Man cannot live on coffee alone, which is why most coffee enthusiasts are also rather enthusiastic about other delicious things. The coffee nerd / foodie overlap is well-documented, but increasingly we’re seeing a good tipple become part of the coffee lover’s arsenal. This has been aided and abetted by forward-thinking bartenders, who see coffee not as a single “coffee flavor” but having a multitude of different nuances which can enrich and complement alcohol. If you love coffee cocktails, this is a great time to be alive.

As more smart barkeeps bring coffee into the well, coffee liqueurs and spirits are beginning to catch up. A few beautiful examples come to mind stateside, from folks like J. Rieger and Co. and St. George. Meanwhile, down in Sydney the team at Mr Black have developed an elegant new coffee spirit that ought to become standard issue in any modern bartender’s toolkit. Mind you, this is not a liqueur, a spirit classification that generally has added sugars. This little “Black” number has no added sugar, but rather, is cold brewed and pressed to yield pleasingly real coffee flavors and aromatics. It’s one of the best new coffee spirits currently on the market anywhere in the world.

Noted distiller Philip Moore.

Mr. Black got its start in 2012 as the brainchild of designer Tom Baker and distiller Philip Moore, proprietor of Distillery Botanica, one of Australia’s highest-awarded distilling houses. Mr. Black is brewed at the Distillery Botanica facility in New South Wales, around 50 miles up the coast north of Sydney. Over the course of a daylong visit to the site, I was blown away by Moore & Co.’s dedication to making distinctive Australian spirits using local botanicals, in particular their much-lauded “garden grown” gin, distilled with the distinctive Murraya botannical pleasingly in the fore. Moore’s background as a horticulturist and herbalist has clearly served him well in the distilling game, and he tells me, “My guiding principle at the distillery is to source the very best quality botanicals, marry them with the purest spirit possible, then let the botanicals do the talking.”

You won’t find false sweeteners and flavor maskers like vanilla and caramel here. Instead, Botanica’s facility is accessed by walking first through “The Fragrant Garden”, with native Australian flora and a sense of place surrounding you. Once you arrive at the visitor’s center, you’ll discover a distillery and coffee roasting facility conveniently located under one roof. Until recently Mr Black coffee was roasted by Campos Coffee in Sydney, but with increase in production the roasting has been brought in-house and overseen by Moore, who roasts to a specific profile to serve the spirit. “There was plenty of room for a coffee liqueur made 100% from coffee beans,” says Moore, “and I also love the smoky toffee and chocolate flavours that are produced from the Maillard reaction during roasting of coffee beans. Coffee is even more prone to oxidation than wine and as such presents an enjoyable challenge to be overcome.”

Once roasted the coffee is ground, cold brewed, and mixed with alcohol, and left to sit. When it’s ready Moore & his team press-extract as much of the liquid as possible—a deceptively simple production method that belies a hands-on approach and attention to detail in each batch.

A busy holiday season saw Mr. Black collaborating with Campos Coffee on producing a limited-edition single-origin Panama edition, plus production of a coffee-forward Old Tom Gin is on the horizon—a truly astonishing botanical coffee spirit that should be unlike most anything else on the spirits market. Sprudge readers in Australia and the UK can find Mr. Black at fine urban liquor stores; readers in the United States, be on the lookout in 2017 when the product is set to roll out to select cities across North America.

If my editors have any say, they’ll start exporting a bit of that Australian botanical gin to the States as well.

Vic Frankowski is a Sprudge contributor, photojournalist, and coffee professional based in London. Read more Victor Frankowski on Sprudge. 

The post Mr. Black Could Well Be The World’s Finest Coffee Liqueur appeared first on Sprudge.

In the world of specialty coffee, there’s a lot of talk of doing good. Whether that’s in relation to paying high prices for coffee, working intimately and directly with people at origin, or in recycling coffee grounds to help local agriculture—players in the specialty coffee industry are nearly obligated these days to make an effort outside of their day-to-day operations. But even when compared to their peers, Melbourne’s STREAT is a venture that goes above and beyond the status quo.

With a catchphrase like “Tastes good. Does good.”, I’ll forgive you for being a touch cynical about STREAT at face value, but their actions speak as loud as their words. Started seven years ago by Rebecca Scott and Kate Barrelle, STREAT is a hospitality-focused social enterprise, training disadvantaged young people in various aspects of the trade, in turn enabling them to build a career for themselves. Since their humble beginnings as a single mobile food cart in 2010, STREAT is now managing eight hospitality businesses wherein hundreds of trainees have the opportunity to learn and progress each year. Through these businesses, they’ve become 70% self-funded—and with the recent opening of their flagship site at Cromwell, in the bustling Melbourne neighbourhood of Collingwood, they are well on track with their goal to becoming 100% self-sufficient and able to help train 365 people a year by 2018.

Cromwell STREAT is a huge and beautiful venue, encompassing a cafe, roastery, bakery, catering kitchen, offices, and youth engagement facilities. The property itself was purchased by Geoff Harris (co-founder of Flight Centre) in 2013 for $2.5 million AUD, before being leased to STREAT for the princely sum of $5 a year for the next 50 years, with a caveat to change as many young lives as they possibly could in that time. It then took STREAT two years to raise the money needed to redevelop the site, and a year to build it—opening their doors in September of 2016. The space was designed by Simon O’Brien and the team at Six Degrees Architects, the same crew that’s been behind many of Melbourne’s high-profile cafes (like Auction Rooms, De Clieu, and Top Paddock, to name a few).

The roastery, headed up by Andrew Barrett, is home to a 30-kilogram Petroncini roaster, alongside a Probat. Barrett came on board six months ago, previously working as a roaster for Campos Coffee, as well as a short stint at Redstar Roasters in Port Melbourne. Green coffee comes by way of Melbourne Coffee Merchants and Cafe Imports, with Barrett explaining, “Traceability is huge for us as we don’t want to be seen to be looking after Australian kids at the expense of kids at origin… working with these suppliers allows us to ensure this is not happening.”

As with the rest of STREAT, their coffee program aims to not only to be socially conscious but also to create something of genuinely high quality. “We take quality seriously here… the social impact of the coffee is not at the expense of the taste, both are equally important to us,” Barrett outlined. They’ve been wholesaling their coffee for some time now, but with their higher-capacity roasting facilities, they hope to be able to scale up and get their coffee out to more cafes and businesses. According to their internal evaluations over the years, every five coffees someone buys at STREAT generates 10 minutes of training—with that logic, the 1.5 million coffees they’ve sold since 2010 have generated 52,000 hours of training and support for over 520 people.

While STREAT already has an established infrastructure to take on young people across many aspects of the hospitality industry, the roastery is a bit of a different beast to tackle. This is largely because specialty coffee as an industry isn’t as systemized as other parts of the hospitality industry—for example, many state-certified courses to become a chef or a baker have been around for years, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one that could teach you how to roast coffee.

Barrett outlaid the challenges they’ve faced in trying to build a program for a trainee to come into at the roastery. “As a trade, coffee roasting is not a heavily structured position—you can’t go to Uni to learn and you don’t get a certificate at the end. We’re currently looking at what qualifications we can get our trainees to complete in the roastery, we’re looking towards certification in warehousing and logistics. This will be on top of roasting and sensory training so the trainees can walk out of here with a certificate.”

All in all, STREAT Collingwood is a hugely ambitious project—one that’s taken a lot of time, effort, and money to get up and running, and one that will continue to need many resources to reach their intended goals. This is a work in progress with a remarkable track record thus far, and so I’ve got no doubt that they’ll get there—one plate of breakfast, one trainee’s progress, and one cup of coffee at a time.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional and Sprudge.com contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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Sometimes the coffee business can be like a summer holiday romance. You meet that special person on a trip in Europe, and two years later end up being together. Only this time, it’s a friendship turned into a business partnership. On February 1, 2017, Catalyst Coffee in Auckland, New Zealand officially opened by two very passionate baristas.

Hanna Teramoto and Xin Yi Loke are two enormously accomplished baristas. Both won national barista championships back in 2014—Teramoto representing New Zealand, Xin Yi Loke representing Singapore. They first met in Remini, Italy at the World Barista Championship, when as fate and luck would have it, their backstage preparation tables were right next to each other. From there the destined friendship began, with the duo helping each other polish equipment, taste-test coffees, and bonding over their shared experience at the WBC.

Hanna Teramoto (right) and Xi Yin Loke (left) of Catalyst Coffee.

But when the competition came to an end, the friendship didn’t. Xi Yin Loke visited Teramoto in New Zealand in 2015, and the idea to go into business together began to take shape. It was a huge change for the Singaporean champion, to think of leaving the dense city and hot weather of her teeming metropolis for the comparatively mild, sprawling South Seas vibe of Auckland. The name, Catalyst Coffee, was born out of this moment—it means “beginning of changes”, describes the challenges of leaving your home, starting a new business, and developing what the duo hopes is a fresh take on the cafe experience.

Catalyst Coffee is nestled in the Remuera Village Green, a shopping block in Auckland that was first built in 1928. Being tucked away from the noisy main street is what they both wanted—that way Catalyst can strive to be a backstreet shop with “character and good coffee,” the owners tell me. All the coffees are served in takeaway cups, but this is more than just a takeaway shop—only single-origin coffees are offered, no blends. The Catalyst team wants to highlight the inherent flavors of origin while sending the message to customers that coffee is a seasonal, agricultural product. Elements of the menu at Catalyst will change regularly, including coffee roasters.

Espresso drinks are pumped out from a custom two-group La Marzocco Linea PB, and filter coffee is manually brewed with a Clever Dripper or V60, or other methods on request. Current coffees on offer are from New Zealand’s own Red Rabbit Coffee Company (espresso), Onibus Coffee from Japan (filter), and Ninety Plus Coffee (espresso and filter). Teramoto herself processed the special lot at Ninety Plus Magokoro Estate in Ethiopia as part of the green coffee company’s ongoing promotional relationships with select national champions worldwide.

If you’re hungry, there are also pastries such as croissants, palmiers, and caneles from Auckland’s French bakery La Voie Francaise. If you’re not in the mood for coffee, single-origin chocolate drinks and select teas are also offered.

I asked the owners how their experience as barista champions influenced their choices at Catalyst. Both firmly agree that the competitions have made them better baristas and better people because they have been competing with their “inner selves.” When asked to describe their relationship, Teramoto answered, “We cover each other’s weak points.” Loke handles all the numbers and accounting; Teramoto oversees the shop’s music selections and vibe.

Together this shop is the culmination of Teramoto and Loke’s dream and a physical representation of their strong friendship as kindred spirits in the coffee world. The road is long and a lot is planned for the future of Catalyst, including a roastery sometime down the road. But for now, they’re deep in the daily reality of small business ownership.

The most difficult part of setting up the shop? “Labour!” they shouted in unison. Both are looking like real shop owners these days, covered with paint from a touch up here or there, exhausted, smiling, and open for business.

Dianne Wang is a Sprudge contributor based in New Zealand. Read more Dianne Wang on Sprudge.

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What if every coffee bar could someday be its own roaster?

Collective Roasting Solutions’ pop-up store in Enmore is just the tip of the iceberg, the coalface of a fast-growing new approach to coffee roasting that’s being expressed around the world, from the Pulley Collective locations in New York and Oakland to Bureaux Collective in Melbourne, and heaps more in-between. The concept is deceptively simple but with results that are being amplified and mimicked in coffee scenes big and small across the planet.

These collaborative roasting spaces seem to be a magnet for great cafe brands, eager to develop their own roasting voice. In Sydney, Collective Roasting has attracted respected brands including Artificer Coffee and Edition Coffee Roasters as well as up-and-comers such as Grace & Taylor Coffee Company, Skittle Lane Coffee, Harry’s Bondi, and Stitch Coffee, owned by CRS founder Nawar Adra.

Nawar Adra talks fast. The man behind CRS has hopes and dreams rivaled only by the size of what’s currently on his plate. From humble beginnings at French chain store Le Pain Quotidien, Adra’s CV includes time at influential multi-roaster Qube on Bay and a roasting stint at Circa Espresso in Sydney’s western suburb of Parramatta.  “I started roasting there, they had a five-kilo Probat, a Synesso Hydra, we were doing TDS, weighing shots, and it helped your learning curve.” After Circa, Adra was offered a job with Brewtown Newtown, which brought him into contact with some rather sought-after green coffee. “It was the first time I got exposed to Nordic Approach coffee. I did a blend with Wotona and Sidamo natural and they were both $17 a kilo!”

The heart of his operation is a roastery in Sydney’s inner-west suburb of St Peters, home to a swag treasury of toys: a 15-kilogram Giesen and five-kilogram Probat second generation roasters, with a 25-kilogram Probat coming down the line, plus a battery of color grading equipment and green storage solutions.

Late in 2016, Adra opened a pop-up cafe in Enmore to showcase the great work and excellent coffee that the roasters under his umbrella are producing, with a weekly menu that rotates between the different roasters in the collective. The shop is armed with an extensive range of retail coffee and a brewing setup of a La Marzocco Linea PB espresso machine, Mahlkönig EK 43 grinder, and Anfim grinder for espresso, plus a double-header EKK 43 grinder and two Marco SP9’s for filter brews. The simple floor space shows their priorities lie in the coffee more so than the furniture or a glitzy fit-out.

In some ways the pop-up store personifies the changing face of the inner west of Sydney, inhabiting the former site of Bravo Coffee, which held court for 30 years with oily, dark-roasted blends and old-school service. It’s a fitting next step for this progressive model, a gathering place for Sydney’s most exciting young coffee brands, and a glimpse into just how fast the coffee world around us is changing. The espresso bar and store will run through the end of March 2017, after which time CRS will continue to offer roasting facilities, support, and (as their name suggests) solutions.

What if every coffee bar could someday be its own roasting brand? They can, and that someday is perhaps sooner than you think.

Jai Pyne is a coffee professional, recording artist, and journalist based in Sydney, who has written for The Thousands, Good Sport, and Lost at E Minor. This is Jai Pyne’s first feature for Sprudge.

Photos courtesy of Arlo Pyne.

The post In Sydney, Collective Coffee Roasting’s Pop-Up Is Part Of A Movement appeared first on Sprudge.

You discover the funniest things on social media these days. Your colleague’s racist uncle, for example, or your ex’s many odd life choices. It’s a rich tapestry of questionable shares and overshares that make opening up Facebook and Instagram a form of risk-reward emotional roulette. It’s all a little extra, frankly.

But then sometimes you discover something cool that makes it worth it.

Making homemade XO sauce, a Spicy sauce invented in the 80's from Hong Kong. It is mainly made out of dried/dehydrated seafood and meats cooked over low heat over a significant amount of time. Da Lin's recipe is made out of dried shrimp / rehydrated prawns and Lup Chong (dried, smoked fatty pork Chinese sausage)

A post shared by Da Lin (@_da_lin_) on Mar 6, 2017 at 12:22am PST

New Zealand barista champion (2016) and latte art champion (2013 & 2015) Sam Low is not just a barista and latte art champion—he also creates some of the most beautiful food I’ve ever seen on Instagram, from anyone, and that includes roving Broadsheet reporters and Condé Nast types. Low’s passion for cooking has led him to create thoughtful, flawlessly executed works of food art, documented regularly through his social media presence.

I’ve long hoped to talk with Low about his second life in food, and happily he’s got a new project that affords just such an opportunity.

I've always been passionate about Chinese cooking and it's food ever since growing up around Chinese kitchen environments from an early age. The more I look into understanding it's complexities the more I'm amazed by how little I know about it, it's truely a vast and deep culinary study. I'm sick of the negative stigma that Chinese food has in western society and that is why I'm excited to announce my latest project "Da Lin" a pop up restaurant concept that showcases modern Chinese cooking and hopefully educate the diners on the complexities and understanding of Chinese cuisine.

A post shared by Da Lin (@_da_lin_) on Feb 27, 2017 at 1:33am PST

That would be Da Lin, Low’s forthcoming pop-up dining experience in Melbourne, to be hosted at Code Black Coffee Roasters, where Low is a barista trainer. While the project itself isn’t explicitly coffee focused, it will be staffed mostly by moonlighting coffee pros, hosted (at least to start) at a coffee bar, and shows the stunning versatility of the world-class coffee scene in Melbourne. Even the dinner’s name is a coffee pun, coming from the coffee phrase “dialing in”. The first service is Monday, March 13th, and tickets are completely sold out. Future services will be announced via Da Lin’s Instagram.

To learn more I spoke with Sam Low digitally from Melbourne.

My version of San Choi Bao.. lettuce wraps w/ slow cooked pork belly / mixed mushroom and spring onion medley #sanchoibao #chinesecooking #modernchinese

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Feb 21, 2017 at 2:23am PST

Sam Low, thank you for speaking with me. I have so much to ask you about this gorgeous food! For starters—how did you get started with cooking?

It’s just something I’ve always been passionate with. It’s a passion that’s been with me longer than coffee, in fact, but I’ve only recently started to further dial in with it. Coffee has helped me realize so much about cooking—striving for flavor, believing in a product, trying to educate those enjoying that product while breaking stigmas…it’s intertwined.

Will Da Lin be your first proper pop-up?

Yes—this is my first official one. I’ve done trial ones with friends, etc, but this is a proper one, and I’ll document it with friends taking photos. I’m developing a portfolio with the hopes it’ll be something I can do more frequently.

Inspired by my meal at @embla_melbourne I decided to make my version of beef tartare… Asian fusion style! Scotch w/ shiitake / peas / pinenuts / fermented bean curd mayonnaise #foodporn #beeftartare #chinesefusion #homecooking

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Feb 16, 2017 at 11:59pm PST

Tell me about your choice to host this dinner at the Code Black space—is this necessity driving aesthetic, or are you trying to say something about coffee bars?

I think it’s more necessity. Because of the connections I have, at least to start Da Lin is going to done as takeovers in Melbourne cafes that don’t use their space at night. That’s my target in the beginning, to build momentum, and because resources are already there. The first one will be at Code Black Coffee’s North Melbourne store, and then I’m hoping with some traction I’ll be able to prove to people that this could work and be beneficial to both parties

The name for your dinner is a glorious pun. 

It’s a funny story actually—when I do training (I’m the trainer at Code Black) the term “dial in” is used quite often—you know, I’ll train people and say, “Oh, can you dial in?”

And so one day, one of the other other baristas—who is also a first generation Asian barista, from Vietnam but raised in Melbourne—every time I say “dial in” she’s saying “da-lin”, like it’s a word from another language. It really sounds like a phrase from another language. But it got me thinking, you know, dialing in is what we’re striving for, just trying to fine tune what we serve—whether it’s cheese making, wine making, creating dishes, or serving coffee. This is my reason for naming the dinners Da Lin. I’m not 100% fluent in another language—if I named it something Chinese it wouldn’t work. This is more true to myself.

Made fried five spice marinated quail w/ fermented red bean curd mushroom sauce / lime dressed cos n tom #samlowcooks #quail #chinesecooking #foodporn #sundaycooking

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Feb 12, 2017 at 12:30am PST

How do you think coffee skills inform your cooking? And vice versa?

I think being in coffee has taught me to objectify flavor, and to understand how different cultures and backgrounds express flavor in different ways. The same coffee can be interpreted by different cultures to have very different flavors. Coffee has helped me think about food in a different way, and that’s the main thing for me: objectifying flavor.

When you do that, you’re able to educate consmers in a different light, and it helps you forget preconceived notions. When you say “Chinese food”, that concept comes with so many preconceptions, and can mean such different things depending on where you’re from, your culture’s understanding of what that means. It’s the same thing with coffee. For both things, the more you understand it the more open you are.

I celebrated Chinese New Years today with a feast that I made for some really good peeps … spam uploads of the dishes I made on my other account @_sam_low_2 #chinesenewyear #feast #MSGfixfortheyear #foodporn #samlowcooks

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Jan 22, 2017 at 3:59am PST

How are you making use of the coffee community as a resource to launch these dinners? And will you continue working as a trainer throughout the events? 

Yes—at the moment Da Lin is a part time project for me, and these dinners at Code Black will be very important as a kind of test run, with the first one focused on setting up systems and implementation. If it does catch on that’ll be awesome, but for now I will still continue my work as a trainer.

All of the volunteers I have, the collaborators I have for this first pop up, 80% of them are baristas, and they’re talented in other fields as well—music, cooking, videography, so it’s a way to bring all that in and show these varied talents. 3 of my server volunteers for the first pop-up are head baristas, senior baristas at Code Black, and we’ll have some other folks from outside the company joining us as well.

My twist on the classic Chinese dish sweet and sour fish Marinated in rice wine and soy ginger, deep fried snapper w/ a sweet and sour sauce made with passion fruit / nectarines and shiso Dish origin: Zhejiang. Eastern china, where marine and fresh water resources are abundant. Well known typical flavours from this region include red vinegar and rice wine in a lot of the dishes. #chinesecooking #foodporn #samlowcooks #sweetnsour #fish #chinese #homecooking

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Dec 29, 2016 at 11:55pm PST

I’m curious to know, if you don’t mind me asking, if you’re aware of any similar barista-chef dinners like this one in Melbourne? 

I haven’t seen any other baristas pursuing this model. Hopefully I can be someone who is pushing for it as a concept to inspire others. But there are certainly plenty of pop-ups going on here in Melbourne, where people are trying to educate and promote a certain style of cuisine they believe in. But it helps, I think, being from the coffee industry where there are certain followers, and the language of artisan is very similar. I think it helps that I have experience as a coffee trainer, being able to communicate information to other people, vs. people who are trained as chefs first, which is a very different experience.

In my experience it’s usually the other way around, actually. I’ve seen a lot of chefs wanting to become baristas as well, because of the lifestyle of it, but I’ve yet to see a barista move into the food world in the same way.

Cooked Christmas Eve dinner Steak w/ mushroom jus // cos n butter beans // blistered tomato, king mushroom, Thai eggplant // grilled heirloom tomato // natural wine #treatyoself #christmasevedinner #foodporn

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Dec 24, 2016 at 1:59am PST

What dish are you perhaps most excited to serve at Da Lin?

All the dishes I will be serving are from different parts of China, representing a different specialty. Each different dish might focus on vinegar flavors, or textural qualities, or aromatics. The most exciting dish is probably jellyfish. It’s a very bland but uniquely textured item that requires flavoring to really enhance its natural qualities, and it’s not something that’s common in Western culture, to use a dish just for its texture. It’s similar to other kinds of cooking in China where you use sea cucumber, or other gelatinous textures as a base for flavor.

Cooked a proper Cantonese dinner tonight, pretty stoked with it haha… going back and really appreciating the food I grew up on. Steamed ocean trout w/ hot oil / Gai Lan in salted duck egg broth #cantonesefood #foodporn #homecooking #samlowcooks

A post shared by Sam Low (@_sam_low_) on Dec 9, 2016 at 11:58pm PST

Last question: you’re a barista champion and a latte art champion. Are you going to compete this year?

I’ll probably give it a rest this year, but I’m volunteering time around the competitions. I will be MC’ing the championships in New Zealand, and I’m helping to coach baristas for the Australian championships here at Code Black. I’m taking a back seat this year and trying to encourage other people to compete.

It sounds like you’ll be quite busy all the same. Thank you Sam!

Thank you.

Jordan Michelman (@suitcasewine) is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network, based in Portland, Oregon. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge. 

Top photo from the 2015 New Zealand Latte Art Championship courtesy Michael CY Park, used with permission. 

The post Da Lin By Sam Low: A Barista In The Kitchen appeared first on Sprudge.

Photo by Brook James

Aaron Wood, a Kiwi turned Melbournian, grew up playing in punk bands. While most punters—a colloquialism for customers—wouldn’t think that punk has anything to do with roasting coffee, Wood has a different perspective. As the founder of Wood and Company Coffee, he’s seen both sides. “I think everything I do relates to my years touring and playing in bands,” he says. “I think I’m getting more creative as I get older.”

Photo by Sonam Sherpa

Wood keeps company with Jana Royse and Rhys Durose. As a team, the three are fast earning a name as one of the better roasters in Australia—their coffee is featured on countless menus throughout Melbourne and up the country’s east coast. With always-tasty offerings, Wood and Co. conduct business in a familial, low-key way without ever sacrificing quality. You can identify their coffee by its packaging, the work of designer Ed Davis, and their small offer list—which includes a blend called Twin Peaks, and a handful of single-origin coffees and micro-lots.

Photo by Sonam Sherpa

Wood got his start in roasting with a rejection, asking a company for a job as a roaster at 19—and promptly being told he was too young. Thankfully, Atomic Coffee Roasters in Auckland, New Zealand, were more accommodating, and soon Wood found himself working for the pioneering specialty roaster in dispatch.

“I’d get to work super early, smash out all the bagging then go hassle the roaster,” he says. “He’d make me sweep, clean the chaff collector, weigh some green.” Slowly, Wood worked his way up the roasting chain of command at Atomic, and a few years later found himself as the head roaster. He’d later take a job across the Tasman at Seven Seeds in Melbourne, then a fast-growing roaster that would become a breeding ground for the city’s coffee community.

Photo by Brook James

“It was pretty intense but a super amazing opportunity,” Wood says. “I cupped with the best, we discovered a bunch of nerdy shit together. I went around the world a few times visiting producers and mills.” It was at Seven Seeds that Wood honed his skills for green selection and roasting, but eventually got to a point where he was only overseeing QC and green buying and realized he wanted something else.

“I got kinda lost and had to leave,” he says, but the story, of course, doesn’t end there. It ends at Wood and Co., where now Wood—the person—bangs out consistent roasts and grows his business slowly. He’s no longer the mover and shaker he once was—instead deferring origin trips to his colleagues while he stays home to look after things.

When asked if, during his career, any coffees stuck out distinctly, Wood knew the answer right away.

“Cupping outdoors with Moata in Jimma, Ethiopia,” he says. “You have to remain very open to what can be in a cup of coffee, remember that you are drinking seeds processed by people grown in the earth. At the end of the day, I just fucking love drinking coffee.”

Jai Pyne is a coffee professional, recording artist, and journalist based in Sydney, who has written for The Thousands, Good Sport, and Lost at E Minor. Read more Jai Pyne on Sprudge.

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Melbourne is a funny little place: Years ago residents were constantly lamenting about the difficulty of finding delicious full meals—breakfast, lunch, dinner—alongside delicious coffee. These days, it seems like the city’s famous for doing both things, but when you want a simple, quality baked good with a great coffee, you often need to visit two separate venues (unless you really vibe on a classic Australian iced long black).

After years of thinking about potentially starting a bakery with a solid coffee offering to fill that gap, Aaron Maxwell (pictured above) had a serendipitous introduction to Boris Portnoy in 2015. At the time Portnoy was working as a pastry chef at Auction Rooms, after moving to Melbourne from California, where he worked at the three Michelin–starred Meadowood in Napa Valley. Maxwell and his Everyday compatriot Mark Free started talking with Portnoy about collaborating shortly thereafter. The result is All Are Welcome—bringing baked goods and tasty coffee to the people of Northcote since April 2017.

All Are Welcome occupies a beautiful space at the peak of Northcote—literally at the top of the hill, on the main stretch of High Street—but looks surprisingly unassuming from the outside, relatively hidden when seen from the street. But it’s impossible to ignore the huge poster pasted up on the outside wall that says “VIENNOISERIE,” just in case you needed any more encouragement to go inside.
The space was designed by architect Murray Barker, with the build being undertaken by Exzibit Design. It’s a nice light space broken up into what is essentially an interesting figure eight by its structural needs (nicely replicated by Seb Godfrey’s—of Open Space—graphic design for the brand). The front half encompasses the wall of loaves and bannetons (bread baskets), a retail space, a cheese cabinet, coffee service, and a pretty irresistible pastry display. The second half holds the bakery, storage, bathrooms, and a very sweet corner to sit in created by a couple of former church pews.

“Much like a good neighborhood coffee shop, a bakery is a place that brings people together, quite literally ‘breaking bread,’” says Maxwell. “This has always appealed to us as it speaks to the reasons we opened Everyday in the first place. We were also heavily inspired by bakeries we had come across in Europe but there was always one problem: The coffee was always an afterthought. With All Are Welcome, we were looking to rectify that problem.”

When it comes to edible offerings, there is a range of delicious and lesser-known pastries, all informed by Portnoy’s travels through Eastern Europe, Russia, and Georgia. Where many pastry shops around Melbourne (and Australia at large) tend to focus on replicating the French classics, Portnoy brings something new to the table: His approach to pastry is to highlight lesser-known viennoiserie and expose people to new flavors and ingredients, while the bread offering is simple with an emphasis on consistency over quantity.

After several visits to All Are Welcome, this writer can thoroughly vouch for the deliciousness on offer: the Khachapuri is utterly addictive with its layers of flaky pastry embracing the cheesy feta and mozzarella filling, while the Medovnik will swiftly disappear due to its utterly transfixing layers of buttercream and honeyed cakey crepe. Pair that with an espresso from the cafe’s black powder-coated La Marzocco Linea PB or a batch brew from the ever-faithful Moccamaster, and you’re pretty much in heaven.

The rationale behind much of All Are Welcome’s retail offerings is face-smackingly simple: It’s based entirely around the idea of products that go with bread (duh). What this means is that once you’ve adequately binged on sweets and savory snacks alongside coffee, you can then stock up on a freshly baked San Francisco sourdough, as well as some house-made pickles, Brillat Savarin cheese, and chutneys and jams to go with it, along with a bag of Everyday-roasted coffee for home.

All in all, All Are Welcome has brought a bit of that Everyday magic to Northcote: It’s got that same, no-nonsense approach to tasty coffee, but this time the cafe has added in some next-level pastry—just enough to make you wish you lived just around the corner so this could be part of your daily routine (so that you might visit *Every Day*).

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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Christmas parties in winter are pretty commonplace affairs for us in the northern hemisphere. But for our southern counterparts, the idea is completely anachronistic. Well, it’s winter now in New Zealand—albeit a 55°F winter—and the folks at Flight Coffee have decided to do the unheard of and throw a Mid-Winter Christmas Party.

Taking place at the Flight Coffee Hangar in Wellington on August 11^th, the mid-winter party is inspired by Head Chef Alice Jary’s loves of Christmas and food. What better way to celebrate the holiday that with good cheer and festive vibes? Well, I’ll tell you. Mulled wine. All of the above will be flowing freely at the Hangar—where Sprudge has previously hosted a party of our own and can say from firsthand experience that good times were definitely had by all—along with some delicious food, cheer, and of course more drinks.

The whole shindig starts at 7:30pm local time. Tickets for the event are NZ$65.00 and are available for purchase here. There are only nine remaining as of writing this, so if you are planning on attending, now would be a good time to buy your ticket. More information for the event can be found at the mid-winter Christmas Party Eventbrite page.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

*top image via Flight Coffee

Flight Coffee is an advertising partner on the Sprudge Media Network.

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I’ve never lived in Canberra, but many people I love have, which means that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in the nation’s capital over the past decade or so. During that time, my concept of what “good coffee” is has changed immeasurably. When I was 14, it meant putting chocolate on top of my cappuccino and stirred the sugar in before adding the milk. Now, at 28, it seems to mean good filter coffee options with nuanced layers of sourcing, roasting, service, and care. With this progression of coffee preferences, there have been points where Canberra both met and failed expectations. And having not visited the city in a couple of years, it was with trepidation that I set out on a journey to investigate further.

Happily, with the first coffee stop of my trip being the lovely Barrio Collective Coffee, my expectations were met, exceeded, and essentially embraced in a warm hug. Opened in June 2015, Barrio came about by way of its three owners: Sam Burns, Duncan Turner, and Dan Zivkovich.

Burns heads up all things caffeinated and brown, looking after green selection, coffee roasting, and coffee brewing; Zivkovich looks after food, the sourcing of ingredients, and also does the majority of cooking day-to-day; while Turner rounds out the trio, being across coffee and food, also looking after the business and strategy side of Barrio.

Upon walking into the relatively compact space on a bustling Saturday morning, you’re met with what used to be a bare concrete box, populated and warmed by a stunning reclaimed wood fit-out, an incredibly efficient small kitchen, a neat coffee set-up, and a takeout pantry selection that few could rival. Brand design was undertaken in collaboration with artist Andy Mullens, while the many beautiful reclaimed wood furnishings were built by Gordon Smith (benches and blue gum communal table), Tom Skeehan (the branded timber stools), James Young (joinery), plus some bits and pieces done by Thor’s Hammer, and then the shelving done by the Barrio team themselves.

Turner explains that their initial goal with the space was to showcase well-sourced coffee in all its beauty in an environment that felt welcoming and relaxed. “Coffee started as the focus and well-sourced, seasonal, delicious food felt like a natural progression,” he says. “We really wanted to create a space that felt accessible to everyone and anyone.”

It’s a high-quality and inclusive goal that rings true, with the coffee offering ranging from a simple pour-over brew to one of the most delicious nut-milk coffees I’ve ever had in my life (maybe even better than G&B in Los Angeles—controversial, I know). Barrio roasts all their own coffee themselves, with green coffee being sourced from the (now-defunct) Silo, Cafe Imports, Caravela, and the Canberra-based Project Origin.

Burns says that Barrio decided on roasting their own coffee from the very beginning. “We were quite specific on what we wanted to do with coffee [presenting only singles, versatility between filter and espresso, suitability with unhomogenized milk] so it was important to us to have that level of involvement with the product,” he says. “Control is a strong word, but I guess it is control over the steps involved with presenting coffee that has been so important to us.”

While the coffee alone is definitely reason enough to make the trip to Braddon and visit Barrio, the food offering is nothing less than stellar. Focusing on fresh local and regional produce, on any given day you could have rye-cured tuna with parsnip rosti, kale, and manchego, a corn tortilla with romesco, egg, wild mushroom and Sichuan salt, or even just a classic avocado on toast (dark rye bread, that is, with optional togarashi on top).

At Barrio, there’s a lovely feeling of community—both between the staff and the customers and the coffee community as a whole. Over the past few years, Canberra as a city has thoroughly earned its place on the global specialty coffee map, and places like this play a huge part in that increased exposure.

It’s something that Burns summarizes best himself, and it’s a sentiment that touches on many of the reasons why coffee is such a lovely industry to be a part of: “Coffee shops have that ability to sit as a reflection of their community and as a resource for everyone to feel connected,” he says. “It goes beyond a shop selling something, it’s a reciprocal community building and this offers so much strength to the culture of a city. That’s been beautiful to see, that communities have grown around certain coffee shops and how it’s lifted the connectedness of the whole city.”

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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Sometimes when I hear of another cafe opening in Melbourne, the skeptic in me often wonders: is there even space for more in this town? There do seem to be more and more cafes popping up that do pretty much the same thing, but it’s refreshing when something different actually comes along. Enter Acoffee. Walking along Sackville Street in the inner-northern suburb of Collingwood, Acoffee is located within an eclectic mix of a brewery, a mechanic, a nursery, and housing.

Acoffee, which opened in April 2017, is a strikingly minimal space with one not-so-simple focus: coffee. The Acoffee brand began as a stand-alone roastery close to a year before the Collingwood space opened, when Byoung-Woo Kang (known as BW around Melbourne, formerly a roaster at Market Lane) set out on his own, turning beans brown on his brand-new Probatone 12 in a corner of the Sensory Lab production facility in Port Melbourne after his initial space fell through.

Over time, through supplying folks such as Slater St. Bench and Little Rogue, a unique partnership was formed with Frankie Tan, Nick Chen, Clay Tobin, and Joshua Crasti, which led to the collaborative opening of the Collingwood location (and the permanent home for Acoffee’s roasting operations).

Designed by the team of owners themselves—and with architectural and building experience and insight from Crasti specifically—Acoffee was transformed from an empty warehouse shell to a purposeful coffee haven, echoing the simple and transparent nature of the company’s goals. This process led to a design aesthetic that is largely minimal with one long white bench down the middle, encompassing the espresso machine, filter coffee brewing, and seating. Upon entering the space, this long line leads your eye toward the coffee roaster and the green storage at the back (sourced from Melbourne Coffee Merchants, Cafe Imports, Shared Source, and Caravela), making it incredibly clear what the focus of Acoffee is.

Talking to BW, it’s clear that every element of the place is incredibly deliberate. “A lot of people think of this place like a cafe, but it’s actually not—it’s a showroom where we showcase our product,” he says. “This is meant to be a place where people can enjoy our product and enjoy themselves as well and have a seat and do some work. So I’m hoping that this is a place where you can focus and just go into yourself.”

The brand design and packaging for Acoffee’s retail offering was done in collaboration with Remy Ventura Horta with a goal to keep the information to the essentials and nothing more. That same intention translated into the starting point for the Collingwood location’s operations.

Here, the offering stays in line with the aesthetic and is minimal—espresso coffee is brewed using a La Marzocco Linea PB (flanked by Victoria Arduino Mythos One grinders), while filter coffee is brewed exclusively using Hario V60s and Baratza Forte grinders. Pastries come from Penny for Pound in Richmond, with unique savory treats in the cabinet from Kolache Cravings in Preston, including delightful Czech-inspired items such as bread buns with fillings like pulled pork, or even ham and cheese.

This simple but deliberate ethos has gone over well with the busy Melbourne coffee world, with Acoffee showing up as guest coffee at places such as Lune Croissanterie and Market Lane Coffee, and Collingwood locals (among those further afield) finding their way there regularly.

“People come in here, and they don’t really see much, but to make it work we pay attention to a lot of the details,” says BW. “We just wanted to do something that we could do well, and we could do better.”

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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When Canberra, Australia’s capital city, comes up in conversation, it’s rarely in relation to specialty coffee. Politics? Sure. Art galleries? Why not! Coffee? Not so much. While this has been changing over the years with folks like Ona garnering a fair amount of attention due to Sasa Sestic’s World Barista Championship win in 2015, there is also a smaller, quieter coffee scene bubbling away in the background that’s no less impressive.

Owners Tim and Myfanwy Manning first opened Red Brick Espresso in Curtin in 2011, originally taking up only a small, 40-square-meter (about 430 square feet) footprint in the corner of their current building that encompassed the cafe and their Probat roaster. Since then, they’ve gradually taken over around half of the building, moved the roaster to a space two doors down, expanded the cafe’s seating, and even opened up a takeout section which is adorably called Little Brick.

Chatting to Tim about what originally sparked him to build Red Brick, his enthusiasm shines through his otherwise relatively quiet demeanor. “After I visited a few roasters in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, it was an amazing and exciting experience and something I wanted to build and share in Canberra,” he says. “We wanted to provide a stronger connection to the coffee for local baristas and store owners, and start to create true career opportunities for young people in coffee.”

Bringing that experience to the residential area of Curtin in Canberra’s western suburbs required a different approach than that of a metropolitan cafe in other cities though, with Manning and his team needing to meet the market where it was. “Our initial goals were to create a relaxed space with a local community based around specialty coffee,” he adds. “We aimed to learn to roast coffee that we wanted to drink, and that could sit alongside the roasters that we loved and admired—while maintaining our own individual approach.”

It’s a goal that they’ve thoroughly accomplished, with coffee-loving locals sprawling out on chairs and tables outside the building on sunny days and kids building forts out of milk crates while their parents consume some much-needed caffeine and downtime. Their offerings focus on simple and delicious things that they have a connection with—sourcing green coffee from Cafe Imports, Melbourne Coffee Merchants, Shared Source, and Cofinet, milk directly from the Little Big Dairy in Dubbo, and produce, meat, and eggs from local farms.

In addition to their original location, they’ve recently opened a pop-up store at the Australian National University Kubrick campus in the city that will run for at least 18 months. It’s a buzzing epicenter of activity during the semester and a nice change of pace from the suburbs.

As for the future, Tim outlined that their goal is to continue to support local business and produce delicious coffee, while also providing opportunities for people to start their own journey with coffee—consumers and coffee professionals alike. It’s an attitude that seems pervasive in Canberra, with more small cafes and roasteries popping up and even more people getting involved in coffee for the long haul. I can’t wait to see what comes next. 

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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What do you get when you put a dairy CEO, coffee farmers from Australia and Brazil, and a reusable cup founder into a room along with key people behind the Melbourne specialty coffee scene? A lot of ideas, a few aired frustrations, some un-answered questions, and a hell of a lot of banter, if the GROW Assembly conference’s inaugural coffee-specific event, held at the Collingwood Coffee College, is anything to go by.

Referred to by many as the closest thing to MAD that Australian hospitality has, GROW Assembly is touted as a day of “talks, training, and inspiration for the hospitality industry,” with the most GROW event focusing on Sustainability. This time round, for the inaugural GROW Coffee, the theme was “Authenticity and Curiousity.” For Australia, the event is particularly special, as while Melbourne and Australia have a plethora of cafes and a flourishing specialty coffee scene, coffee conferences and deep-thinking conversations tend to be found further afield—at events like SCA in the US, SCAJ in Japan, or HOST in Milan. In an effort to bring this conversation back into the heart of Melbourne’s specialty coffee world, the GROW Assembly team—Michael Bascetta, Banjo Harris Plane, Meira Harel, and Vicky Symington—reached out to Tim Williams and Tim Varney of Bureaux Collective to help facilitate the first GROW Coffee event. 

Devin Loong and Jenni Bryant providing coffee service.

The day started out with coffee being brewed courtesy of an array of Melbourne roasters—the likes of Market Lane, Small Batch Roasting Co., Seven Seeds, Proud Mary, and Square One—to the people happily standing around chatting, waiting for the day to unfold.

The first presenter was Andrew Kelly of Small Batch and green importer Shared Source, who aired his grievances about the term “direct trade” in the context of today’s coffee industry and its many co-optings and misuses, focusing on the oft-confusing misrepresentation of sourcing practices it engenders. He focused on many issues, from the agricultural and ethical practices on the ground at origin, all the way to how that information is communicated to customers—emphasising the point that just saying that you do “better than direct trade” creates a “barrier of inscrutability” and stops a necessary customer dialogue in its tracks.

Elika Rowell

Second up was Elika Rowell, co-founder and roaster at Square One Coffee—and the youngest coffee professional to speak on the day. She spoke of her own career progression, and the importance of personal development in a young industry such as coffee—her enthusiasm and passion clearly coming through when she spoke about the ability to get involved and mould the industry for the better while it’s still so young.

To break up the coffee talk a tad, emcee Tim Williams next sat down for a conversation with Mancel Hickey of St. David Dairy, who have a production facility in the heart of Fitzroy and supply to many of the city’s well-known cafes (Seven Seeds and Patricia Coffee Brewers to name a couple). With milk-based beverages making up a huge portion of coffees served and consumed in Australian cafes, it was fascinating to hear about the difference between large dairies (shipping in milk from all around Australia and homogenising it in automated facilities), and small dairies (often milk from the one farmer, handled by people at most stages of production).

During the first break, the inaugural showing of a Cascara Shrub courtesy of Bright Provisions (a side project of Market Lane’s Tyson Stagg, formerly of Bluebird NYC) provided attendees with a zingy and delicious refresher, while GROW volunteers kept everyone adequately caffeinated with the likes of Dukunde Kawa from Rwanda, Yukro from Ethiopia, and El Pilar from Guatemala. Sessions resumed with Rebecca Veksler of SOL Cups from Sydney, talking about Australia’s recent shock awakening to the environmental impact of single-use cups, and the importance of using sustainable materials like glass to make reusable cups (rather than creating more plastic).

Tyson Stagg serving cascara shrubs.

At the midpoint of the day came Mark Dundon, a man who’s seen it all in the industry, from opening St Ali back in 2005 to co-owning Seven Seeds (and its numerous cafes), Paramount Coffee Project in LA and Sydney, as well as a coffee farm in Guatemala. While Dundon’s presence has had a huge impact on Melbourne’s coffee industry, it’s rare to see him speak in such a public forum—something that he stated himself onstage, declaring that he doesn’t typically trust the motives behind those sorts of things. Like Kelly, Dundon touched on the frustrations behind sourcing, sharing complaints from farmers about buyers wanting to pay less for coffee but still expecting the same quality, as well as reiterating the need for plainer language surrounding coffee purchasing, and more transparent communication within the industry as a whole.

Next up came perspectives from two coffee growers, from vastly different ends of the world—Zeta Grealy from Zeta’s Coffee in Tweed Heads in Australia, and Luiz Saldanha from Capricornia Coffee in Brazil. Grealy touched on the challenges of growing high-quality Arabica at an altitude of 300 metres in Australia, the bio-security risks of smuggling in unapproved coffee varieties (as many are wont to do), and the cost of manual labour in a country with a strict minimum wage. Saldanha spoke of the lessons to be learnt from other coffee-growing countries like Costa Rica, as well as from other industries like wine—using techniques like measuring Brix (sugar levels), temperature of ferments, and even inoculating with yeasts and bacteria to gain more control when processing coffee.

Jason Scheltus and Fleur Studd

After all this, the last talk to wind this very full day down took the form of a conversation between Jason Scheltus and Fleur Studd of Market Lane Coffee and Tim Williams, focusing on the Market Lane business model of only doing a few things—but doing them well—and their somewhat unintended but beautifully executed expansion to a total of six coffee shops now.

Looking at the line-up prior to GROW Coffee, it was hard to guess or assume exactly how the day would unfold—the range of speakers was marginally more gender-diverse than many specialty coffee events tend to be in Australia, but there was a noticeable absence of racial diversity. It’s a problem that—myself also as a white person, albeit not of the overly-represented male contingent—made me pause and seriously reflect on the state of the specialty coffee industry in Australia, and the lack of minority representation at these sort of events.

Once the talks were wrapped up, all the speakers broke off to different corners of the room to engage in “breakout” sessions with attendees—a way of taking questions and starting discussions outside the strict confines of a post-talk Q&A. It was a fitting way to end the day considering, especially in comparison at an event like TED, where speakers tend to present ideas and discoveries that are seemingly complete, GROW’s speakers presented ideas and discoveries in a way that created more useful questions and more discussion.

Mark Dundon and Tim Varney

It was here that the “Authenticity & Curiousity” theme really resonated—through businesses and coffee professionals being authentic and admitting when they just don’t know something, it allows for curiosity and inquisitiveness and for the specialty coffee community to grow and adapt as any young industry needs to do. By accepting that no one person or company has the golden ticket to coffee perfection, it makes space for conversation, collaboration, and growth for the industry as a whole.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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So often in specialty coffee—indeed, in most industries—the speaker scene at conferences, panels, and speaking events trends overwhelmingly male. All-male speaking line-ups are such a commonplace occurrence that a modified version of the Bechdel test comes to mind—is there actually one woman in the line-up? Is there more than one woman? Could two women conceivably have a conversation together on the panel stage? And would that conversation be about anything other than the work of a man?  

The normal tapestry of specialty coffee speaking circuits is highly guilty of the above, and especially here in Australia, where notions of gender equity and equality can often feel stuck in the past compared to other parts of the world. And so when it was announced that Barista Connect, the international women’s coffee event series, would be making its way to Melbourne for the first time, my response—and the response of many others in the Australian coffee scene—was one of outright delight.

Here’s an event that doesn’t just pass the Bechdel test, it crushes it. 

Having previously held events in Aarhaus and London, Barista Connect Melbourne is the third incarnation of the event founded by Sonja Zweidick, with the Melbourne edition organised collaboratively alongside Camilla Bargholz (8Kilo) and Mikaela Gervard (The Coffee Collective). Here at Sprudge we’ve been enthusiastic supporters of previous Barista Connect events and while each is unique, the goal of for Zweidick and her team has proven to be an incredibly consistent one: to improve equality in the coffee industry and to create and further the network of female coffee professionals internationally.

Held over the Monday and Tuesday preceding MICE (the Melbourne International Coffee Expo) at two stunning venues—Maillard Atelier and La Marzocco Australia—an intimate group of 22 coffee professional attendees were treated to a range of talks, workshops, and collaborative discussions. Presenters included—among others—Elika Rowell of Square One Coffee Roasters, Charlotte Malaval of Toby’s Estate, Monika Fekete of Coffee Science Lab, Lucy Ward of St Ali and Sensory Lab, Meira Harel of King & Godfree, Michelle Johnson of The Chocolate Barista and Barista Hustle, Jets Anita Langland of La Marzocco, and Jenni Bryant and Milla Vainikainen of Market Lane Coffee.

Barista Connect founder Sonja Zweidick (left) with Charlotte Malaval.

Highlights included Jets Anita Langland discussing the elements of value in the coffee industry, getting deep into the academic side of marketing—Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, anyone? Meanwhile, Michelle Johnson spoke about the utility and purpose of social media in amplifying her experiences and ideas in the coffee industry as a way to network and further her professional opportunities.

I was struck by the fact that this event, curated avowedly by and for women, focused so sparingly on “gender issues” throughout its speaker lineup. By and large it was an event focused on ideas, theories, skills, and experiences that felt applicable to the entirety of the industry. I never felt talked down to or marginalized. There is an all-for-one community vibe to Barista Connect that’s quite unlike most other coffee symposia. 

Michelle Johnson.

Jets Anita Langland.

The specific topic of women in coffee was, however, tackled by Charlotte Malaval, former French Barista Champion, as the final speaker of the event. After expressing frustration at the frequency of which she was asked “What’s it like to be a woman in coffee,” she moved into a fascinating presentation of anthropological theories on gender and competition by academics like Bordieu and Lévi-Strauss. Malaval’s talk put forth the theory that there are more men in competitions solely because they’re socialised to compete, whereas the majority of women aren’t socialised in the same way. As she went on, Malaval elaborated on her own experiences and how she hadn’t really perceived any negativity towards herself in relation to being a female competitor. “It’s hard no matter who you are!” she told the crowd, while also posing the question: “Do we really need to identify and be inspired by the same gender?”

It was an interesting insight to hear, and one that was at odds with a number of attendees in the audience, leading to a fascinating back and forth in the discussion segment following the talk. Some of the attendees talked about their own experiences—highlighting the fact that when some of them had previously competed confidently and assertively in competition, it was commented on negatively whereas the same characteristics garnered their male counterparts overwhelmingly positive feedback. It was a reminder that discussions like these are so important to further understand how diverse and complicated the issue of gender still is within the coffee industry, and that no two people’s experiences are the same. It left me, and others in the group, pondering as to whether the very paradigm of competition itself as a yard marker of value and worth as a coffee professional has become increasingly problematic and outdated. 

For the final group discussion, many members of the group expressed their appreciation of the supportive all-female environment, saying how good it was to talk as a group without having to feel that they had to battle to be heard. Michelle Johnson summarised the frustration of the female coffee professional quite aptly during the discussion in a way that truly resonated: “I’m happy to lean in, but I don’t always want to fight.”

Barista Connect Melbourne was a beautifully organised event, and such a pleasure to attend. But in the spirit of dialogue and challenging discussion I found at the event, I’ll pose a final question: what if, in the future, events like Barista Connect considered opening up the attendee restrictions? I found myself wishing for at least a bit of limited inclusion across the gender spectrum in that room, if for no other reason than to show just how good things can be when the male-dominated status quo is flipped on its head.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

Sprudge Media Network is proudly partnered with Barista Connect. Read all past Barista Connect coverage on Sprudge.

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Picture this: it’s early morning and you’re walking along Flinders Street at the edge of Melbourne’s city centre, the sun is just starting to peek over the trees on the southeast side of the city, and you think to yourself, “the only way this could be better is if I were drinking a delicious coffee right now…” then, lo and behold, you stumble across a pastel paradise with a sign declaring “Vacation.”

Opened in August 2017, Vacation is the brainchild of Julian Bedford, Jimmy Tjoeng, and brothers Kael and Matt Sahely—a group that collectively has a wealth of experience working in and owning cafes, including the likes of Dukes Coffee Roasters, Pillar of Salt, Caravan Coffee (London), Sensory Lab, and Bawa.

As has been mentioned numerous times before here on Sprudge, Melbourne isn’t lacking in coffee shops. In fact, you could say the city is somewhat awash—okay, flooded—with coffee options. The flipside of this, however, is that the population’s appetite for good coffee appears to be near insatiable, which allows gems like Vacation to carve out a neat little niche for themselves in the competitive city centre.

Sitting on the corner of Exhibition and Flinders Streets, Vacation is a beautifully light and airy space, with a 6.5-metre-high roof, floor-to-ceiling windows (to take in the surprisingly expansive view over Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens and MCG), 1950s-style pastels, and a plenitude of satisfyingly rounded corners. Architecture and interior design of the space was undertaken by Alex Lake of Therefore Studio, with branding by The Company You Keep—with the brief by the Vacation team to the tune of “peaceful, tranquil, holiday vibes.” It’s an aesthetic that immediately feels calm and acts as a point of difference from the white-tiled, brass and copper, light wood Scandinavian stylings of many of Melbourne’s cafes, and has even been referred to as “millennial-pink Tatooine” by some visitors (which feels strangely apt).

Chatting with Bedford, it’s clear that they set out to build a cafe that didn’t take itself too seriously, “We think that coffee quality doesn’t have to come at the expense of approachability and service—so we just tried to make it a bit fun and kooky,” he says. Whimsical illustrations personify the flavour notes on their packaging (including a googly-eyed pineapple), part of the fun and lighthearted approach of the Vacation brand.

Espresso is brewed here on a white powder-coated La Marzocco Linea with Victoria Arduino Mythos One grinders, while filter is exclusively brewed with FETCO—showcasing the coffee that the Vacation team roast themselves at Bureaux Collective, a coffee roasting collaborative space in Abbotsford. The food offering sits neatly alongside the coffee, with a simple cafe menu: think sandwiches (with Meatsmith cured meat), toast with fancy toppings (avocado, seeds and sprouts, or peanut butter, banana, black sesame), and mueslis—as well as pastries from Noisette and Cobb Lane, and some raw and refined-sugar-free treats from Sarah Sivaraman who bakes in-house.

The response from patrons and the local coffee industry alike to Vacation has been a positive one so far: it’s still a rarity to see a specialty coffee shop located in the city centre that has such a substantial food offering, and it’s even more unique for somewhere like that to open on the weekends as it does (which thoroughly pleases the multitudes of local customers who live in the city).

Looking towards the future, Bedford and the team hope to open more shops, and also have their own roasting space. Keeping in line with their aesthetic, however, they’re going to take it slowly and let it grow organically, always making sure not to take it too seriously because, after all, it’s a Vacation, right?

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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How many times have we all fantasized about the day when we might pick up our life, pack it in a trailer, and drive towards our dreams? That’s exactly what Eighthirty Coffee Roasters founder Glenn Bell did in 2010. Finally prepared to pursue his long-held ambition of coffee roasting, and ready to move on from the cafe he was running in Wellington, it was time to head towards the land of New Zealand coffee opportunity—Auckland—and open a business all his own.

Eight years ago, Auckland was very much a city with traditional tastes—an espresso-based culture looking for consistent, full-bodied, dark chocolate long blacks and flat whites. Bell and his business partners set up a cafe and roasting space on the city’s famed K-Road (Karangahape), with the goal of building a community-based, values-centered business serving great coffee.

“I want our spaces to have a sense of discovery,” says Christy Tennent, general manager and co-owner of Eighthirty, and indeed, discovering each Eighthirty shop has its own sense of newness and wonder, with every cafe very different from the next. Eighthirty’s design team, led by architect Dominic Glamuzina, has allowed the bones of the individual spaces to shine through. Eighthirty’s branding and color palette are worked tastefully into each setting, sometimes providing the only stroke of color in rooms otherwise dominated by bare wood or black and white. Yet the main accents of beauty in each shop are still the spaces themselves—as in the cement floors and industrial windows at their High Street location, or the vaulted ceilings and crossbeams in the 1920’s Tasman Building on Anzac Avenue, or the huge exposed brick walls at K-Road. The vibe within these spaces is a perfect fit: great music playing, open concept, clean, modern coffee bars proudly and straightforwardly displaying their equipment. There is a youthful energy present at each one of their cafes and it is a breath of fresh air in a city where consumers are still a bit stuck in their old ways.

One glance around the roastery shows a view peppered with some of the best equipment on the market. Espresso is being served on a La Marzocco Strada MP and ground through a Nuova Simonelli Mythos. Move further down the bar past a Mahlkönig EK-43 and you find New Zealand’s first Modbar, serving up pour-overs on V60’s. But as Tennent excitedly points out, the true showpiece of the room is the company’s sparkling Loring S35 Kestrel roaster, which produces their cafes’ rotating selection of blends and single origins to please a wide range of flavor preferences—from traditional Aucklanders’ to those of a newer school, all under the purview of Eighthirty’s Head of Coffee, Jessica MacDonald. “After returning from London where I was working for Square Mile [Coffee Roasters] I realized Auckland’s coffee felt a bit stagnant in comparison,” said MacDonald. “Customers were choosing consistency and darker roasts over experimentation. Locals were set in their ways.”

But over the last few years, customers have become more curious and aware of different origins and are requesting to try coffees from different countries, rather than just those they are used to, MacDonald says. Still, the company aims to have a little something for everyone. “We value our community and we want people to feel valued when they visit our cafes. That they can feel they are a part of something. Everyone is treated the same whether you are a hipster, homeless, or wearing a suit,” said Tennent. To that end of serving the community, Eighthirty has partnered with a number of organizations including a local male prison where they will be providing barista training to inmates.

It is exciting and inspiring to witness a business that after eight years still hasn’t lost the fire. Looking ahead, Eighthirty has plans to increase training initiatives with their community partners in the months and years to come. And as part of an upcoming renovation to their K-Road space, the company has hired head chef Maxine Woodnorth to create a more extensive food menu for that location, with plans to expand to the other shops soon after. In a time when Auckland’s coffee culture is now rapidly advancing, and when the world is in need of a sense of community, Eighthirty is providing beautiful spaces where people can come together for a thoughtful coffee.

Peter de Vooght is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Read more Peter de Vooght on Sprudge.

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We’ve said it before but Melbourne has become something of a hotbed of food, coffee, and wine over the years. There are so many specialty coffee shops and boutique cafes that you can find at least one in every neighborhood, and a generation of hospitality professionals who are spending lots of time working for other people before opening their own spaces. These new businesses often become even more niche and focused than the venues that spawned their owners: think niche shops focusing in and limiting their offerings, or very small venues in previously un-catered-to areas. So it’s even more surprising when a venue takes on an ambitious space, choosing to prioritize areas that the owner hasn’t necessarily specialized in.

Take, for example, Wild Life Bakery. Opened in September 2017 by Huw Murdoch, Wild Life found its home in a warehouse in the inner-north Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, with a focus on high-quality bread. Murdoch is a familiar face in Melbourne, having managed Market Lane Coffee’s Therry Street store for six years, with long stints in cafes and restaurants while studying jazz performance at Monash University. Over the years, he began baking sourdough at home and slowly realized that it far outshined the bread he could buy around his local neighborhood of Brunswick.

Sometimes when a business arises from a business owner’s hobby or passion, they tend to try and take on that role professionally, which doesn’t always work out. While Murdoch did toy with the idea of translating his love of bread into working in the bakery day-to-day, the venue he found ultimately dictated the way the business was structured. “It came down to the size of the site that I found,“ he says. “If I’d found a hole-in-the-wall to sell bread and some coffee out of, I would have thought more about trying to be the baker and to learn on the job a bit. But once I thought hard about the kind of venue it would need to be to work, I realized that I was much more qualified to run the front of house. For new businesses particularly, it’s nice for the locals to actually meet and talk with the owner, which is something that I can do out front but probably couldn’t have done out the back.”

Walking into Wild Life, one is struck by just how large the space is. It’s a huge light-filled warehouse that’s been lovingly transformed by Sarah Trotter of Hearth Studio into a beautifully compartmentalized space encompassing a well-sized kitchen, a dedicated bakery (with large circular peepholes in so that customers can view the magic), and a T-shaped island that houses the bread display and barista station. Light filters in from skylights, while tables and chairs luxuriously spread out in front of the bakery windows and kitchen pass.

Murdoch outlined his motivations for the business: “My aim was always to make a simple space that focused on sourdough bread, with the hope that eventually I’d find smaller local grain suppliers, and possibly make some positive contribution to supporting farmers growing higher-quality, less commodity-focused products.”

The menu here is (understandably) bread-focused, with a kimchi toastie on the menu from day one, whiles grains sneak their way in in non-bread form via porridges and the like. Murdoch has taken inspiration from folks like SQIRL in Los Angeles, and Tartine in San Francisco (pre-Manufactory). “Bar Tartine, and their philosophy of trying to make everything in-house, is something we think about a lot,” he adds. 

These inspirations come to light in things like Wild Life’s delicious take on Tartine’s salted rye cookie recipe, or their delectable range of Viennoiseries and sweet treats, but it’s an inspiration that blends beautifully with Murdoch’s choice of a unique menu; you won’t find poached eggs on avocado toast coming out of this kitchen, but you will find one of the best gazpachos you’ll ever have (accompanied by a cheese toastie, of course).

While the bread and food are definitely a huge draw, the beverage offering is expectedly no slouch—with Market Lane Coffee being brewed either through the La Marzocco Linea or as pour-over filter coffee, and a small wine and beer offering rounding out the all-day menu with a focus on approachable minimal-intervention delights from folks like Jamsheed Winery and La Sirene Brewery (thanks to a pre-exisiting liquor license from the building’s previous tenants).

While Murdoch intends to continue to bring good bread to the Brunswick locals, his non-glutenous goals for the future are equally noble. “I just really want to run a business where everyone is treated and paid well and correctly,“ he says. “It’s kind of ridiculous that I can take any pride in paying all of my staff the award wage, but it’s still pretty rare in Australian hospitality businesses, which is sad. I’m still very much learning how to run a business, so it’s early days, but creating and maintaining a positive work environment and culture is probably my main priority.”

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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What do you get when you cross an exhibition space, a print shop, a work shop, a book shop, and a coffee shop? Well, something that sounds like the set-up for a really terrible joke, but is actually a building filled with creatives and a buzzing coffee shop headed up by Everyday Coffee. Located on the corner of Queensberry Street and Lansdowne Place in the inner-northern suburb of Carlton (a short ten-minute walk from Melbourne’s city center), Everyday Coffee’s latest venue is a small and succinct coffee-shop-inside-a-shop.


In the years since opening their first location on Johnston Street, owners Mark Free and Aaron Maxwell have grown and developed Everyday Coffee in quite an organic way. They now roast their own coffee, have a Midtown store, and founded All Are Welcome with baker Boris Portnoy. Their new space was born out of a conversation with longtime customer Ziga Testen, who at the time was setting up a new studio on the ground floor at Queensberry Street; it’s a partnership between Testen, design studio Public Office, and Perimeter Books.

Everyday Coffee Owners Mark Free and Aaron Maxwell

The design and feel of the space is comfortable, but quite minimal—wooden bar seating lines the front window, and a coffee workbench sits against the back wall. There’s a communal table, bench seating, and a small book display sitting next to a print workshop, which makes for some fascinating viewing.

Chatting to Free about their approach to design, he explains that Everyday wanted the new space to have an ad-hoc, work in progress feel. “Because it very much is one,” Free says. “The design came a little from us and our collaborators upstairs, and a little from our cabinetry and furniture makers Dale Holden and Adam Ascenzo.”

While it feels a bit wrong (and even a bit cliché) to call the space a “pop-up,” that’s ostensibly what it is for the time being—according to Free they could be here making coffee for a month, a year, or indefinitely.

“Everything is on wheels,” he says. “So we can roll out any time if the going gets tough.”

For now, Everyday is cranking out espresso drinks with a black powder-coated La Marzocco Linea, and offering delectable pastries from All Are Welcome (and some neatly packaged chocolates from Hunted & Gathered).

“We were conscious that we were setting up between the two big universities,” Free says of the location. “So we made it a space where people can grab a quick takeaway but also meet up or work on a laptop or browse the books.”

The atmosphere is reminiscent of Everyday’s Johnston Street store, and customers seem to feel at home in the space, setting up their laptops to work on projects and assignments, catching up with friends, or getting their re-usable cups filled before setting off on their way. It’s this approachable feeling that’s made Everyday such a staple within Melbourne’s specialty community—theirs is an ethos of belonging in every new location, with excellent coffee as a delightful extra perk.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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More than seven years ago, I moved from Brisbane to Melbourne to start anew—captivated by the coffee industry, the culture, the opportunities, and the freedom to wear as much dark-colored clothing as I wanted. For those first few years, the range of my living and working largely radiated around the city and the inner-northern suburbs—those hip and happening neighborhoods like Fitzroy and Carlton—if you asked me about anything beyond those bounds back then I’d probably have looked at you blankly, having only ventured outside of my radius to try and find a cheaper second-hand store.

Quite a few years later, with a stint interstate and something hopefully resembling wisdom under my belt, I made the move west, to the suburb of Footscray—a suburb in close proximity to the Port of Melbourne, along a truck transport route, and home to the multicultural buzzing hub of the Footscray market. While the move was largely predicated by the cheaper rent, larger houses, and delicious Vietnamese food there, I happened upon a lot more than I bargained for, including a unique venue dedicated to thoughtful gardening, community, and very importantly great food and coffee, called Rudimentary.

Owned by Desmond Huynh and Lieu Trieu, Rudimentary sits on an expansive corner close to the business centre of Footscray: on half the property sits a beautiful garden and outdoor seating area, while a cafe occupies the rest. Upon walking through the gates, it’s immediately clear Rudimentary is a bit different than your typical cafe, with the structure of the building itself, in fact, made from shipping containers.

It’s a novel choice of building material, and a deliberate one at that. The block of land that Rudimentary now stands on had been in Huynh and Trieu’s family for decades, having previously been an overgrown carpark for local businesses. With the appeal of Footscray growing over the years, the family was continually being approached by developers who wanted to acquire the land, but the family had no interest in either selling or developing it themselves for at least another five years—as such, it was offered to Huynh and Trieu, a wholesale seafood operations manager and a pharmacist, respectively, to do with as they wished in the meantime.

Balking at the scope of such a proposition, the pair initially said no, before thinking on it further and deciding to approach it in a different way. Chatting to Huynh, he outlined, “We had five to 10 years [left at] the site, which meant that we had to get creative with construction methods. I studied architecture some years before and didn’t like the waste the industry created, so rather than build something that would be torn down, we felt it appropriate to create something that was more robust and could be relocated when the time came to move on.”

While shipping containers posed a challenge as an unconventional building material, the positives outweighed the negatives: the materials rang true with the historically industrial feel of Footscray, and the cost-effective nature of the material meant that they could transform the entire block of land on a limited budget, as Huynh puts aptly: “The business name—Rudimentary—gave us the framework for the entire project; it allowed us to create a space that was extensive but not expensive.”

Designed in collaboration with local firm RD Architecture, the cafe interior is light and bright, with a long bar housing the open kitchen and espresso bar that faces the cafe, and well-spaced-out seating. A few visible elements of the shipping container are thoughtfully revealed on the interior—without which you’d have no idea that it wasn’t just a regular cafe fit-out.

Coffee from Small Batch is brewed for espresso using their La Marzocco Linea, while filter coffee is brewed with a Behmor Brazen brewer. Almond milk and chai are made in-house, allowing the team to dictate what goes into the products they serve, as well as allowing them to tweak and improve on them as they wish.

In food-focused Melbourne, more and more is demanded of cafes, and even in this competitive climate, the menu at Rudimentary stands out. As Huynh explained, “We change our menu with every season and we use the season to direct us in where to go. The one thing that guides us most is availability of produce. We use what’s in season because it tastes the best, it’s cheaper, and allows us to keep it local. Avocado, for instance, isn’t always the best year-round and is imported because Australians have an affinity with avo on toast. We elect to just pull it from our menu until it tastes good.”

Over the years, their menu has included inventive takes on classics and beyond, like chicken and waffles—including pickled watermelon rind—kimchi pancakes, and saffron rice pilaf. A key element that guides their menu is their produce that they use from the garden, a mere 10-second stroll from the kitchen itself. “The kitchen garden is run by our gardener, John, who is really knowledgeable and super-positive which gets us all inspired,” Huynh outlined, “John and the kitchen team get together once a season to go through what to plant for the coming months so that we can use whatever we’re growing in the dishes.”

Desmond Huynh and Lieu Trieu, while not being the typical hospitality-lifers that we so often see setting out to open something, have built something quite special in Rudimentary. It’s an incredibly quality-focused venue that pumps out thoughtful food and tasty coffee, while still paying respect to the neighborhood that it calls home and creating a space for the community to congregate. It’s a fine balance that is incredibly hard to accomplish, and one that they’ve managed with aplomb—they’ve combined the old and the new of the diverse and vibrant neighborhood of Footscray, and here’s hoping they get to continue doing so for some time more.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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In a town like Melbourne, where food and drink are the lifeblood of people’s professional and recreational day-to-day, places like the Queen Victoria Market are the beating heart of the city. It’s where families come to get their weekly groceries (and maybe some fancy delicatessen goods), it’s where chefs come to pick up seasonal vegetables and meat, and it’s where tourists flock to try the delicious dips and famed boreks (or to gather some delightfully kitschy Australiana souvenirs). It’s a delightful microcosm of all that Melbourne has to offer.

This diverse appeal, and the central location of the market, led founders Fleur Studd and Jason Scheltus to open an outpost of Market Lane Coffee at Queen Victoria Market over seven years ago on Therry Street, which runs alongside the market. (Disclosure: this writer worked for Market Lane between 2011–2014). In the years since, they’ve opened locations in Carlton, in the CBD, at South Melbourne market, and a satellite cafe within the deli area of Queen Vic Market. While their original Therry Street store absolutely flourished over the years, the building that housed the cafe was sold to the City of Melbourne four years ago, which meant they’d need to leave the space—prompting them to search for an alternative, more permanent location at the market to fill the gap. With this, they happily secured a new space on the corner of Victoria and Queen, in a beautiful terraced storefront—opening just in time for their Therry Street site to close its doors.

The design for the space was undertaken by Sarah Trotter of Hearth Studio, who’s designed the interiors of the last five Market Lane Coffee shops, while the build-out was done by Orio of Arteveneta, who’s also been behind the carpentry for nearly all the Market Lane venues over the years. The shop has one main bar where all the coffee brewing is undertaken, which creates a line and flow between the two entryways to the space—light wood frames the space through cabinetry, benches, and shelving, while brass handles, rich maroon tiles, and a patterned navy blue curtain punctuate the aesthetic and draw the eye.

The building itself is protected by a Heritage Overlay, which means that any new work needed to be undertaken with respect to historic aesthetic elements. As Trotter explained, “We aim to work in a way that is directly responsive to site and setting—and as such the historical and cultural context of the spaces within which Market Lane shops are located becomes very important to the way we design… Whilst our strategy revolved around the idea of minimal intervention, we were able to recognize and work with several opportunities the traditional Victorian shop front layout provided.”

Chatting to Scheltus about what they hope to achieve in the new space, he said, “One of the big goals is to create a space where our customers can sit and interact with our staff while they’re brewing coffee. I think bartenders are really lucky to be able to have many of their customers sitting comfortably in front of them as they work, giving them a great opportunity to create rapport, relationships, and a familiarity with their customers.”

While the team considered installing an under-the-counter espresso set-up to break down barriers, they eventually came to the conclusion that even the most subtle equipment can’t create an inviting and intimate environment for customers—instead, they set up dedicated bar seating that highlights the pour-over coffee station, allowing for extended interaction and engagement while staff are brewing filter coffee.

The offering here is relatively minimal—espresso coffee or filter coffee, along with a small selection of sweets from North Melbourne-based bakery Beatrix, and a retail offering with an emphasis on brewing at home.

As any enterprise matures over time, there’s the question of sustainability—not only in relation to finance and whether the business is viable, but also whether the company is growing in a way that promotes a healthy culture for the people that work in that business. It’s an evolution that is often key to a company’s success, and one that Market Lane has very much been paying attention to.

Co-Founders Jason Scheltus and Fleur Studd, and general manager Jenni Bryant

“From the outside it probably seems like the biggest change to the company has been the number of stores we have opened, but really the biggest change has been the structures around staff, their development, progression, and training.” Scheltus explained, “We made a conscious decision in 2013 to be the best place for coffee-focused hospitality staff to work—meaning since then we consider the engagement, well-being, progression, and training of staff.”

It’s this openness to evolution that has contributed to Market Lane Coffee’s growth from their original roastery and cafe in Prahran Market to a company that has six venues across Melbourne city. In a city like Melbourne that appears to have an insatiable thirst for high-quality coffee, Market Lane’s oft-appropriated tagline “We love to make coffee for the city that loves to drink it” definitely makes you feel like there’s no need for them to slow down any time soon.

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

With photos courtesy of Armelle Habib for Market Lane Coffee.

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Sometimes when I hear of another cafe opening in Melbourne, the skeptic in me often wonders: is there even space for more in this town? There do seem to be more and more cafes popping up that do pretty much the same thing, but it’s refreshing when something different actually comes along. Enter Acoffee. Walking along Sackville Street in the inner-northern suburb of Collingwood, Acoffee is located within an eclectic mix of a brewery, a mechanic, a nursery, and housing.

Acoffee, which opened in April 2017, is a strikingly minimal space with one not-so-simple focus: coffee. The Acoffee brand began as a stand-alone roastery close to a year before the Collingwood space opened, when Byoung-Woo Kang (known as BW around Melbourne, formerly a roaster at Market Lane) set out on his own, turning beans brown on his brand-new Probatone 12 in a corner of the Sensory Lab production facility in Port Melbourne after his initial space fell through.

Over time, through supplying folks such as Slater St. Bench and Little Rogue, a unique partnership was formed with Frankie Tan, Nick Chen, Clay Tobin, and Joshua Crasti, which led to the collaborative opening of the Collingwood location (and the permanent home for Acoffee’s roasting operations).

Designed by the team of owners themselves—and with architectural and building experience and insight from Crasti specifically—Acoffee was transformed from an empty warehouse shell to a purposeful coffee haven, echoing the simple and transparent nature of the company’s goals. This process led to a design aesthetic that is largely minimal with one long white bench down the middle, encompassing the espresso machine, filter coffee brewing, and seating. Upon entering the space, this long line leads your eye toward the coffee roaster and the green storage at the back (sourced from Melbourne Coffee Merchants, Cafe Imports, Shared Source, and Caravela), making it incredibly clear what the focus of Acoffee is.

Talking to BW, it’s clear that every element of the place is incredibly deliberate. “A lot of people think of this place like a cafe, but it’s actually not—it’s a showroom where we showcase our product,” he says. “This is meant to be a place where people can enjoy our product and enjoy themselves as well and have a seat and do some work. So I’m hoping that this is a place where you can focus and just go into yourself.”

The brand design and packaging for Acoffee’s retail offering was done in collaboration with Remy Ventura Horta with a goal to keep the information to the essentials and nothing more. That same intention translated into the starting point for the Collingwood location’s operations.

Here, the offering stays in line with the aesthetic and is minimal—espresso coffee is brewed using a La Marzocco Linea PB (flanked by Victoria Arduino Mythos One grinders), while filter coffee is brewed exclusively using Hario V60s and Baratza Forte grinders. Pastries come from Penny for Pound in Richmond, with unique savory treats in the cabinet from Kolache Cravings in Preston, including delightful Czech-inspired items such as bread buns with fillings like pulled pork, or even ham and cheese.

This simple but deliberate ethos has gone over well with the busy Melbourne coffee world, with Acoffee showing up as guest coffee at places such as Lune Croissanterie and Market Lane Coffee, and Collingwood locals (among those further afield) finding their way there regularly.

“People come in here, and they don’t really see much, but to make it work we pay attention to a lot of the details,” says BW. “We just wanted to do something that we could do well, and we could do better.”

Eileen P. Kenny is a coffee professional, winemaker, and Sprudge Media Network contributor based in Melbourne. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.

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