We Tried Building Our Own Mechanical Keyboard at Msia’s First & Only Mechanical Keyboard Café
Recently, I fell down the rabbit hole of mechanical keyboards on Instagram and it’s something I never knew I needed. I saw pages dedicated to amassing these sophisticated keyboards and many serious collectors with rows and rows of the device in various colours and sizes displayed as prized possessions on their walls.
This piqued my curiosity and found out that these differ from standard membrane keyboards which are typically made of plastic in that there are switches under each key which have a variety of responses, sounds, and travel times.
Whether you’re a writer like us, a gamer, or someone who types often on their computer, you’ll appreciate the click-clack ASMR sounds emitted. Unlike normal keyboards, these also can easily be repaired if one key malfunctions.
Then, I came across a cosy mechanical keyboard store and café at Lebuh Melayu in Penang. Since first opening its tiny space in Lebuh Acheh in May 2022, the Click & Brew Café has quickly expanded and reopened at a more expansive and aesthetic space in June 2023.
As a total newbie to the topic, Rojak Daily visited the café to try building a mechanical keyboard ourselves and to meet the owners, Erica Teoh, and Joey Tan.
The Penang-born couple left their high-flying careers after 16 years in Singapore where Erica worked at Meta (formerly Facebook) and Airbnb while Joey’s profession was in the telco industry servicing clients such as Singtel and StarHub.
Speaking on their transition to their current business, Erica said, “After the pandemic, we reprioritised the things that we really wanted to do. We decided to embark on our passion projects. I personally really love coffee so we deep dived into that. For Joey, it’s mechanical keyboards and we had so many of those and espresso machines that we started to outgrow our space at home. We decided to come back to Penang and open a café to see how that goes.”
“Coffee and keyboards are two things that you see on your desk daily. We always tell our customers that you look out for a good coffee to inspire you but a good tool like a keyboard can also increase your productivity,” she added.
“The keyboard community has always had a very online-centric mentality. Whatever you see you usually buy online in small batches, and you will have to throw away certain things if you don’t like them.
“I felt that keyboards were a very physical thing and certain switches were very difficult to judge from an online perspective and what you receive at the end is different.
“Initially, I just wanted a place for people to try out certain boards and switches before they make online purchases without focusing on retail, but it slowly evolved to what it is today,” said Joey who has been tinkering with keyboards for ten years.
A year after the opening of their café, Joey shares, “We are very community-driven, and we have a healthy keyboard community in Malaysia and even in Penang. We wanted to introduce this hobby to the public because many people may have seen videos on YouTube and TikTok, but they never really touched an actual mechanical keyboard before. I wanted them to try it out before buying it.”
Erica added, “Our focus is always about community building. Within our space, we frequently witness the connection formed between customers who were strangers but shared a common passion such as keyboard building. It’s amazing to observe how they naturally engage in conversations, exchanging stories and insights about their personal journey.
"Often, we find these newfound connections happen within our space, with customers exchanging contacts on platforms like Discord and forging friendships. Seeing these interactions never fail to inspire us as we are motivated to continue enabling meaningful encounters through our space.”
The unique business concept of combining a cafe and mechanical keyboard retail under one roof made them the first keyboard cafe in Malaysia.
Local mechanical keyboard brands
Joey is also keen on bringing awareness to local brands which are internationally recognised. “It’s a very small-knit community and for the custom keyboard scene, people do not realise that Malaysia is one of the top-ranked in the world.
“We have keyboards that people wake up early to queue for online from the other side of the world such as SINGA KBD, a trendsetter in the premium custom mechanical keyboard scene. It’s run by a Malaysian, Elaine who is in KL but because of the name itself people always think it's Singaporean.”
“You have TGR, a very well-known brand which was one of the first companies in the custom keyboard industry. You have Axiom studios, custom keyboards which are made by Penang guys. I always feel that we have so much talent and foreigners recognise the brand, but they have no idea that it is from our own country.”
How to assemble your own mechanical keyboard
After finding out more about keyboards, it was time to build my own. While it was slightly nerve-wracking for me to put together my own kit as I generally struggle with anything that requires manual assembly, even IKEA furniture. However, Erica assured me that they have customers as young as eight years old who come in to build their keyboards.
At the café, prices start at RM250 with keyboards going for RM400-RM450 on average. The bigger it is, the more switches and keycaps (read below) you’ll need which will result in a pricier keyboard and it is hard to put a figure on the maximum price as the units are highly customisable.
1. Choosing your barebone mechanical keyboard kit
We went for the CIY68/TES68 keyboard affordably priced at RM110 with 68 Keys. This was a 65% wireless barebone mechanical keyboard kit (without switches and keycaps). It also connects to your computer using a USB dongle or you can opt to connect it wirelessly using Bluetooth 5.0.
A full-sized keyboard has 104 keys and as the keyboards get smaller, the number pad, home cluster, function row, arrow keys, and numbers are removed. This means that the functions are still there, but you’ll need to manually access the keys that are not physically visible. I chose a smaller size as there are some keys that I practically never use, and it clears up the space on my tabletop.
2. Choosing your type of switch
The next step is selecting from the kaleidoscopic range of switches available.Broadly speaking, there are three main types of switches: clicky (like its name, it produces a satisfyingly loud sound), tactile (springy with a tiny bump midway through), or linear (quicker and quieter). I selected the Akko CS Radiant Red Switch priced at RM1.20 each (Total RM81.60). I chose this because it helps with the speed of my typing which is ideal for me as a writer.
There are two metal stems for each switch which you can easily slot into the case which took me only ten minutes to do for the whole lot and it somehow felt like I was playing with Lego.
3. Selecting your keycaps
The most exciting part is naturally selecting your keycaps, which are the visible keys that activate the underlying switches and set the whole aesthetic for your keyboard. These come in different materials such as plastic, wood, resin, and polymer clay keycaps such as the ‘Duriantama’, the fruit version of everyone’s favourite demotivated egg.
They also come in different profiles of varying heights, shapes or row shapes (sculpted or uniform) and it really depends on what works for you. How tall you prefer your keys is in relation to how you set your wrists for typing or gaming.
For example, you’re an anime fan, you’ll like the Spy x Family keycaps. Otherwise, for corporate purposes, Click & Brew also produces customised keycaps for companies such as Cisco and Ipenet featuring their brand logo.
There were so many to choose from such as Sanrio’s Cinnamoroll and Mario-themed keycaps that we had a hard time taking our pick.
We went for the weather-themed keycaps priced at RM75 to maintain the minimalistic look of our tabletops while adding a cute touch to it. The set came with 125 keycaps of cherry profiles so I had to lay them out first before fixing them in as they require a special puller to take them out again.
Cherry profile keycaps are sculpted with a cylindrical top and differing heights among the rows. For the keys that I rarely used, I selected ones with illustrations of clouds instead.
4. Final test
After assembling our keyboards, we were brought to a tiny booth where we could test our switches to see if each key worked and then carry out a typing test to see if the keyboard performed well as a whole. We found out that we’d inserted five switches wrongly (oops) so Joey quickly assisted us to rectify this. The problem was that I hadn’t inserted the metal stems for the switch properly as they were crooked. Our whole keyboard came up to a total of RM266.60, which is pretty affordable as far as mechanical keyboards go.
The whole experience was easier than expected and felt like a DIY game, but it was something I would have struggled to do at home if I’d bought a kit online without Joey and Erica’s help as a total rookie. A couple of days after using my new keyboard, my fingers felt like they were flying as I typed and suffice to say I won’t be making the switch back to ordinary keyboards ever again.
A good cup of coffee is key (pun intended)
Besides the keyboards, coffee lovers can also relax in the warm and cosy space where they can nurse a cup of coffee and meet fellow keyboard enthusiasts without feeling pressured to leave. They offer Trunk coffee from a speciality coffee roaster in Nagoya and beans from Glitch Coffee & Roasters in Jimbocho, Tokyo.
Other services
Besides buying a new kit here, the café also offers services of repairing mechanical keyboards which Joey says is a pretty niche service that they offer.
Instead of having a typical company dinner, some companies also choose to host corporate workshops with them where colleagues get together for a fun activity with Click and Brew’s trained staff.
They claim to be the only company that offers mechanical keyboard workshops at a corporate level. So far, they boast clients from KL and Singapore such as Meta and AMD Affiliate partners.
You can also drop by the café for one of their mechanical keyboard meetups where you may meet a new friend or maybe even a new S.O.? *Wink wink*
We may just have fallen down the slippery slope of being addicted to customising mechanical keyboards, so head on over to Click & Brew to check out this growing fad yourself!
Address: 45, Lebuh Melayu, 10300, Penang
Opening hours: 12 pm - 8pm, Closed on Tuesdays
Visit their website or follow them on Instagram.
Image credit: @click_and_brew