it’s our baby, it’s our business, we have so much motivation and energy to keep going. We went viral on TikTok last week and I think I worked 6am until 1am that day. But it was great! At the moment, we’re relying on friends and family to come and help out with a couple of shifts here and there. We didn’t think we’d be in a position to hire people so soon, but we are. It’s a good problem to have.

Too early to ask about plans for the future?

DUY: We’re focused on taking care of the customers, residents and the community right now.

SHY: We’re so happy creating a third place for them. I’m interested in different ways to use the space. We had the Melbourne Matcha Girlies come in last week. They did a walk and then came here to connect with each other. It was so nice to see women, connecting over a similar interest, investing in their friendship. So wholesome.

DUY: We met an amazing Japanese busker who we’d love to have perform in the ampitheatre next door.

SHY: I’d like to run some tea workshops.

DUY: We’ve started running our personal postal service.  We have postcards from local artists that we sell for $5.  Customers can write a card to themselves or a loved one, then we post it for them.  

SHY: You can send a message to your future self. No one writes to each other like that anymore and it’s always so lovely to receive a letter from someone.

DUY: It’s another nice way to slow down.