INDUSTRY PROFILE
Join the Club Volume three of the MilkLab Barista Social Club highlighted the evolution of Australia’s coffee culture and how dairy alternatives now play a role in the fabric of café menus.
T
he MilkLab Barista Series has become a unique way to unite the upcoming barista community and learn from influential industry figures. The first series event ‘From Bean to Cup: The Coffee Bean Journey’ took place in April 2021 at Three Pence Roasters in Sydney. The second instalment, ‘Mastering the variables affecting espresso quality’, took place in May at the Coffee Commune in Brisbane with Certified World Brewers Cup and World Coffee Roasters Championship Judge Danny Andrade. The third event on 6 December, however, was an open invitation to all.
At Mecca Coffee in Sydney, registered baristas viewed the livestream of a panel discussion on the evolution of Australia’s booming coffee culture, preceded by an in-person workshop on ‘top tips for competing in coffee competitions’, led by Ona Coffee Account Manager and Milklab Master Barista Hany Ezzat. “The biggest point I emphasised was the self-development that comes with putting yourself on the biggest coffee stage in Australia, the ‘upgrading’ it does to not only your coffee skills but your people, performance and life skills,” Hany says. He also spoke about the value of preparation leading into competitions
Hany Ezzat, Caleb Holstein and Paul Geshos join the MilkLab Barista Series panel in Sydney with Salvatore Malatesta via Zoom.
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and the importance of being familiar and completely comfortable with the rules. “The Australian Specialty Coffee Association competition has pushed me personally in ways I didn’t think were imaginable, no matter the result. There’s an infinite value that comes out of competing, volunteering or being involved in any way in these competitions,” he says. More than 500 people across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia then joined the MilkLab Barista Series livestream event. In addition to Hany, guest speakers included St Ali Coffee Founder Salvatore Malatesta, and Mecca Coffee Founder Paul Geshos. Coffee Curators Founder Caleb Holstein emceed the event, with the purpose to help viewers build on their industry knowledge. Mecca Founder Paul kicked off the discussion on Australia’s evolution as a coffee nation, recalling the large influx of Italian roasters who infiltrated the Aussie market in the late 90s, early 2000s, with their imported product, including illycaffè, Lavazza, and Segafredo. “There were a few people roasting in Sydney at that time, but no-one was doing a good job of marketing it,” Paul says. “At that stage there was just a small group of people grinding fresh to order, which was unheard of, and steaming milk in a way they could pour latte art. From that, a little coffee community developed.” The difficulty, Paul says, was getting insight information from the roasting community, which was quite closed off at the time. It was hard to know what went on behind closed curtains, so it promoted me to learn more about coffee and roasting. It wasn’t until I travelled through Scandinavia that I started seeing the impact of coffee, and what was happening on the ground,” he says. “It’s also where I met Paul Bassett, the first Australian to win the World Barista Championship [in 2003], who then introduced me to Norway barista Tim Wendelboe and its specialty coffee
