Beanscene Apr 2021 by Prime Group

A World-Class Coffee Magazine

APRIL 2021

On the move A year of hope and renewal

Huge demand for Australian grown coffee Paradox Coffee Roasters stands for the people

Meet the 2020 Australian Coffee Champions Dairy & dairy alternatives shape consumer choice

No.62 ISSN 1449-2547

9 771449 254002

WHY •

•

• • • • •

MILKLAB was created by the industry, for the industry; in collaboration with roasters, Q-graders and baristas MILKLAB has been designed to compliment the flavour of espressobased coffee MILKLAB has a rich and creamy mouthfeel MILKLAB textures and stretches like dairy to produce the perfect pour MILKLAB is delicious in hot and cold beverages MILKLAB is a foodservice exclusive brand MILKLAB is proudly Australian made

MADE BY AUSTRALIA’S #1 PLANTBASED MILK PRODUCER, FREEDOM FOODS GROUP

PREFERRED BY MORE ROASTERS OVER THE LEADING COMPETITOR

1 AUSTRALIA’S #1 ALMOND MILK FOR COFFEE , SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED BY CONSUMERS ^7

References: 1. Reeves, M. (2019). Industry Report OD5256: Soy and Almond Milk Production in Australia. Melbourne: IBISWorld. 2. Cafe Culture. (2020). Get Roasted (Vol. 2). Port Macquarie 3. New Idea Food. (2019). Almond Milk Coffee: Why Does it Curdle & The Top 4 Brands. Retrieved from New Idea Food: https://www.newideafood.com.au/almond-milk-curdle-coffee

SERVING

WIN PLUS GO IN THE DRAW TO

1 YEAR

OF MILKLAB BY REGISTERING! ®

Entries close June 15. See the MILKLAB website for competition terms and conditions.

PRE-GRIND OR GRIND ON DEMAND DESIGNED FOR WORKFLOW AND PURPOSE BUILT FOR SPEED AND CONSISTENCY. MARKIBAR’S IZAGA COMBINES EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICALITY AND FUNCTIONALITY. Built with two operating modes Pre-Grind and Grind On Demand. In Pre-Grind mode the IZAGA delivers an instant dose, allowing baristas to allocate time spent grinding elsewhere in their workflow, saving up to 7 seconds per double dose. The IZAGA’s traditional workflow setting Grind On Demand will cater to off-peak pe periods. The IZAGA also features an isolated grinding chamber with an intelligent ventilation system enabling cooler grinding and consistent dosing. It’s efficiency without compromise on quality. Barista Group is the exclusive importer of Markibar Coffee Grinders in Australasia

sales@baristagroup.com.au www.baristagroup.com.au

SCAN THIS BARCODE FOR A DEMO

A NEW STANDARD IN CONSISTENCY WITH THE SIMPLE TOUCH OF A BUTTON, THE INNOVATIVE ÜBERMILK DELIVERS CONSISTENT MICRO FOAM MILK AT THE IDEAL TEMPERATURE, STREAMLINING BARISTA WORK FLOW, REDUCING CAFÉ TRAINING TIME, AND DECREASING MILK WASTE. It further ensures baristas are able to concentrate on perfecting espresso shots and latte art, while allowing them to better engage with customers. Übermilk is distributed exclusively in Australia and New Zealand by Barista Group. For additional information or to schedule your trial, Please email sales@baristagroup.com.au

SCAN THIS BARCODE FOR A DEMO

sales@baristagroup.com.au www.baristagroup.com.au

APRIL 2021

50 66

contents UPFRONT

12 NEWS 16 STUFF ON THE SCENE INDUSTRY PROFILES

18 KNOWLEDGE LEADER

Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters Head of Coffee Nich Rae on how the leading roaster stays at the forefront of the industry

22 CELEBRITY COOK

Julia Busuttil Nishimura talks local coffee appreciation and a year of simple cooking

27 FOR THE PEOPLE

Why Paradox Coffee Roasters puts its people first

31 WHY CLEANING MATTERS

Latte art champions explain why milk cleaning is essential to delicious coffee and machine functionality

FIGHTING FIT

Café owners share their pivoting tales from 2020 and how they’ve come out stronger

39 REBELS WITH A CAUSE

How Rebel Kitchen combines the best elements of different dairy alternatives to create an organic plant-based milk

43 THE WHOLE PACKAGE

The Bag Broker explains how distinctive packaging can enhance brand identity 6

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FEATURE NEWS

SKILL BASE

Introducing Australia's five new national titleholders

2015 World Latte Art Champion Caleb Cha makes a guest appearance with his Giraffe

46 LONG WAY TO THE TOP 50 OUTBACK ORIGIN

80 ESPRESSO YOURSELF

Demand for locally grown coffee peaks while the industry screams out for new growers

CAFÉ SCENE

64 ALL IN ONE, YET INDIVIDUAL

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS

Franke Coffee Systems launches IndividualMilk Technology to meet growing demand for dairy alternatives

66 FEELING THE FLOW

How Flow coffee telemetry system provides new levels of transparency, coffee consistency, and information

54 FIRST CRACK

Good Edi explores a sustainable and flavourful alternative to single-use disposable coffee cups DAIRY & DAIRY ALTERNATIVES

A comprehensive listing of must-have café products to meet consumer demand

74 CAFÉ SCENE

Around Australia

78 TECH TALK

Service Sphere road tests three new multi-boiler machines

68 THE COFFEE WINGMAN

82 WATER WORKS

70 NO MORE CRYING OVER

Why the Mazzer Super Jolly V Pro has been re-engineered to fit the needs of the modern coffee community SPLIT MILK

How the Ubermilk milk foaming system is changing the game in terms of café workflow, consistency and efficiency

72 STRAIGHT TO THE SOUL

De’Longhi’s latest PrimaDonna is soul mate for any potential coffee lover

BRITA’s Birgit Hohler explores the career of a water sommelière and what secrets lie beneath the surface ASCA

Celebrating the return of the Australian Coffee Championships

85 NZSCA

The rise of the New Zealand Barista Championship and its impact on over the past 20 years

86 E SCENE

Fans of the magazine

vershoot o c e n e c S n Bea

PUBLISHER Christine Clancy christine.clancy@primecreative.com.au MANAGING EDITOR Sarah Baker sarah.baker@primecreative.com.au ASSISTANT EDITOR Ethan Miller ethan.miller@primecreative.com.au

Paradox Coffee Roasters 3/167 Prospect Hwy Seven Hills, NSW, 2147 PARADOXROASTERS.COM

ART DIRECTOR Blake Storey

As we welcome autumn and Melbourne farewells its coldest summer in 19 years, we head north to Seven Hills in New South Wales for a warm and delicious V60 pour over brew, elegantly shot for the cover of this month’s edition of BeanScene. To help bring this image to life, regular BeanScene photographer Jeff Mackay went to visit our friends at Paradox Coffee Roasters. Using the Paradox training facility as a backdrop, Jeff found the best vantage points then snapped away, capturing every stage of the filter coffee’s production. “What I love is that the image represents a cup that is lively, vibrant and truly alive,” says BeanScene Editor Sarah Baker. “This cover was about creating something special for the Paradox team, celebrating its great range of coffees and hopefully demonstrating to our readers the beauty of coffee in each cup we make.” Paradox Coffee Roasters Marketing Director Nicole Saleh says the team enjoyed the shoot and delivering a fantastic brew for the April cover. “We love creating incredible coffee experiences and we are grateful to work with BeanScene’s team to capture our new Paradox Colombia Purple Caturra Passionfruit single origin, brewed using a beautiful V60,” she says. This is the first in a series of three unique single origin limited releases starting in April. In addition to the Colombian Purple Caturra Passionfruit single origin, Paradox Coffee Roasters is featuring a vibrant Guatemala Vizcaya Washed filter roast and a delightful Rwanda Musasa G1 Natural espresso roast. Head Roaster Paul Golding is the man responsible for carefully selecting Paradox’s best-tasting single origin coffees, sourced from favourite coffee farms around the world. When a café or wholesale customer signs up to the Paradox Single Origin Collective, they are sent a free sample pack of next month’s single origin coffees before release, in a “try before you buy” initiative. “Our sample packs are a great idea for customers to not only sample a delicious coffee but to understand where its sourced, how its processed, the roast profile and best On the move preparation method. All these things combined make a great-tasting coffee and help our customers deliver an #ALTERNATIVEBYNATUREto exceptional single origin experience their end customers too,” says Nicole. To get involved in Paradox Coffee Roaster’s Single Origin Collective, call 1800 849 335 or send an email to orders@paradoxroasters.com. +

CREAMY SOY FOR COFFEE JOY

APRIL 2021

A year of hope and

APRIL 2021

Backed by the pioneers of plant-milks in Australia, we took a decades-old soy milk recipe and perfected it for coffee. It works with a variety of coffee blends for a balanced cup without the beany aftertaste .

@altdcbarista

Huge demand for Australian grown coffee

Meet the 2020 Austal Coffee Champions ian

/altdcbarista

Dairy & dairy alterna tives shape consumer choice

beanscenemag.com.au

No.62 ISSN 1449-2547

9 771449 254002

beanscenemag.com.au

renewal

Paradox Coffee Roaste rs stands for the people

altdairyco.com

A World- Class Coffee Magaz ine

DESIGN Kerry Pert, Madeline McCarty BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Courtney Walker courtney.walker@primecreative.com.au CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Zelda Tupicoff zelda.tupicoff@primecreative.com.au DESIGN PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle Weston michelle.weston@primecreative.com.au CLIENT SUCCESS TEAM LEADER Janine Clements janine.clements@primecreative.com.au PHOTOGRAPHY Jeff Mackay, Blake Storey CONTRIBUTORS Caleb Cha, Maurizio Marcocci, Emma McDougall, Kieran Westlake, Birgit Kohler HEAD OFFICE Prime Creative Pty Ltd 11-15 Buckhurst Street South Melbourne VIC 3205 p: 03 9690 8766 f: 03 9682 0044 enquiries@primecreative.com.au www.beanscenemagazine.com.au SUBSCRIPTIONS 03 9690 8766 subscriptions@primecreative.com.au BeanScene magazine is available by subscription from the publisher. The rights of refusal are reserved by the publisher. ARTICLES All articles submitted for publication become the property of the publisher. The Editor reserves the right to adjust any article to conform with the magazine format. COPYRIGHT

BeanScene magazine is owned by Prime Creative Media and published by Christine Clancy. All material in BeanScene magazine is copyright and no part may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means (graphic, electronic or mechanical including information and retrieval systems) without written permission of the publisher. The Editor welcomes contributions but reserves the right to accept or reject any material. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information Prime Creative Media will not accept responsibility for errors or omissions or for any consequences arising from reliance on information published. The opinions expressed in BeanScene magazine are not necessarily the opinions of, or endorsed by, the publisher unless otherwise stated.

Because origin matters.

Riverina

RECEIVE A FREE MILK TRIAL IN YOUR CAFÉ 1800 993 081

riverinafresh.com.au @RiverinaFresh

AWARD WINNING MILK & CREAM

The Riverina region is renowned for its agricultural diversity and history. We source only the very best dairy from our farms in Riverina region, and deliver it fresh to our specialty coffee partners daily. With 99 years of producing award winning milk and dairy from the Riverina, we believe origin matters.

CONTRIBUTORS In each issue of BeanScene we profile a few of our talented contributors. Kieran Westlake is the current President, past Treasurer, and past Vice-President of the Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA), Australia’s peak industry body dedicated to promoting and growing the specialty coffee industry. In his role, Kieran is excited to create opportunities and pathways for ASCA members. He is also a member of the Specialty Coffee Association and a certified food service professional.

Caleb Cha is the 2015 World Latte Art Champion and 2015 ASCA Australian Latte Art Champion. Caleb started working in the coffee industry six months after he moved to Australia from Korea. In 2014, he competed in his first national latte art championship and won second place. The next year Caleb went on to win the Australian title, then World. Caleb has worked in the coffee industry for 13 years and is now an ASCA Barista Sensory Judge, Latte Art Head Judge and certified WCE Visual Latte Art Judge. He is the CEO of Tigerous Espresso in Melbourne. Birgit Kohler is the Head of Organoleptic Department at BRITA, where her focus is on understanding the sensory perception of water, tea, and coffee, and bringing this knowledge into product development. Birgit is a trained water sommelière, receiving qualifications from the renowned Doemens Genussakademie in Germany, alongside having a background of studies in nutrition science, and qualifications as a coach.

Maurizio Marcocci lived in Milan and attended the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where he completed a Masters of Economics and International Relations. He has distinct qualifications from Italy as a Certified Coffee Taster with an Espresso Specialist Certificate. Now, as the Managing Director of Service Sphere, Maurizio has grown the business to become an industry leader in the sales and service of coffee equipment in just 10 years.

Emma McDougall is the Communication and Administration Coordinator for the NZSCA. After gaining a degree in hospitality management, Emma has worked in Sydney, Dublin, Auckland, London, and most recently, Wellington. She has owned and managed cafés and tech-judged the New Zealand Barista Championship in 2015 and 2016. Now, she gets to help run them. One of the greatest joys she gets from the coffee industry is watching young people progress through their coffee journey.

A word from the Editor

FINDING OUR FEET

or the first time in a year, I’ve had events to schedule into my calendar. Last December, I remember flicking through my diary and seeing nothing but X symbols marked on cancelled activities. This time around, at almost one year to the date our world took an almighty dive into the unknown, industry events are back, and there’s a feeling of optimism in the air. My week kicked off with International Women’s Day and emceeing Veneziano Coffee Roasters’ Women in Coffee event. It was such a great occasion to share a coffee, indulge in a wine, and interview seven incredible women who had forged their own career path, found success, and did so with inspiring mentors around them. Despite the different sectors each represented, from roasting to green bean buying, technician to café manager, each praised the relationships they shared in their workplace and at origin. Equilibrium Master Roasters’ Anne Cooper told the audience that to her, the true ‘women in coffee’ are the producers, who are never far from her mind when roasting and educating the next generation of talent. Just days later (yes, two events in the one week), the ASCA 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships took place in Melbourne, with baristas and judges coming together to celebrate talent we hadn’t been able to formally recognise for two years. The event was closed to the public but with a required negative COVID-19 result and a face mask, I walked into a building of waves, glistening eyes, elbow greetings, fist pumps, and a cheeky hug as the sheer emotion of a reunion with long-time industry friends became a reality. And if you were wondering if Australia’s baristas had lost their touch on stage, let me tell you, the competition was fiercer. A livestream of the event was established for those unable to attend, and reached fans across the country and overseas, with the coffee event only one of the few happening in the world. That’s pretty remarkable. Not only that, the talent and professionalism of our baristas was as hotly contested as the World Championship. We saw new techniques and new coffee species revealed, with Ona Coffee taking home four of the five titles up for grabs. It meant a lot to Founder Sasa Sestic to lead his team to victory, but more so for the industry in general. We did it. We’re back. We proved we could run a safe competition and bring joy and life back to our industry, one trophy at a time.

SARAH BAKER

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NEWS

VENEZIANO HOSTS WOMEN IN COFFEE EVENT In celebration of International Women’s Day, Veneziano Coffee Roasters hosted a series of Q&A Women in Coffee events along the east coast from 4 to 9 March. The panels took place at Veneziano venues in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, with its Richmond café attracting an audience of more than 60 industry professionals and coffee enthusiasts who heard the inspiring stories, challenges and work entailed in the lives of women who have forged successful career paths in different avenues of the industry. “It was terrific to acknowledge such talented women in our industry and celebrate one of the first industry event’s post-lockdown. A big thank you also to Veneziano’s Jade Jennings, an inspiring and talented industry woman in her own right, for her organisation in running the event,” says BeanScene Editor and Melbourne’s event emcee Sarah Baker. Most commonly, however, the women highlighted the importance of sharing knowledge and the power of building and nurturing relationships with producers. Equilibrium Master Roasters’ Anne Cooper spoke about her relationship

The Melbourne panellists of the Women in Coffee event at Veneziano Coffee Roasters.

with the Capricornio Women in Coffee project and nurturing relationships with women growers. Market Lane and Melbourne Coffee Merchants Co-Founder Fleur Studd talked about supporting women producers in Rwanda and her desire to develop a culture of knowledge sharing through her business. She also highlighted the importance of cafés as a form of community support during last year’s lockdown. Melissa Caia of William Angliss

Institute Coffee Academy talked about the value of education and her experience as an international coffee judge. St Ali Coffee Technician Chrissy Brown highlighted the need for self confidence in her line of work, and advocated the role for women who enjoy problem solving and customer interaction. Veneziano Richmond Café Manager Kate Maher discussed her journey from England to Melbourne and how she used last year’s lockdown to develop her barista skills. Veneziano distributor for the Bendigo region, Cassie Penno, highlighted the gratification she has for customers who want to learn and succeed, and St Ali Green Bean Buyer Lucy Ward gave a realistic portrayal of the tough decisionmaking behind her role that goes far beyond the romance of tasting coffee and exotic travel. Following the panel, Pete Licata, R&D Consultant for Veneziano and former World Barista Champion, led guests in an interactive cupping of the second edition of the Pinnacle Series with four rare and exotic coffees.

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE PRICES REACH HIGHEST AVERAGE SINCE 2017 In February 2021, the International Coffee Organization (ICO) composite indicator continued its upward trend, increasing 3.1 per cent to an average of 119.35 US cents per pound as prices for all group indicators rose. This is the highest monthly average since October 2017 when the ICO composite indicator reached 120.01 US cents per pound. The daily composite indicator remained stable in the first half of the month, reaching a low of 115.07 US cents per pound on 15 February. However, in the final week of the month, prices rose sharply and reached a high of 128.34 US cents per pound on 25 February. The ICO says prices in February were supported by tightening supplies, well as expectations of a deficit in the next season due to high temperatures and low rainfall in Brazil. Commodities, by and large, have been rallying as markets continue to factor in vaccine-related optimism and recent container shortages. In coffee year 2020/21, global production is estimated to rise by 1.9 per cent to 171.9 million bags with Arabica production growing by 5.2 per cent to 101.88 million bags. World coffee consumption is projected to increase by 12

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1.3 per cent to 166.63 million bags in 2020/21 as social distancing measures remain in place, limiting out-of-home consumption, and the global economy recovers at a slow pace. Coffee year 2020/21 is projected to end with a surplus of 5.27 million bags as growth in supply outpaces demand. Global exports in January 2021 totalled 10.21 million bags, compared with 10.59 million bags in January 2020, and shipments in the first four months of coffee year 2020/21 increased by 3.7 per cent to 41.88 million bags. Exports from the world’s largest coffee-producing region, South America,

increased by 15.5 per cent to 23.26 million bags as shipments from Brazil grew by 24.3 per cent to 16.77 million bags. However, exports from the other three regions declined from October 2020 to January 2021. Shipments from Asia and Oceania decreased by 3.9 per cent to 12.19 million bags. Africa’s exports decreased 13 per cent to 3.81 million bags as shipments from three of the region’s five largest producers declined. Shipments from Central America and Mexico fell by 17.5 and to 2.62 million bags as parts of the region were severely affected by hurricanes Iota and Eta. Credit: International Coffee Organization

Coffee Link

NEWS

QUEENSLAND CAFÉ ICON DANDELION & DRIFTWOOD MAKES A COMEBACK Queensland “institution” Dandelion & Driftwood (D&D) café has made its return to Hendra, opening the doors of its new location at 20 Doncaster Road on 28 February. D&D is the brainchild of Penny and Peter Wolff of Wolff Coffee Roasters, who share a passion for being able to educate, immerse, and spread their love for “coffee and tea flavour explosions”. D&D garnered a fiercely loyal following while the first edition of the café operated in the Hendra community for some eight years in a nearby location. The second edition of D&D was at Brisbane’s International Airport but closed due to COVID-19, so the re-opening in Hendra is steeped in history and sentiment for the brand. “This exciting new chapter for Dandelion & Driftwood is an opportunity for us to bring our beloved local community an exceptionally inviting café experience but also bring high tea to the area and a chic ‘after dark’ evening experience where we can’t wait to shake daring cocktails and deliver a stunning dinner menu, which is new for Dandelion & Driftwood,” Penny says. “We pride ourselves on

Dandelion & Driftwood has reopened at a new location in Hendra, QLD.

Dandelion & Driftwood being that quirky venue that offers a chance for our customers to broaden their hearts, minds and palates to the endless possibilities of coffee and tea flavours, and we look forward to them being able to express their tastes with our new D&D tasting cards.”

Penny and Peter have crafted two signature coffee blends that will be completely exclusive to D&D. The Dandelion Blend focusses on the “feminine and the delicate fruit and brightness” that is memorable and comforting. The Driftwood Blend is more masculine in focus, providing a robust, earthy risky, “action hero experience” that focusses on a complete mouth explosion. Brewed coffee options will also be a highlight offering four alternate filter brews: Samantha Brewer, Delta Press, Toddy Cold Brew, and Bodum Immersion Brewing each served with high end filter roasted single origins exclusive to D&D through Wolff Coffee Roasters. D&D’s interior is quirky contemporary heritage, tempering yesteryear elegance, with a mix of solid and fabric chairs, marble tabletops, vintage feature furnishings, old style lighting, and sleek tableware. “We are so proud of the longevity and following of our Dandelion & Driftwood brand and that each edition of D&D has enabled us to add some extra innovation, so we are looking forward to seeing how the new D&D modern twists are received,” Penny says.

ETHIOPIA CUP OF EXCELLENCE SAMPLE ENTRIES BREAK COMPETITION’S GLOBAL RECORD The second Cup of Excellence Ethiopia received 1848 coffee samples, breaking the competition’s global record for the second time by more than 300 samples. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) says farmers visiting its collection centres shared enthusiasm and excitement for the second Cup of Excellence competition after last year’s results, in which the winning coffee was sold at US$185 per pound. The winner of the 2020 Cup of

Excellence, Nigusie Gemeda, says his win encouraged many of the coffee growers in his area. “My success was like a wake-up call for my neighbours. They have learned our coffee is special and with the necessary good agricultural practices it could be highly valued,’’ he said while submitting his sample at the Hawassa collection center. “I believe I could win again.” His neighbours followed his example

The 2021 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence received 1848 samples from coffee producers.

beanscenemag.com.au

and have submitted their samples, including Getahun Tadele from Sidama. “It opened our eyes and made us realise the value of our coffee,’’ he said. Minister of Agriculture H.E Umar Hussein; Director General of the Coffee and Tea Authority Dr. Adugna Debela; and Director of the Federal Cooperative Agency Usman Surer visited the Jimma collected centre on 10 February. The high-level delegates witnessed the sample collection process and the initial screening of coffees, including moisture and water activity testing, packaging, and storage. They also chatted with farmers submitting samples and the staff at the collection centre. “We are pleased with what we have witnessed and the level of professionalism in the sample collection. We appreciate and support [ACE’s] efforts to make the second Cup of Excellence competition a success,” said H.E Umer Hussein during the visit. The Ethiopia Cup of Excellence auction will be held on 24 June and the National Winner auction will take place from 28 June to 9 July.

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STUFF ON THE SCENE

Stuff on the scene CAMPOS SUPERIOR BLEND

Campos Superior has a fresh new look. Rest assured, it’s still the same high-quality coffee inside. The new Campos Superior Blend packaging emulates the roaster’s famous green cup that is widely recognised and sought after. Campos Superior is the roaster’s signature, quintessential coffee blend and what it has proudly served in its cafés from the very start. Combining fresh, high-quality specialty coffees from producing partners in Ethiopia, Kenya and Colombia, this full-bodied coffee is carefully roasted to deliver sweet caramel, butterscotch, and milk chocolate flavours in the cup. Campos prides itself on the blend tasting consistent throughout the year. This consistency can only come from the roasting and blending expertise it has built up since day one. It is dedicated to that richness, sweetness, complexity, and those particular flavours, all of which it looks forward to tasting both on the cupping table and in the green cup every morning. For more information, visit www.camposcoffee.com

DE’LONGHI LA SPECIALISTA MAESTRO The La Specialista Maestro is the most advanced manual machine from De’Longhi Australia to date, setting new design and performance standards for the domestic manual coffee machine industry. Thousands of hours of research, development, and Italian coffee craftsmanship went into creating the ‘coffee symphony’, to provide users with a perfect balance of coffee science and coffee artistry. The La Specialista Maestro was co-created by global coffee scientists at more than 300 workshops, setting a new benchmark for the industry and building on the previous manual coffee machine from De’Longhi – the La Specialista. From Dynamic Pre Infusion Technology to six automatic one-touch recipes, each feature of La Specialista Maestro has been meticulously designed to enhance coffee and milk preparation at home. These advanced features also include Sensor Grinding Technology, Active Temperature Control, Smart Tamping Station, and Manual and Automatic Milk Solutions. For more information, visit www.delonghi.com

BRITA PURITY C500 MINUP FILTER Condition soft water and improve coffee flavour with Brita mineralisation technology. With more than 50 years of experience in water filtration, Brita knows that the perfect coffee starts with the perfect water. The new Brita Purity C500 MinUp Filter solution is specifically designed to deliver the ideal degree of mineralisation, allowing coffee to develop its full flavour and aroma. Combining the cartridge with the Purity C Quell ST prefilter ensures that minerals are released reliably and consistently. Built-in activated carbon technology also filters out any substances that could have a negative impact on taste. Professional, targeted filtration is key to consistent coffee excellence and achieving that perfect brew. For more information, visit www.brita.com.au

WOLFF PACK HAUS BLENDS Bring the Wolff Pack Haus Blends into your house. Wolff Coffee Roasters believes that a house is not a home without good coffee, and that’s why it has created the Wolff Pack Haus Blends for you to enjoy in the warmth of your own home. This gift box of coffee blends is hand crafted by Wolff’s Master Roasters to suit any palate with three espresso blends: Big Dog, Lil Red, and Edelweiss, as well as a rotational seasonal coffee. All coffees are available in 150-gram resealable and 100 per cent recyclable bags. For more information, visit wolffcoffeeroasters.com.au

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EUREKA HELIOS 80

The Eureka Helios is now available at Service Sphere. This grinder comes with new and improved features, including increased productivity of 56 per cent compared to the Olympus 75E HS, producing seven grams per second for espresso. Its high dose stability is also improved by 13 per cent compared to the Olympus model. This grinder is ideal for cafés pumping out 25 to 30 kilograms of coffee per week. It’s easy to use, features a new colour-touch display, has three programmable doses including an ‘extra dose’ and pre-selection grinding mode. The Eureka Helios has 80-millimetre flatt burrs and a burrs maintenance alert customised according to the burrs types and material. Bonus features include decreased grinding noise, an adjustable and removable exit chute for cleaning, and a safety switch on the hopper. For more information, visit servicesphere.com.au

MELITTA® CAFINA® XT7 Already have a variety of milk types to prepare? Need something extra to handle requests for dairy alternative products? The Melitta® Cafina® XT7 automatic coffee machine leaves no wishes unfulfilled. Flat white, latte, cappuccino, macchiato, mocha… the Melitta® Cafina® XT7 delivers when it comes to speed, consistency, and reliability. The Automatic Coffee Quality System monitors key parameters during preparation and automatically adjusts them if necessary, ensuring the same high level of quality in every cup. It prepares up to 170 cups per hour and boasts an 8.4-inch touchscreen display. The HACCP-certified, professional Milk System offers one-touch preparation of two types of milk, in a variety of consistencies and temperatures. The option of an automatic or manually controlled steam wand provides an extended platform for staff to prepare an even wider variety of dairy or dairy alternative products. For more information, visit www.melitta-professional.com.au or contact 1300 223 462

INFO@CMS.COM.AU

(03) 9462 5055

MELBOURNE

CWE RANGE CWE is an independent importer and distributor of premium coffee systems, supplying equipment solutions and technical service to the hospitality industry, coffee roasters, corporate and domestic markets. The CWE range includes traditional espresso coffee machines, espresso grinders and fully automatic espresso coffee machines, which is backed up by the CWE Technical Support team, offering professional advice, support and after hours technical service.

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KNOWLEDGE LEADER

COMPETITIVE EDGE Nich Rae’s passion for coffee has seen him rise through the ranks of Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters, becoming its Head of Coffee in 2020. Over the past year, he has helped expand and adapt many aspects of the business, from its procurement and training to new ideas such as single serve, tasting cards, and frozen coffee.

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Toby’s Rae of light Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters Head of Coffee, Nich Rae, goes behind the scenes on how one of Australia’s leading specialty roasters stays on top of trends and remains at the forefront of the industry.

lot of work goes into making a cup of coffee, but not even Nich Rae, Head of Coffee at Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters, realised how much until his first trip to origin. “It’s really the last piece of the puzzle to truly understand coffee. It’s like when you read about something your whole life and then try to put it into practice – in our case at a café – but then, when you actually get to go and experience it for yourself, it brings everything together,” Nich says. “Visiting origin brings meaning to why we do what we’re doing. When you come back from origin, you value the coffee more because you’ve seen how difficult it is to make it.” Nich’s first exposure to the intricacies of coffee came while working in the bar and nightclub scene in Sydney. Like many venues, the club Nich worked at also offered coffee and he set himself the challenge of becoming its best barista. “I’m a pretty competitive person and when you’re a bartender, you want to be the one that people come and ask for specifically. I worked hard to make sure things like my milk texturing were good, so when people wanted a coffee, they wanted it from me,” he says. “It was the same with the staff. My co-workers would always ask me to make their coffees.” Taking note of Nich’s coffee making prowess, when the club’s chef set out to open his own café in 2010, he asked Nich to join him as a barista. He jumped at the chance and says his fondest memories from My Caffeine Romance in Kirrawee were building a rapport with customers and “the thrill of the rush”. “It was a really busy café – we were doing between 90 and 110 kilograms of coffee a week. When you’re in that environment, you get to work, dial in the machine, get yourself ready, and then it’s go time,” Nich says. “It was a combination of the technical job of making coffee, having your head up and talking to customers, all while making sure the café is running smoothly. That really excited me. “It makes you want to push yourself, so every day is a chance to see how well service could run. If you did a good

job, the customers were happy and the café stayed busy.” The café used coffee from Toby’s Estate, which served as Nich’s introduction to the specialty coffee brand. As the café grew in volume, Nich saw more and more visitors from Toby’s Estate, getting to know the team quite well. “I remember the first time Toby Smith came into our café. As a young barista, when the founder of this iconic roaster comes in to drink your coffee, you’re a bit starstruck,” Nich says. “Working closely with a roaster builds a connection to the company. I remember going on a roastery tour, visiting the flagship, and thinking ‘wow, this is the pinnacle of making coffee’.” In 2013, a barista position opened up at Toby’s Estate’s café in Chippendale and Nich joined the team. After about a year, Nich applied for a back-of-house roasting apprenticeship and dove even deeper into the world of coffee. “One of the good things about the coffee industry is that it’s built for people to progress down whatever path they want to follow. You can go from head barista to café manager or owner, but the more you get into it, the more you realise how much coffee can give,” Nich says. “That’s where roasting, training, quality assurance, and green bean buying come in. That’s just the coffee focused roles too. You can work for all different kinds of companies and people. “There’s a huge range of opportunities that don’t require a university degree. It’s probably one of the last avenues

in hospitality where, if you’re not doing a trade, there’s potential to have a really good career.” Over the past seven years, Nich has risen through the ranks at Toby’s Estate, becoming Assistant Head Roaster in 2016 and Head Roaster in 2018, before earning his current title in February 2020. “The Head of Coffee role is really determined by where you work and the size and scale of the company. For me, there’s four main drivers: procurement, innovation, training, and our roasting quality and philosophy,” Nich explains. Toby’s Estate’s single origin program covers upwards of 90 different coffees per year, offering a diversity of origins and processing methods. Nich says being able to deliver this program year-round, consistently, and at a high level of quality sets Toby’s Estate a part. “I work with an amazing procurement team, with Charlotte Malaval directing the green bean program and our relationships with producers making sure the coffees we select are of the highest quality,” he says. “There’s a lot of forecasting and planning which is headed up by the amazing Angela Green, making sure we’re always getting fresh coffee, and worrying about the AUD compared to the USD – all of this has probably been the biggest learning curve for me. It’s been a fun and interesting challenge working with these guys so far.” While COVID-19 restrictions presented roadblocks when it came to onsite training in 2020, Toby’s Estate did not slow down.

Nich Rae says there are many career paths a barista can follow through the coffee industry.

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KNOWLEDGE LEADER

The team reassessed how it could make complex topics like coffee tasting more approachable to new baristas. “We’re lucky enough to have a sizeable roasting team and that allows us to deliver innovations, like recipe cards, tasting grids, and tools to help our customers deliver consistency at their cafés,” Nich says. “We’re always striving to deliver the best coffees available. We’re at an interesting point in the industry with so many smaller roasters and people breaking out on their own and it’s pushed us to make sure we don’t sit back. You have to be proactive and we’re pushing ourselves to set the standard of coffee within the industry.” Toby’s Estate also used 2020 to experiment with the ways it can offer people coffee. Towards the start of the year, the roaster released its single serve coffee bags, a project Nich worked on with Steeped Coffee in the United States. This was good timing for Toby’s Estate, with the bags releasing just before COVID-19 restrictions saw many office workers getting their coffee fix at home. Nich says this shift resulted in a huge breakout in “instant style” offerings from coffee roasters, but it’s not the only trend Toby’s Estate has evolved. “We’ve seen a bit of a spike in popularity

around freezing coffee. A few companies have been doing it for a while, but for us, the gap in the market was how to deliver it not only to our wholesale customers, but retail too,” he says. “We want everyone to be a part of the frozen coffee movement and can use the size and scale of Toby’s Estate to help drive these new trends and initiatives. If we can put things in place that help everyone freeze coffee, it helps the whole industry move forward and creates a new part of the market.” Toby’s Estate made its first foray into the world of frozen coffee with Freezus in late2020. The box included two 50-gram bags of fresh coffee to enjoy immediately and five 20-gram bags of vacuum-sealed coffee to pop in the freezer for later. “We launched Freezus for the Christmas period and the take-up and feedback was really positive. There were a few hurdles figuring out the process of selling frozen coffee at home, but we worked through it, doing things like ageing the coffee ourselves so the customer can put it straight in the freezer,” Nich says. He adds that freezing coffee is going to be an important part of specialty coffee moving forward. “It’s a way people can create their own

‘wine cellar’ in their homes or cafés. We’re reaching a point where, if you really like a coffee but it’s soon going to finish its rotation, you can buy it, freeze it, and enjoy it for the rest of the year or even later,” Nich says. “We’re working on a few things in the background to make freezing coffee more accessible to our wholesale partners too because we want to make sure they’re a part of this movement as well.” In 2021, another focus of Toby’s Estate will be exploring new coffee processing methods, with conversations underway with many of its producing partners. Nich says this wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the relationships Toby’s Estate has built, or the work its team has put in over the years to push coffee forward. “For me, my best times with Toby’s Estate come at the end of the year around review time, when we look back at what the team has been able to create, accomplish, and deliver,” Nich says. “A lot of the time, people walk into a café, buy a really good coffee, have a great start to the day, and then go on their day without much thought. But the amount of time and work – not only from roasting and sourcing but the whole team – that goes into creating that cup and experience, is extraordinary.”

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CELEBRITY COOK

Julia’s kitchen tales Home cook and author Julia Busuttil Nishimura talks to BeanScene about local coffee appreciation, a year of simple family food, and the train station coffee that started her drinking journey. By Sarah Baker

A MELBURNIAN AT HEART Julia Busuttil Nishimura is a Melbourne-based cook, author, and teacher. Her food celebrates simple ingredients and seasonal produce and is influenced by her Maltese upbringing and time living in Italy. She hosts pasta master classes in the inner city suburb of Northcote and has authored two cook books.

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f home is where the heart is, then Julia Busuttil Nishimura will have no trouble adjusting when she moves from her inner-northern Melbourne abode. For the past five years it’s been the place she’s raised sons Haruki and Yukito, picked figs from the alley way, cooked family meals, developed recipes, and acted as the entire backdrop for her cookbook photography. As Julia connects to her Zoom interview with BeanScene, her iconic kitchen is once again on display with a map of Japan on the wall behind her – an ode to her husband Nori Nishimura’s heritage – and dough proofing in a bowl to the side of the computer screen. “I’ll miss this space but I’m so excited about the move. The kitchen is what sold us – the marble benchtop, really big oven, and lots of space to cook and create,” Julia says. Currently a short walk to her favourite cafés Market Lane, Wild Life Bakery, and Everyday Coffee, Julia loves the ritual of visiting for a morning milk-based or iced coffee and buying beans for home. “We live so close to Market Lane that when we run out, we just ride our bikes to the vending machine out the front and stock up,” she says. Julia is excited to explore the surrounding cafés in her new suburb, but one device packed and ready for the move is her filter brewers. “If we’re at home and Nori is making coffee, I’ll have a pour over or a Moccamaster black filter coffee. In the afternoon, I love a long macchiato or short black after lunch or dinner. My maximum is two a day. I have to space it out otherwise I get jittery,” she says. “I’m not a connoisseur, but I know what I like, and that’s more rich, darker roasted coffee rather than coffees with super fruity profiles, which probably lends itself to the Italian style coffee I got used to.” During her university days studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Italian language and international politics, followed by a Masters of Teaching, Julia studied in Florence before working as an au pair in the small town of Grosseto in the region of Maremma in Tuscany. But it was on arrival to Rome’s ‘termini’ central station that Julia experienced her first Italian coffee encounter while meeting her sister living in the city at the time. “We got a ‘cornetto’ or a croissant with an espresso at the train station bar, holding it with a napkin to avoid sticky fingers, and I remember standing at the bar, taking a sip, and it felt incredible. You feel a part of something special among the hustle and bustle around you. There

“WHAT I LOVE IS THAT REAL ATTENTION TO DETAIL. PEOPLE HAVE REALLY HONED THEIR CRAFT AND YOU KNOW WHEREVER YOU GO, YOU’RE GOING TO GET A GOOD COFFEE. IT’S NOT UNTIL YOU TRAVEL AWAY FROM MELBOURNE YOU REALISE HOW SPECIAL THAT IS.” were people in suits, nuns standing next to you – a whole gamut of people who had come together at the one place to have a morning coffee,” Julia recalls. “It’s a vivid memory of my first experience with coffee and it blossomed from there. I travelled across Europe, drank quite milky coffees in France, and learned to enjoy coffee after food, which has become such a part of my daily ritual.” On return to Melbourne, Julia’s love for coffee extended to heavy consumption on her university campus, and visiting classic Italian cafés such as Brunetti in Carlton where she lived, and an old school Italian coffee shop on the corner of Faraday Street where she would sit for hours drinking coffee after coffee. Julia fell in love with Italy’s passion for coffee, but experiencing Japan’s coffee culture has also been a contrasting experiencing as part of yearly trips to see her husband’s family and friends – pre-COVID-19. “There’s two sides to Japan’s coffee culture. On one side is the super old school traditional-style cafés called kissaten where they serve black filter coffee with shokupan bread and a boiled egg for breakfast with everyone smoking around you. Then, there’s this new wave of tiny hole-in-the-wall cafés popping up all the time with a new age demographic who’s obsessed with coffee, pour over, and coffee in a can. When we visit in summer it’s all about iced coffee though. I love it,” she says. Compared to Melbourne, Julia says, what’s unique about the coffee scene is its consistency and unwavering pride in preparation and quality. “What I love is that real attention to detail. People have really honed their craft and you know wherever you go, you’re going to get a good coffee. It’s not until you travel away from Melbourne you realise how special that is. Almost every café is a standout. You find places you like the best, but each is very reliable and very relaxed. It’s not intimidating.

Buying coffee to grind and make at home seems really approachable, and people are always happy to talk to you about it,” she says. It’s that same passion and transparent nature for food that has helped Julia transition from an Italian primary school teacher into one of the country’s most aspiring home cooks and authors. Born in Adelaide and growing up in country Victoria with Maltese heritage, Julia’s father was one of seven children, with food a central part of the family household and gatherings from an early age. “My dad had friends come bring rabbits they’d hunted for rabbit stew, my grandma would bring us broad beans to pod, and we’d make our own ricotta. It was mostly out of necessity – no one was selling rabbit or supplying broad beans through the greengrocer. We had to source it in our own way,” she says. “At school, kids would have Vegemite sandwiches and I’d have tuna and capers. At the time I would have given anything for a packet of Samboy chips, but of course now I appreciate the food diversity I had growing up.” Julia always enjoyed cooking and studying cookbooks, but it wasn’t until her trip to Italy that her interest in documenting recipes spiked, and she started a blog, which wasn’t largely popular eight years ago. She started writing some recipes for publications and making connections in the Melbourne food scene. She launched her first cookbook Ostro in 2017 and her second in 2020 in the middle of the global pandemic, which in hindsight Julia says was the “perfect storm”. “Everyone was at home cooking. I would often see the same people cooking my food and tagging me on Instagram, but then it exploded to 50 people tagging me each day with dishes from my recipes. Perhaps people had the time to cook that they didn’t before. It was great to see a community blossom from that,”

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CELEBRITY COOK

Julia Busuttil Nishimura is passionate about simple home cooking to share with loved ones.

Julia says. “I pushed myself to do [recipe] videos which I’d never done before, but felt I needed to, to feed my creativity, and Haruki was home from kinder, so he helped me out. Then my second book came out and it was well received and supported from everyone.” Titled A Year of Simple Family Food, Julia says it unintentionally became the mantra of her cooking style when Melbourne faced into a 112-day lockdown, forcing the closure of shops, the rise of home delivery services, and bread making. “I really paired back our cooking style. We used what we had at home more than ever. I couldn’t go down to Prahran Market to buy that one thing I really wanted. I had to be inventive and creative and reassess what is simple cooking and what does nourish us, not just from a nutritional side but comfort-wide,” she says. “I think a lot of people did that and realised how important sharing food with family was, and when we couldn’t do that, it was really apparent how important home cooking is and how much food connects us. I love going out to restaurants as much as the next person, but being able to cook for yourself is such a wonderful thing to do for yourself and your family.”

Last year was “a blur” for Julia. She had her second child Yuki in January 2020 and went into lockdown when he was just three months old while her husband Nori, a chef, was at home for a period of time before returning to work to assist with takeaway service. Julia is fortunate to have spent quality time with her family and be a comfort for her fans, but admits it was undoubtedly tough. With Melbourne back on track to a relatively “normal” year ahead, Julia is excited to relaunch Ostro with a new front cover in May that will be more reflective of her style for simple home cooking. She will also rebrand her website, work on some curated home and kitchen pieces, start work on her third cookbook, due for release in 2022, continue to teach monthly pasta making classes, and hopes to travel more around Australia with border openings permitting. “I feel super grateful that my career in food happened so naturally and that I get to do it full time now,” Julia says. “I truly love it so much. Food is something that will never leave me. It changes every day, it never repeats, is really exciting and motivates me to keep learning and creating. I still can’t believe it’s my job.”

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COVER STORY

For The People People are at the heart of the coffee industry, and Paradox Coffee Roasters puts them first, from those growing and roasting its coffee to those serving and enjoying it.

aradox Coffee Roasters puts its people first. From day one, the team have stood by its mission, “For The People” in a commitment to those that grow, roast, educate, serve and enjoy their coffee. “It’s so important to prioritise and value people every step of the journey. This includes the growers we source from, our

incredible Head Roaster who creates our blends and single origins, the Paradox team who gathers and educates our wholesale partners, and the baristas crafting and serving our coffee,” says Danielle Saleh of Paradox Coffee Roasters. “Every person on the journey plays such a significant part in creating the coffee our customers enjoy, and we understand the importance of valuing people

every step of the way.” A family business, Danielle serves as its Creative Director, her husband James Rodger its Sales Director, and her sister Nicole Saleh as Marketing Director. “It is about bringing our deep passion and knowledge for coffee and the industry together and developing a business that is making a difference in the way we operate and the products we serve,” Nicole says. With roasteries, labs, and training facilities in both Sydney and the Gold Coast, Paradox Coffee Roasters has assembled a group of passionate coffee professionals. “Our team is incredibly important throughout the whole process. Our people are some of the best in the industry who share our vision ‘for the people’, investing their skills, knowledge, and passion with the coffee community,” James says. Head Roaster Paul Golding, National

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COVER STORY

Sales Manager Nic Naso, National Commercial Manager Malcolm Bible, Technical Manager Paul Martin and Training Manager Melita Ferraro are some of the key people who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Paradox Team. When it comes to developing its coffee, Paradox Coffee Roasters begin by thinking about the ultimate flavours and experience it wants to provide to the end customer. It then works in reverse, identifying origins that will provide those flavours, sustainably sourcing quality green beans from select coffee producers. Paradox roasts its coffee line-up on state-of-the-art Brambati equipment and its coffee range includes a spectrum of four distinct blends. “Our roasting team are part-artist and part-scientist, understanding the intrinsic

“WE TREAT TRAINING LIKE A JOURNEY AND IT MAY NOT BE THE SAME PATH FOR EVERYBODY.” flavours and unique characteristics that each origin coffee contributes to skilfully develop our award-winning blends and achieve our desired end taste profile,” James says. Paul Golding, Paradox Head Roaster adds, “We know that different

Paradox roasts all of its coffees using state-of-the-art Brambati equipment.

marketplaces and customers prefer different flavour profiles, so our range of blends are contrasting in character, flavour, body, acidity and mouthfeel. This gives our wholesale café partners the opportunity to decide which Paradox blend will appeal to their customers and work best for their business.” Its Paper Moon blend has a rich flavour, with notes of black cherries, plum, and chocolate. James says this blend has a bold and powerful flavour that comes alive in milk. Penny Lane is Paradox’s crowdpleasing espresso blend, with intriguing notes of salted caramel, dark chocolate, and cinnamon. James says, “we’ve created a blend using a variety of different origins to give the coffee great depth and complexity”. He adds that winning a gold-medal for organic coffee is recognition of a “truly superb blend”. The award-winning Purple Rain Organic is Paradox’s versatile blend with apricot, chocolate almond, and brown sugar notes. Picasso Baby is a seasonal blend crafted to showcase the finest coffee Paradox has to offer, with prominent blackberry flavours, underlined by cola and dark chocolate. “It’s an exceptionally exciting blend and is a real taste sensation with crisp fruit notes. It’s utilised not only in milk-based coffee but as a black coffee for espresso and filter,” James says. Harmonising with these blends is a single origin program featuring two or more micro lots that Paradox Coffee Roasters highlights each month, showcasing unique flavour profiles and processing methods. The roaster has also recently launched the Paradox Single Origin Collective, a program that allows cafés to expand their single origin offering, giving café’s the opportunity to taste and learn more about what is unique and great about the featured

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origins before purchasing. “The Paradox Single Origin Collective program helps our wholesale café partners and baristas increase their knowledge, passion, and appreciation of the fantastic origin coffees that we’re sourcing, so these cafés can deliver an exceptional single origin experience to their end customers,” Nicole says. “This free sample pack each month gives a preview of our featured origins before they’re released and allows café owners and their team to get to know the coffees before they purchase. But it’s not limited to existing customers, we welcome any specialty cafés that would like to be included in this program to reach out and join our collective.” The Paradox Training Academy is also pillar of the brand, taking a holistic approach to coffee training and education for baristas and café owners, and adapting to the different learning styles and skill levels of its students. “We believe in the growth and success of our wholesale café partners, so we support them through education, systematic training, premium equipment, reliable service, and creative branding and innovations to deliver a consistently great coffee experience,” says Nic Naso, National Sales Manager. Paradox’s coffee training focuses on many topics, including espresso, alternative brewing, cupping, blend and single origin education, and getting the best from your equipment. “Our training also supports café owners to maximise their coffee business,” James says. “Education is important if we’re going to see our wholesale customers thrive, whether it’s someone that is new to coffee and just starting out or baristas at the top of their game. We treat training like a journey and it may not be the same path for everybody.”

Paradox is committed to those that grow, roast, educate, serve and enjoy its coffee.

Paradox saw potential to reach a wider audience in 2020 and is launching a dedicated online coffee training academy this year. “We believe a barista needs access to training and information when it is convenient for them, so we created an online training platform that they can access from their phone, tablet, or computer, and train at any time,” Nicole says. “As well as providing training videos and written material it is important to us that the online platform provides two-way communication, with forums that we can moderate so baristas and café owners can have discussions on a wide range of topics, learning from each other as well as from our Paradox team.” Another trend that became particularly prominent in 2020 is an increased focus on the at-home coffee market. Knowing that there is an increasing demand for

convenience when making coffee at home, Paradox Coffee Roasters wanted to launch into the coffee capsule market with capsules that are biodegradable. It recently did so with two varieties developed according to the profile of its popular whole bean coffee blends, Paper Moon and Picasso Baby. “The pandemic saw a lot more people buying coffee online and we’re excited to provide great quality coffee for those brewing at home,” says James. The team at Paradox are focused for the year ahead with their eyes firmly fixed on their vision. “We look forward to continuing to innovate and create incredible coffee for the people,” says Danielle. For more information, visit www.paradoxroasters.com, call 1800 849 335 or email roastery@paradoxroasters.com

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Milk cleaning matters Latte Art Champions explain why milk cleaner is essential for delicious coffee and proper machine functionality.

ormer Australian and World Latte Art Champion Caleb Cha knows a thing or two about milk. For a solid year, Caleb would use hundreds of litres in preparation for the national and world championship competition. When he practiced his routine, he’d wipe down the milk residue from the steam wand

Caleb Cha discovered the benefits of milk cleaning using Cafetto products during his 2015 World Latte Art campaign.

in one effortless motion before a steady rotating hand created mesmerising latte art patterns from butterflies to tigers. At the end of every session, Caleb would religiously clean his coffee machine with Cafetto Milk Frother Cleaner (MFC), another step embedded in his training regime. “It was never a question of whether I would do it, it was always a must. Cleaning your coffee machine of residual coffee oils is one thing but working with milk adds a heightened level of care for health and machine functionality. In fact, I would use dairy milk of different fat content and play around with skim and soy and other plant-based varieties to test my ability to handle different milk textures, but no matter the product, cleaning was always enforced,” Caleb says. “I was fortunate to have the support of Cafetto leading into my World Championship performance. Through working with Managing Director Christopher Short and the team, I’m grateful to know the value of coffee machine cleanliness. It’s knowledge I have retained and enforced throughout my career. I even have Cafetto’s Home Barista Pack to ensure I’m keeping the same cleaning standards on my home machine.”

For any barista or home coffee user, it’s important to clean all parts of the coffee machine that come into contact with milk. Residual milk components may lead to sour milk, milk stone, scale, dried milk deposits, odour or bacteria, such as listeria, salmonella or E.coli. Cafetto offers a range of milk cleaners to suit the requirements of most machines. These can be in a liquid, tablet, or powder form, including the Cafetto MFC range and Inverso to clean milk jugs and crockery. These products can be simply put into a machine’s milk holding chamber, or mixed into a container, to allow the machine to perform its cleaning cycle and break down build-up from milkbased products. This involves the cleaning solution being sucked through the milk line to all areas of the machine that come into contact with milk products, including the milk line and milk frother. The end result is a milk line free from milk stone deposits, a greatly reduced risk of harmful bacteria growth, fresh tasting milk-based beverages, less hard water scale, hygienic equipment, and a high standard of health and safety. Another barista that knows the importance of coffee machine cleanliness is Fiefy Anuwatanaphorn from Fiefy’s Specialty Café in Adelaide. Fiefy won the 2009 and 2010 Australian Specialty Coffee

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Fiefy Anuwatanaphorn from Fiefy’s Specialty Café says cleaning coffee equipment should be a routine procedure.

Association South Australian Barista Championship, and 2011 SA Latte Art Championship, in addition to representing her native Thailand in the 2009 and 2010 World Latte Art Championship (WLAC). “Back then when I was competing, it wasn’t easy to find financial support. I was working at a small café and was determined to get to the 2009 World Championship, so I called some of the industry brands I knew of, including Christopher Short from Cafetto. I told him my name, not expecting him to

know who I was, and he replied: ‘Oh yes, the Adelaide girl.’ He knew. I asked if he would consider sponsoring me and to my surprise, he said ‘yes’. I look back now and think how gutsy and young I was, but you’d do anything to get to the worlds. I had nothing to lose,” Fiefy says. Cafetto sponsored Fiefy for her back-toback WLAC appearances, placing a high of fifth in 2010. Now, 15 years later, back in Adelaide, Fiefy has partnered with Cafetto again to launch a new range of Nespressocompatible capsules. These include a retail box of nine coffee capsules and one Cafetto cleaning capsule in the packaging to encourage users to clean their machine every nine to 10 coffees. This is said to be the first retail packaging of its kind. “You can’t be a good barista or home coffee maker without taking your cleaning seriously. It’s so important for machine health and coffee taste, and I’m so happy I could collaborate with Cafetto on this initiative,” Fiefy says. “Generally, customers don’t think about the importance of cleaning their machines when they walk into the Nespresso shop or walk down the coffee aisle of the supermarket, but they should. In the last year we’ve seen a huge increase in the sale of retail coffee for home use, and when I talk to customers about it and how regularly they clean their machine, their first reaction is, ‘what, Nespresso machines need cleaning?’ That’s why we’ve decided to pair our specialty coffee with a specialty cleaning product.

It’s hoped Fiefy’s new partnership with Cafetto will be the first step in educating a new wave of users on the importance of cleaning, which Fiefy is the perfect advocate for. She uses Cafetto Grinder Clean, MFC, and Cafetto EVO for her café’s espresso machine setup. She’s even stocked up with Cafetto products at home for her three-group La Marzocco machine sitting in the garage, and the machine in her travelling coffee van. “Coffee cleaning is part of my regular routine, and because of that, I haven’t drunk a dirty coffee in a long time. We clean at the café twice a day, once during the midday-rush and at the end of the day. We use Cafetto MFC every second day which is so important given the volume of dairy and dairy alternatives we go through,” Fiefy says. “Frothing milk is like cooking. We heat the produce at a certain temperature, so naturally we need to clean associated appliances to be hygienic. It’s the same when you cook in the kitchen. You use a chopping board and knife, but you’d never use the same appliances from breakfast to dinner. That’s why machine cleanliness is so important.” For more information, visit www.cafetto.com * Nespresso is a registered trademark of the respective owners and is not associated with Cafetto.

Use the graph to help you decide the most suitable milk cleaner for your machine. *Note: When using acidic cleaners, the milk liners must be flushed and purged of milk prior to the cleaning process.

Cafetto’s Milk Frother Cleaner range helps sanitise and remove milk residue and hard water scale from milk lines and frothers.

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ESPRESSOLOGY

Fighting fit BeanScene speaks to café owners who have ridden the wave of 2020 and come out on the other side with a renewed focus and plans to grow their business even further.

hen COVID-19 forced the closure of many small hospitality businesses, coffee shops went into a fight or flight response. Some had to halt dine-in operations and wait for the storm to pass, while others found means to stay open, stay afloat and stay in business. For Looloo Forsyth, those decisions were tough, but necessary. When restrictions hit and governments forced people to work from home, Looloo had to look at the operational structure of her two café, Loo Loos Coffee Warehouse, and Loo Loos Coffee Shack in Kimcumber, New South Wales. “We had to make some tough decision from a staffing point of view. It was stressful and emotionally challenging. We didn’t qualify to receive JobKeeper subsidies because our combined businesses were down by 28 to 29 per cent, not the 30 per cent required,” Looloo says. “Each week we lived with uncertainty and had to review our structure and costs to ensure we remained a viable business. We went from having five staff one week to four the next, until there was just one. These decisions were the hardest because they did impact people’s lives, but it was that or shut our doors like so many of our neighbours did.” Thankfully, Loo Loos Coffee never had to. Instead, Looloo reduced its labour costs, then its food supplies. She removed menu items such as the smashed avo, milkshakes and butter and jam on toast, but kept its signature vegetarian ham and cheese toasties and food offerings that involved no preparation, such as standard friands, frittatas, and wraps. “We really paired back our food offering and mirrored that with pure takeaway service. All of a sudden more people were working from home and relocating to their holiday houses. Sales at our beachside venue went up by 40 per cent, causing another staffing headache because off a sudden one person running the shop wasn’t enough,” Looloo says.

“People management has been one of the hardest things to deal with. It was tough initially with everything slowing down, but then it was just as hard figuring it out on the way back up. We had to look at how busy we were getting, whether it justified another person in wages, and when we could, we managed shifts evenly and fairly. Through it all, it was interesting how people responded under pressure.” What was also surprising was the high volume sales of one-kilogram bags of whole bean that flew out the door as a result of panic buying and more people wanting to enjoy their coffee at home. At the café, Looloo also increased its digital management systems to better manage staff and shop operations, with the introduction of Deputy payroll integration and Kounta Lightspeed point of sale system. “The pandemic really enabled me to look at the business with completely fresh eyes. We completely changed our programs

to be more digitally focused and it’s saved us time and money,” she says. A year on from the initial impact, Looloo has retained her café’s espresso service and is happy to have a business with its doors still open, and one that’s “really healthy”. “It’s taken a while for customers to transition to our new style, maybe we’ve lost a little bit of business because we don’t do table service, but now the business is completely sustainable. Staff costs have gone from 36 per cent to 25 per cent, but it’s that extra 10 per cent that saved us and made the business viable,” she says. Alex Williams of Dachshund Coffee in Hunters Hill, New South Wales, is another business that used 2020 as an opportunity for growth. When Alex’s international travel were plans put on hold, he and twin brother Matthew were forced to pivot when restrictions were enforced. The footprint of the business meant they could descale to a takeaway-

Loo Loos Coffee Warehouse shifted to a takeaway-only menu to get through the impact of 2020.

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ESPRESSOLOGY

Dachshund Coffee owners and brothers Alex and Matthew Williams used 2020 to re-evaluate their business and prepare for future growth.

only model quite quickly, including its plant-based food menu which they choose to keep due to their belief in food that nourishes the body and boosts immunity. “While we did experience a downturn in our food and overall revenue because we scaled back our operations, we had a loyal following which meant we could still operate throughout that March to April

Dachshund Coffee is passionate about serving good food that nourishes the body and boosts immunity.

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period,” Alex says. “What was a little unforeseen, however, was our revenue returning to normal if not a bit better after that. People who would normally go to work Monday to Friday were keeping their coffee ritual but in a different area, so we started experiencing the traffic city cafés would normally see in terms of volume.” Alex says the increase in volume has remained, a reflection of where the local market is at, people continuing to work from home, and the fact that day to day habits don’t have to change despite the change in working location. “What our customers ended up doing is participating in the community they live in and visiting us sometimes multiple times a day to reflect the habits they displayed in the office. We increased our sales, particularly in takeaway coffee, and grab-and-go items. Even UberEats has been a noticeable revenue stream that’s increased over the last 12 months, again representative of more people seeking out produce and venues closer to home,” Alex says. COVID-19 forced Alex and Matthew to think outside the box, but it also allowed them to re-evaluate parts of their business that would have otherwise been on hold. This included integrating me&u order and pay digital system to limit staff touchpoints with consumers, which has remained and continues to act as a point of difference in the competitive suburb.

“Since introducing the me&u system we have increased our productivity. We have more time to interact and talk with our customers and focus on them rather than taking up valuable time with payment chat,” Alex says. To help cope with the increase in business, Alex says his relationship with roaster Espressology and its roaster has been integral in taking the pressure off and allowing him to focus on what he does best. “Sasha has been amazing and uses the Espressology facilities to create our blend using beans from Brazil and Ethiopia, which she has done for more than seven years now,” Alex says. “We get a lot of compliments on our coffee and that’s a representation of our style and quality across the board.” Alex is hopeful his coffee and food philosophy will soon transcend into Dachshund’s second venue later in the year. “We’re moving ahead. My brother and I were young, highly ambitious, naive 20-year-olds with the energy required to run a business, but our expansion has taken a bit longer than we thought. One of the influencing factors of doing this project has actually been COVID and the inability to travel. We figured if we were going to be here, let’s invest the time and energy to do something we want to do, so our second store is a by-product of COVID and we’re just grateful to be in a position to do it,” Alex says. “It will be the third time I’ve started a business from scratch. There’s a lot of enjoyment in starting a new project, and I’m excited to expand the evolution of what we’ve done with Dachshund.” While Dachshund is an example of success in what was a challenging year for many in hospitality, Alex says one of the most rewarding things to come out of the year was that they could act as a pillar of support for the community. “Last year proved people’s desire and need for human connection in places like coffee shops is so important. We were fortunate we could be a conduit for people living alone or in small places to come and spend time. It was a saving grace for them, but it was also really humbling for everyone in the business,” Alex says. “The restrictions have shone a light on how significant it is to simply enjoy a cup of coffee or spend time with family and friends. Some businesses in commercial areas are still suffering but a lot are now doing well because people are going out and making meaningful experiences with good food and coffee.” For more information on how Espressology can assist your business growth, visit espressology.com

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Rebels with a cause

Barista Mylk from Rebel Kitchen combines the best elements of different dairy alternatives to create an organic plant-based milk for coffee that not only functions but tastes like dairy milk.

coffee roaster will put careful thought, attention to detail, and years of experience into developing a blend, ensuring a good balance and that their desired flavours shine through. British dairy alternative brand Rebel Kitchen takes a similar approach with its coffee-oriented and plant-based Barista Mylk. “What’s most unique about Rebel Kitchen when it comes to our dairy alternatives is that they’re a blend of several different ingredients,” say Victoria Harrison, Head of Marketing at Rebel Kitchen parent company Nurture Brands. “There’s a real balancing process to combining all of the right ingredients so the end product will taste and function like dairy. It doesn’t taste like oat or almond; it tastes like milk.” Founded in 2014, Rebel Kitchen has formed a strong global following in the health food market for its plant-based Original and Extra Creamy Mylks, including Australia. Quickly seeing demand in the specialty coffee market for plantbased products that replicate dairy milk, Rebel Kitchen took its time to ensure Barista Mylk could fulfil that need.

“Our Original and Extra Creamy Mylks are perfect for everyday use, but combining plant milks with coffee creates different needs. There are more intricacies in the profile and more acidity to balance, so we wanted to take that concept and make something specific for coffee,” Victoria says. “One in two people will try their first plant-based alternative in a coffee on the go. If someone puts themselves out there and has a bad dairy alternative experience, it could put them off trying it again for a long time. It’s so important baristas and cafés get involved and promote better plantbased options.” Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk is a blend of organic and sustainably sourced ingredients, each contributing to a flavour and texture profile similar to dairy. Oat provides smoothness and sweetness, coconut cream contributes to the texture and ability to foam, and faba beans round that out with a protein and savouriness. “Baristas we worked with told us how difficult some plant milks can be to work with. So we worked with professionals to ensure our Barista Mylk not only tasted, but functioned like dairy,” says Zahra Hadi, who led the product development for Barista Mylk.

“We’ve worked to make sure the Mylk takes on steam well, doesn’t drain too quickly, and doesn’t burn or split in coffee. The feedback so far has been incredible, with many baristas and users telling us how easy our Barista Mylk is to work with and how clean and consistent the results are.” Zahra adds it was important the dairy alternative work for different styles and roasts of coffee. “From your instant coffee to French press to espresso, Barista Mylk has been rigorously tested by different baristas to be the perfect partner to coffee,” she says. This took finding the right balance of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins to mimic the profile of dairy, combined with a hint of nutritional yeast to contribute to a dairy flavour. “Plant-based milks need to texture like dairy to be able to keep that steam and aeration in the jug. Once Barista Mylk is poured, you can create lovely clean latte art, and the [small amount of coconut cream] is really important to this,” Zahra says. “It’s quite difficult to replicate the proteins found in dairy using dairyfree materials. That’s where the faba beans come in, which are balanced with carbohydrates from the oats.” It’s important to Rebel Kitchen that

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

only organic and minimally processed ingredients be used in its products, meaning no preservatives, thickeners, stabilisers, or refined sugar. Barista Mylk is certified by the Detox Project to be free from glyphosates. It’s also free of nuts. This became a challenge while producing a dairy alternative that pairs well with coffee, with the recipe taking on 146 iterations before hitting the mark. One of the problems Zahra says they faced in the early stages was some recipes bringing out too much bitterness with some coffees. This was overcome when 2007 World Barista Champion James Hoffman came on board to help Rebel Kitchen develop Barista Mylk. “James taught us that a little bit of salt stops the threshold of bitterness being detected on your taste buds. It was a great and pivotal trick. In tastings with our team members and baristas after tweaking the recipe, we stopped receiving comments about overly bitter tastes,” Zahra says. “James brought an understanding of the intricacies of the acidity of coffee, softening the Barista Mylk’s flavour profile, and how to bring the functionality forward. It was a great match because I can talk all day long about Mylk and he can talk all day long about coffee.” After collaborating on the development of Barista Mylk, James highlighted the product on his popular YouTube channel in January 2021. The video, Creating A Better Dairy Alternative, was viewed more than 230,000 times within two months. James said in an official release from Rebel Kitchen that, like many people, he’s been interested in plant-based alternatives for a while now. “People don’t want anything less than a great cappuccino or flat white, and that’s been a big barrier for people switching away from dairy,” James said. “There are a bunch of dairy alternatives out there, but they are monogamous affairs; it’s oat, and nothing but oat, or its almond, and nothing but almond.” This is what appealed to him about Rebel Kitchen in particular. The brand was looking at a much broader spectrum of ingredients to create a “no compromise” plant-based milk. “Dairy alternatives used to mean compromise, be it in taste or experience – or for the barista, in the texture of the drink or the latte art they pour,” James says. “Working with Rebel Kitchen, we’ve created a sustainable alternative which creates perfectly lasting latte art and isn’t a compromise.” Rebel Kitchen’s sustainable credentials go beyond its ingredients. Like the rest of the Nurture Brands portfolio, Rebel Kitchen

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2007 World Barista Champion James Hoffman collaborated on the development of Barista Mylk.

is B Corporation certified, carbon neutral, and commits one per cent of net revenue to good causes as a member of 1% For The Planet. “Our Owner and Co-Founder Ben Arbib cares about the environment and is very sustainability led, so it has absolutely become intrinsic to how we operate – from sourcing organic ingredients to becoming a carbon neutral business,” Victoria says. “Offsetting our carbon emissions is so important when we’re sourcing ingredients for this amazing recipe from all around the world, making Barista Mylk in the United Kingdom, then shipping it to countries like Australia.” Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk will launch in Australia in April 2021 through a number of local partners and distributors. Head of International, Nick Stratton, says Australia was one of Rebel Kitchen’s first and strongest export markets, and it’s primed to experience the benefits of Barista Mylk. “We’ve been in Australia for about five years now and our focus on only the cleanest ingredient decks and whole, organic ingredients has helped us stand out to the progressively health and sustainability conscious consumers here,” Nick says. “On the Barista Mylk side, Australia is one of the coffee capitals of the world with a huge specialty coffee culture, so it’s the natural next step for us to progress our Mylk range there.” While coffee drinkers and baristas

will similarly appreciate the clean ingredients list, Nick says Barista Mylk’s quality speaks for itself. “Baristas and roasters spend weeks and months perfecting their coffee,” he says. “But the experience of even the best espresso will be compromised instantly if it’s paired with a sub-par plant-based milk, especially in something like a latte or flat white. If you’re roasting or brewing the best, you should pair it with the best” By replicating the flavour as well as function of dairy milk, Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk opens up new markets for the plant-based milk category. It has proved incredibly popular in the UK, where its initial run sold out online within 90 minutes of launching. “There’s a large number of consumers who are drinking plant-based milks, but there are even more that aren’t,” Nick says. “None of the dairy alternatives on the market replicate the dairy taste and experience. If you can nail that, like we’ve done with Barista Mylk, you capture not only plant-based milk consumers, you create a product accessible to everyone from professional baristas to home coffee enthusiasts.” Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk is available nationally through its distribution partner Feel Good Foods. For more information, visit www.rebel-kitchen.com/au

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

The whole package The Bag Broker explains the significance of distinctive packaging and how a collaboration with Little Italy Coffee Roasters has helped enhanced its brand identity.

Good packaging is essential to a business’s visual message and representation.

hile quality is the highest priority for most Australian coffee roasters, it’s no longer enough to stand out in the crowd. These days, packaging design is just as important to a roaster’s brand and commercial success. A good coffee bag must have purpose and be memorable to drive consumer purchases. With more than 25 years’ worth of hospitality experience – and 18 of those served specifically in the coffee sector – Troy Bereau understands the value that comes from a good bag design, which is why he is Country Manager for packaging company The Bag Broker. “Coffee roasters, like other businesses in the hospitality sector, need to be on trend in Australia which means there’s more to marketing than just having a quality product and good word of mouth. We live in a world where consumers expect ‘Instagram-appropriate’ representations of products,” Troy says. “As such, it’s vital that roasters think more about the design and

artwork of their packaging because this is at the core of their business’s visual message and representation.” It’s Troy’s mission to assist roasters on that journey to packaging perfection. “I know it’s not particularly sexy to say you work in the packaging industry but working with such passionate people and helping them bring out a bag that truly represents their brand or company and the quality of the coffee within that brand identity, brings me great satisfaction,” he says. Over recent years, Troy has worked with closely with Sydney-based business Little Italy Coffee Roasters in Frenchs Forest, New South Wales. Brothers Adam and Guy Bortz manage the small family-run business. They roast a variety of single origins and blends and have built a substantial customer-base among both wholesale and retail consumers across greater Sydney. Apart from roasting, they also operate cafés and provide services such as contract roasting, café consultancy, and barista training. “What sets our products a part is that we

have a wide variety of blends that cater for different taste palates and I think the extent to which we roast, and the combination of the blends we use, create such rich coffee experiences,” says Managing Director Guy Bortz. “What sets our business a part is not just the quality and consistency we’re able to achieve with the products but the service we offer. Coffee can be very transactional – a customer pays for a bag of beans and that could be it – but it’s the relationship and the experience that we’re trying to create with all of our customers that I believe sets us a part from other roasters.” Guy initially didn’t pay much attention to his coffee’s packaging let alone what attractive packaging could do for his business. It simply wasn’t a priority, but admits it should have been, especially when he understood that good packaging is an extension of creating that unique customer experience. “We changed our tactic, particularly after liaising with Troy. It opened our eyes to the opportunities from a marketing perspective,” Guy says. “The packaging

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Sydney-based business Little Italy Coffee Roasters has partnered with The Bag Broker to customise its products.

really speaks to your brand visually and so our goal with the new design was to make a statement on the shelf.” According to Guy, the bag designs are now instrumental to the Little Italy identity. “We are proud of our product and the service we provide, and we wanted our bags to emulate that – our goal was that the bags would give a semblance of who we are and how we work,” Guy says. “Having a clean, clear professional representation on the bag is really important for us – it allows us to make a stamp in such a noisy industry.” Moreover, the new bag designs have enabled Little Italy to differentiate their blends and give more credence to the distinctive artwork for each. “Previously, we were using stickers. We just looked at how many stickers and cards we were using and thought ‘we’ve got to do better’,” Guy says. “We have such incredible designs for our blends and origin coffee, this helps our customers differentiate between the different blends, and allows each one to shine in its own right. From an operational standpoint it’s more efficient too.” To take its packaging to new heights, The Bag Broker also worked with the Little Italy team to customise the product to suit its specific requirements. “Our senses, such as sight, touch and smell, play a huge role in our experience. And we wanted our bags to have a certain feel in terms of quality, so we wanted a certain thickness that we felt would match the integrity of our product. Troy was both patient and generous in providing us samples to ensure we were happy with the final product,” Guy says. “He gets our business, our industry, and provides an incredible service. He also came back to us promptly and honestly with every enquiry.” He adds that’s Troy’s background

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in hospitality was a bonus in terms of their collaboration. “It’s been a pleasure working with Troy, his level of service and flexibility is second to none,” Guy says. “I truly believe in our product and as a small family-owned roaster, we take our business very seriously. Which means we have a personal approach to everything that we do – and we feel that Troy provides us with that same level of service. It’s refreshing to find a person who shares our passion for service and that personal approach, because it’s fast fading in other sectors of the business world.” Troy says it’s his understanding of the coffee industry and his connection to the challenges that small business owners face that’s a key differentiator between The Bag Broker and other packaging providers. “Coming from both a coffee and small business background, I understand that small businesses have tight budget constraints and need payment flexibility, so with roasters such as Little Italy, I’ve

worked with them on a payment plan,” Troy says. “This is one of our strengths as a company – being able to offer a payment schedule. This frees up cash flow to invest in other aspects of the business, while still being able to roll out a whole new line of bags.” Another benefit that comes with The Bag Broker is its relationship with premium manufacturers in China and its buying power as a global enterprise. “Sourcing quality manufacturers in China is not a simple process – our CEO has forged relationships over several years,” says Troy. “As a global company, our buying power is also significantly higher than a small business trying to go direct, so we’re able to provide premium products at highly competitive prices.” The Bag Broker is also at the forefront of sustainable packaging and have designed bags that are recyclable through Melbourne-based consulting and recycling organisation REDCycle. “Sustainability is really important to us moving forward. We have recently launched our REDCycle bags which can be recycled through the close the loop initiative with major supermarkets,” Troy says. “While other companies are providing recycled bags that on average have a shelf life of one month, ours has a protective barrier that provides the same shelf life as aluminium foil-lined bags – up to 12 months on the shelf.” It’s this type of innovation, and a passion to see packaging make a difference, that drives Troy in his work. “Being there throughout the process and watching a roaster such as Little Italy realise the opportunities and benefits that come with distinctive packaging is both personally and professionally gratifying,” he says. “It’s genuinely why I love my job.” For more information, visit www.thebagbroker.com/au

The Bag Broker’s new bag designs have enabled client Little Italy to differentiate their product on the market.

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BARISTA PROFILES

Long way to the top BeanScene talks with the winners of the ASCA 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships about making a comeback to the stage. HUGH KELLY 2020 VITASOY BARISTA CHAMPION

ugh Kelly of Ona Coffee is the 2020 Australian Vitasoy Barista Champion for the third time. Hugh won the title at the Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) 2020 Condesa Co Lab Coffee Championships from 11 to 13 March 2021 at Batman Royale in Melbourne, having previous claimed the 2016 and 2017 titles. Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters was runner-up and Lena Richrath of Five Senses Coffee placed third. In his presentation, Hugh presented Coffea eugenioides to the judges, a different species of coffee to the more common Arabica and Robusta, which he described as having a Stevialike sweetness. “I first tasted this coffee at the same farm [Inmacaluda in Colombia] that Sasa [Sestic, Ona Coffee Founder] used to win [the 2015 World Barista Championship]. It was a washed version and it tasted like corn tea, with practically no acidity,” Hugh tells BeanScene. “I thought of it as a novelty, and it took me five years to realise I’d looked at this thing wrong the whole time.” After several years of cupping different coffees, Hugh says he came to realise there was hidden potential buried within Coffea eugenioides, which inspired the ‘light in the dark’

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theme of his presentation. “There was tropical fruit in the coffee, but it was amongst a lot of other things I’ve experienced before in other coffees from around the world with poor fermentation or other issues,” he explains. “As I cupped Eugenioides again, I was able to turn those things off, and it made me realise how sweet the coffee is and that there’s some incredible flavours in there.” The coffee was fermented in an open tank for six days with a yeast not commonly used in coffee fermentation. For his signature drink, Hugh paired the coffee with a macadamia cream, cold-pressed bravo apples (fermented in the same yeast as the coffee), and a passionfruit vapour. The shots were extracted at 15 grams over chilled metal balls in a process known as compound chilling. “When you have a hot liquid like espresso, it loses those aromatic compounds into the air, but if you chill it immediately, those volatiles don’t get released and remain in the coffee,” Hugh says. “This particular coffee didn’t have a lot of acidity, but compound chilling was able to lift the perception of that acidity, so it made perfect sense for this coffee.” Hugh Kelly has won his third Australian Vitasoy Barista Championship.

For his milk coffee, Hugh used another lesser consumed coffee species, Coffea Liberica, from My Liberica Coffee in Malaysia. It was paired with milk from Australia dairy supplier Riverina Fresh. “I tasted the Liberica six months ago and it tasted like salami, durian, and cheese. I was like ‘the texture, sweetness, and quality of acid – structurally, this is incredible. The bitterness is perfect, there’s so much depth and length. This could be amazing as a milk coffee,” Hugh says. “As soon as you click into that way of thinking, there’s so much that can be done and bringing that out in a routine was all I wanted to do.” The coffee was semi-pulped and fermented for 30 days before being finished with honey processing. Hugh says the longer they fermented the coffee, the better it tasted, and he looks forward to taking these two coffee species even further when he reached the world stage. “People keep saying ‘the earlier it is the better’ for the next World Coffee Championships, but with COVID-19, who knows when and what’s going to be happening. I see [the World Barista Championship delay] as an opportunity to keep pushing this concept.”

CARLOS ESCOBAR 2020 STTOKE BREWERS CUP CHAMPION

espite many seasoned competitors throwing their hat in the ring of the ASCA 2020 Australian Sttoke Brewers Cup, it was newcomer Carlos Escobar of Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters who walked away with the trophy. Devin Loong of Ona Coffee placed second and David Train of Langdon Coffee Merchants came third. “I was considered an underdog, with all of the more experienced competitors the favourites to win. I hope this shows everyone that you can still win even if you go against the favourites,” Carlos says.

In the Open Service round, Carlos prepared a thermal shock anaerobic washed Geisha from Finca El Paraïso in Cauca, Colombia. Thermal shock washing involves using high temperature water during the washed process followed by cold water ensure the beans better absorb flavours and aromas created during fermentation. “It had all the explosiveness and intensity of a natural process but all the clarity and high acidity of a washed,” Carlos says. Coming from a Colombian coffee farming family, Carlos says it his dream to compete at a national level with a Colombian coffee. “Over the last decade, Colombian farmers have had a very tough time. My dad had to abandon coffee because of the low prices, and he’s now in other kinds of crops like avocado,” Carlos says. “Competing with a Colombian coffee, showing that Colombia can still produce one of the best coffees in the world is an incredible feeling.” While he’s not sure if he will present the same coffee when he attends the next World Brewers Cup, Carlos tells BeanScene he will continue to

Carlos Escobar was a first-time competitor in the national Sttoke Brewers Cup.

share his personal story. “I’ve been working on this for the last 18 months, dreaming of this moment, and this is just my dream come true,” he says.

VICTOR VU 2020 PAULS PROFESSIONAL LATTE ART CHAMPION Victor Vu on Ona Coffee Melbourne is the 2020 Australian Pauls Professional Latte Art Champion.

earing his named announced as the ASCA 2020 Australian Pauls Professional Latte Art Champion was an emotional and long-awaited moment for Victor Vu of Ona Coffee Melbourne. Zhao Ting Wu of Cote Terra Coffee Roasters finished second in the competition and reigning champion Jibbi Little of Jibbijug placed third. “No words can express the emotion I felt when I heard my name get announced,” Victor says. “I sent the message that I wanted to through my coffee cups: that during this tough time with the pandemic, everyone

had their own battles, but together we overcame this.” Victor’s designs – a Spartan warrior, Taurus bull, and Peter Pan for his designer pattern – were intended to convey a sense of strength and unity, following a difficult period for many in the coffee industry. “I like the Spartan because it has the spirit that everyone needs and the Taurus, for me, is about power,” Victor says. “Peter Pan is a really naughty guy, but he’s also kind to others. I used etching for the hat, feather, and detail of the face, making that Peter Pan more lively and realistic.” Despite winning the 2020 Southern Region Latte Art Championship, Victor

says he realised lifting the difficulty level and harmony, size, and positioning of his designs could multiply the scores he received in those areas. “I wanted to upgrade my designs to a higher level, so the judges could understand what I’m trying to say and the message I want to send out to everyone,” Victor says. “I compared my original designs to pictures on the internet and tried to move things around and add details. It was really stressful, and I struggled at first. I wanted to give up, but luckily I didn’t and after a few weeks, I finalised my pattern and kept pouring until I could do it consistently.”

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BARISTA PROFILES

DANNY WILSON 2020 MONIN COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPION

Danny Wilson has won his third Monin CIGS Championship.

hile winning the Australian Monin Coffee in Good Spirits Championship (CIGS) for the third straight year could take away from the surprise or joy of receiving that trophy, Danny Wilson of Ona Coffee tells BeanScene the opposite is true. If anything, because he’s been working on this routine since the 2019 World CIGS in mid-2019, Danny says it’s his most meaningful win yet. “[Of all my CIGS performances,] this is the one I definitely worked hardest towards,” Danny says. Mook Liengraksa of was runner-up and Corey Williams placed third in the competition. Danny’s designer drink, the Espresso Memento, combines coffee with passionfruit gin, Licor 43, and sparkling apple juice, with a bit of carbonation, to create a tropical spritz style drink that Danny says could be used in place of champagne for celebrating. “I was pretty much ready to go and had this designer drink worked out that was all about preparing drinks for large amounts of people, and then [because of COVID-19] that couldn’t

really happen anymore,” Danny says. “I had to revaluate the idea and realised that it wasn’t just good for large groups of people. When we could start seeing friends again, it became a good opportunity to make it for small groups of people and have special moments with coffee cocktails.” Danny’s unnamed warm drink is built around the idea of something nice, warming, and uplifting that can be enjoyed in winter. “It’s like an alternative to a schnapps, with lower alcohol but is still full flavoured. It’s built around coffee, apple cordial, Licor 43, and warm baking spices,” Danny says. His Irish Coffee used the same coffee, roasted slightly differently, then build on that experience with different whiskeys and types of sugar. “I used a bourbon and a scotch, and brown sugar and honey, to contrast these ingredients so with each sip, you get a different flavour,” he says. “I work as a roaster and think of these cocktails like building a roast blend. There are different components that do different things. The coffee needs to serve as a base note, so I’m looking for something with a rich, intense body, and interesting aromas and flavours as well.”

CHARLIE CHU 2020 TCX CUP TASTERS CHAMPION Charlie Chu achieved a perfect score in two minutes, 37 seconds at the 2020 TCX Cup Tasters Championship.

hile many champions were crowned at the ASCA 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships, the loudest cheer of the evening came Kyoungha “Charlie” Chu of Ona Coffee Melbourne was revealed as the ASCA 2020 Australian TCX Cup Tasters Champion. Charlie scored a perfect 8/8 score in two minutes and 37 seconds. Frankie Shi placed second with 8/8 in six minutes and three seconds, and Sheng-Wei Wu placed third with 7/8 in two minutes, 53 seconds.

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“It’s unbelievable. When I realised I’d won, my heart exploded,” Charlie says. Charlie says training to a higher skill difficulty than what’s required for the competition helped him to strengthen his palate. “I always use blends when I practise, not single origins. A blend is more complex and keeps changing, and because it’s more difficult when I practice, it actually feels easier for me in the competition,” he says. “I’ve been practising for the last two years, not every day but consistently, since February 2019. I wasn’t sure about my

palate, even though I had three or four years of barista experience, so I wanted to improve myself.” Though he’d been practicing for two years, Charlie only changed his diet 10 days ahead of the competition to include no spicy food and less salt so his palate would be ready. He recommends other people in the coffee industry who want to build their skill set themselves picking up a cupping spoon and give the competition a go. “This is a good discipline because it challenges you to find you palate level and ability, and take it further by practising the triangulations,” Charlie says.

Get in touch to order: info@feelgoodfoods.com.au t. 1300 882 100 | www.feelgoodfoods.com.au

FEATURE NEWS

Flowering at Wirui Estate in the Northern Rivers region.

Outback origin Off the back of a challenging year for the Australian coffee industry, demand for locally grown coffee has never been higher. BeanScene speaks to Australian farmers on how they’re adding value and why the industry is screaming out for new growers.

ustralian coffee farming has never experienced consumer attention more than it has in the past 12 months. Call it a rise in agritourism, food tourism, the paddock to plate or crop to cup movement, whatever the motive, Australian consumers are seeking out single origin Australian grown coffee in droves. “While the country was forced into lockdown with an increased volume of people working from home, it gave people the chance to think about food security and where their food comes from. They looked into their backyard, did a turnaround, and are craving Australian coffee,” says Rebecca Zentveld of Zentveld’s Coffee in Newrybar, New South Wales. Zentveld’s Coffee has experienced “exponential demand” from the home market, mailing out countless orders of one to two kilograms of roasted coffee each week. “People genuinely say, ‘finally, we’ve found Australian grown coffee. We didn’t know it existed but now that we do, and as long as it tastes good, we’ll be back’. We’ve grown our repeat orders from our

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new coffee friends, and you see them experimenting and trying different roast profiles across our range,” Rebecca says. Australian farmer Jos Webber of Kahawa Estate in Australia’s Byron Bay hinterland has also experienced incredible demand for his home grown and roasted coffee, and has documented online customer feedback from December 2020 to February 2021. That feedback includes customers thanking him for helping them get through the last stages of lockdown, others wanting to support local businesses, some wanting to fill Christmas stockings with Australian made and owned produce, many “keen to try a good Aussie brew”, and most praising a simple Google search of “Australian grown coffee” that led to his website. “Orders have been heart-warming,” Jos says. “Thanks to COVID and the many people in lockdown, people dusted off old coffee machines, some bought them new, and we watched our online sales go up and up.” When Jos started roasting in 2009, he says 90 per cent of sales were for his lighter roasted coffee for drip and filter methods. Now, 90 to 95 per cent of

orders are for his medium to dark roasted espresso whole beans. “I have just enough stock to get through the year, and that includes taking stock from nearby farms. Sales are up 50 per cent on 2019,” Jos says. “The key question, however, is can we sustain this growth? I just wish we had more growers in the market, which we wouldn’t see as competition, just adding to the critical mass that we need.”

CRITICAL CHALLENGE

Currently, the exact number of coffee farms, and their productive tree numbers in the Northern Rivers are unknown, but according to the Australian Subtropical Coffee Growers Association 2020 report and in discussions with the Association President, it is estimated that the industry has shrunk considerably since 2012 when there were an estimated 523,100 coffee producing trees. This shrinkage has come about as farmers decide against continuing to grow coffee when they experience setbacks. Some find the going tough as they get older and others have sold as the land value exceeded the income from coffee growing.

Jos says unfortunately, new and existing coffee growers are competing with those wishing to live on the land, with the region experiencing a steep increase of residents from Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne seeking a sea change in the Byron Bay hinterland. “The worry is that people are buying up the valuable coffee growing land and not utilising it, opting for a view and not a profession in farming. Eighteen years ago, those that moved up here looked around to see what they could grow, from macadamias to avocados to stone fruits. They realised they needed pesticides to avoid disease and fruit fly, but none were needed to grow coffee because there are no pests or diseases [in this country]. It’s such a healthy, environmentally friendly crop,” Jos says. “Coffee is seasonal. It flowers once a year, and allows three to four months of downtime in winter for maintenance until things pick up from September to December with harvest then January to March for plantation maintenance and fertilising. You can have a balance of lifestyle, you can enjoy the challenges of farming, and watch the rewards of growing your own produce and sharing

it. There’s a good story to tell in coffee farming, we just need more landholders to come in and give it a go.” There are currently only small sections of Australian land ripe for coffee farming, including across subtropical NSW and Queensland. If climate change was to be persistent and result in more frequent, warmer weather, Zentveld’s Rebecca predicts a widening of potential coffee growing land along the cooler south coast, in suitable pockets of rich soil that may become frost free. “It’d be such a shame if we don’t realise our potential and use our best, most fertile land to grow food. I really think we have a responsibility to be land custodians. As coffee growers in the Byron hinterland, we are looking after our soils, waterways and creating wildlife corridors, regenerating rainforests along with growing a food crop that is naturally spray free, such as coffee. But with the appeal of living in the hinterland, most new landowners are ‘growing a house’ rather than food,” she says. “We want to welcome landowners to become growers and give them the confidence in production methods to start their own coffee growing journey. We are happy

to share how they can be ecologically thoughtful and profitable farmers.” Coffee growing, however, is not without its challenges. It’s a profession that requires resilience to anticipate challenges and respond, whether by adaptation or transformation. Challenges come in the form of climate change leading to reduced rainfall and a higher risk of disease in the trees and long-term problems with the K7 cultivar, such as pruning and replacement requirements. In her own academic studies, Zeta Grealy of Wirui Estate looked at how coffee farmers in the Northern Rivers region perceive resilience as well as factors that enhance that resilience. She found most farmers to be very aware of the challenges they face, and all displayed resilience traits that have allowed them to respond. “This is a group of people with varied professional backgrounds and they bring to coffee growing those skills from their previous professions, strong leadership and management, goal-centred, forward thinking ideas and problem-solving abilities. These skills have built the necessary adaptive abilities and led to ideas for innovation and diversification

FEATURE NEWS

on their farms,” Zeta says. However, like every pursuit, there is always scope to improve and help the industry. Zeta says more communication and greater industry cohesion could help strengthen the coffee growing community and lead to further empowerment through collective action and help retain existing growers. “The industry can also be strengthened by attracting more contractors to the industry. [In 2020] we lost the only mobile coffee harvester available in the region. Currently, there is no service available for small producers [less than 20,000 trees] to mechanically harvest their crop. This in addition to a processing service is just one area that would allow new growers to the industry reduce their set-up costs,” she says. Zeta adds that the expertise of coffee traders and roasters could also be harnessed to develop a greater awareness of Australian grown coffee and boost the level of excellence required to produce a competitive green bean. Candy Maclaughlin, General Manager of Skybury Coffee in Mareeba, QLD, says a more collective approach to the industry would help entice new growers to look past the expenses involved. “Here in Queensland, there’s no shortage of land, just people thinking about how to get the biggest return for their patch of dirt. The difference between growing avocado and coffee is the level of infrastructure needed. With

The K7 variety accounts for 90 per cent of coffee grown in sub-tropical Australia.

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Farrants Hill in Northern NSW invites AirBnB guests to pick beans during harvest before enjoying a freshly made coffee on the verandah.

avocado farming, you literally just need a packing shed. With coffee, you need a mechanical harvester, wet processing plant, dry processing plant, and then you need to access your market,” she says. “We need to choose to work together, like a cooperative. Someone needs to start a central processing plant, a central wet mill, and a central dry mill. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

MORE THAN A CROP

Many farmers are, however, finding inventive ways to add value to their farming practices and connect their product to consumers. At Zentveld’s Coffee, Rebecca renovated in the quieter period of April to May 2020 to include a coffee house with the opportunity for guests to enjoy a barista-made coffee on the veranda overlooking the coffee plantation. At Skybury, Candy has partnered with a local distillery to produce a coffee liqueur and taken a zero-waste approach by using spent coffee grounds to create a body scrub and cosmetic facial oil using green or roasted coffee, which she hopes to launch in the coming months. “Green coffee has great protective properties for your skin. I’ve been lucky enough to wear it for the last six months in trials, and I love it. It’s 100 per cent natural green coffee oil, grown and made in Australian,” she says. “There’s still more Australian coffee growers can do [to value add]. We let our cherry skin go to waste and its high in antioxidants with plenty of opportunities for use.” Last year, Skybury also experienced its highest number of visitors to the farm

and on-site café in seven years, a result of more Queenslanders or “grey nomads” looking to explore their own backyard. “We’ve been trying for a long time to get more interest in the Australian market. We’ve always great interest from the international perspective – half of what we grow every year goes overseas [to Japan, Germany and Spain]. Our green bean sales almost compare to our domestic wholesale roast coffee. We sold our entire overseas allocation in two weeks this year,” Candy says. “For less work I could sell all my coffee overseas at a really good price, but we want the Australian market to recognise that our coffee does stack up, and now we’re finally seeing that interest.” At Wirui Estate in Carool, Zeta has increased her farm income with the same base product through the introduction of a farm stay experience. Three years ago, Zeta sold the large house on her land with some of her coffee trees in an effort to downsize and reduce the workload of the farm as she and husband Marc got older. “After roasting coffee for 20 years I decided I needed a change. The first move was to sell green bean as a specialty coffee instead of roasted bean. In addition, we wanted to supplement our farm income to ensure we were covering all the costs of running the farm,” Zeta says. “The Tweed Shire does not allow the subdivision of properties below a certain size and also does not permit second dwellings for rental or family residences. However, they do allow farm stay development where an established farm is shown to

provide an educational potential.” As a result, Zeta delved deeper into the value of agritourism as a means of maximising the potential of her product. In 2020, she launched a farm stay as an extension of that philosophy, inviting visitors to live on the land without any requirements to work. The house looks across the plantation and visitors are able to walk through the trees throughout the property. “Staying here is a snapshot of what is happening [to] the trees at that time. This all fits into an authentic, tourism experience,” Zeta says. Agronomist David Peasley of Farrants Hill in Northern NSW has also turned his farm into an AirBnB experience, inviting guests to see how coffee is grown, processed and roasted before they enjoy an espresso from the coffee beans grown on the land before them. “Each morning my wife Suzanne and I enjoy a steady stream of visitors arriving [at the farm] to share a brew. There is a catch, however, you must be involved in the pick in order to secure a regular seat at the table, or bring some of your own produce in exchange,” he says. He picks his coffee cherries in late Autumn until mid-spring. David says the trick to good picking is quite simple, “pick only fully red cherry and no green”. For more than 30 years, David has grown and produced his own coffee. He grows the K7 variety, which originated in Kenya. It yields heavily under the sub-tropical conditions and accounts for 90 per cent of the coffee

Skybury Coffee in Mareeba has experienced its highest number of visitors in seven years.

grown in sub-tropical Australia. “On our Farrants Hill property we have 100 trees with some grown amongst the banana plantation, others in full shade and others in full sun. The choice of different growing micro-environments was deliberate in order to experiment with yield and productivity. I have found bananas and coffee to be good companion crops as they protect each other from high wind, and it is an efficient use of a space,” David says. He hopes that with the burgeoning interest in small-scale growing across Australia since the COVID-19 outbreak, it may bring an array of new flavours to the market as new producers begin to tweak processes to perfect a cup that suits their palate.

ONE OF A KIND

What currently makes the Australian hinterland such an ideal area for coffee production is the naturally cooler climate that brings with a longer ripening season and sweetness within the fruit, flavour characteristics commonly seen in other cooler climate regions that grow grapes. “In coffee, typically the higher you go, the cooler the microclimate, the better quality of the soil, but we’re getting that at low level altitude. We’ve had different agronomists say we’re growing coffee at around 700 feet, but it’s like we we’re 1800 metres altitude,” Zentveld’s Rebecca says. “We are the only subtropical land growing coffee below the tropic zone. We’re not in the so-called coffee belt but what makes our coffee quality unique is the microclimate: the red soil, the consistent rainfall and the cooler climate, which we’ve enjoyed in the last six months thanks to the La Niña effect.” To help ensure the livelihood of crops for the future, Australia is one of 22 countries in the World Coffee Research International Multilocation Variety Trial to assess the viability of new hybrid varietals. Southern Cross University in Northern New South Wales has planted the crops in the subtropical coffee growing region, but the project is still two years out from testing. It is hoped the trial will produce a varietal that grows less vigorously, is of short stature, rust and berry borer resistant, and retains cup quality. Farmers in the Northern Rivers region are waiting patiently for the new varietals to become available. They hope it’s the next phase in rejuvenating the industry and the added incentive prospective farmers need to sustain a future in coffee production. “I really do think it’s an exciting industry to be in,” Rebecca says. “To offer that full experience of crop to cup and explore the many areas you can take your passion for coffee, is just limitless.”

FIRST CRACK

Have your cup and eat it too Melbourne start-up Good Edi offers a sustainable and flavourful alternative to single-use disposable coffee cups. Catherine Hutchins and Aniyo Rahebi are the founders of Good Edi.

ew food and packaging pairings are as iconic as ice cream and a cone. Coffee and the takeaway cup aren’t too far behind, but it’s a less positive association, considering the one billion takeaway cups that end up in landfill in Australia every year. But what if we could combine the best of both worlds – the practicality and convenience of the takeaway cup with the sustainability, novelty, and tastiness of an ice cream cone? Good Edi founders Catherine Hutchins and Aniyo Rahebi are answering that question with their edible coffee cups. “We were grabbing a cup of coffee one day and started to chat about how amazing it would be if we could minimise waste in the coffee industry,” Aniyo says. “In Australia, we dispose of 50,000

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cups every 30 seconds, and there are so many options out there – reusable, compostable, recyclable – but all of them present their own issues in terms of the infrastructure, waste that’s produced, and adoptability rate from consumers.” After some research, it occurred to the duo that the best way to avoid cup wastage was to make it as consumable as the coffee inside it. They began a long and extensive research and development process, ensuring its cups would be edible and tasty, sustainably made, and practical to use in a café. “The cup will stay crispy for around 45 minutes and will continue to hold the liquid for several hours, depending on the temperature and consistency of the liquid you’re putting in,” Catherine says. “For example, the frothed milk you’d use for a coffee will last much longer than boiling water.” The Good Edi cups are high in

fibre and vitamin B, do not affect the flavour of the coffee, and are made from locally and ethically sourced oats, grains, and other natural ingredients. Aniyo compares the flavour to that of a waffle cone. “If we were going to make an edible cup, it had to be something that goes well with coffee, so it’s like a biscuit that you can enjoy with your drink,” she says. “We encourage people to eat the cup, but it’s not the only way you can dispose of them. You could put a seed in it and plant it in your garden, put it in your home compost, or if it does end up in landfill, like any other food it will breakdown naturally within two to six weeks.” Through trial and error, Aniyo and Catherine perfected the recipe, relying on their more than 20 shared years of experience in the food processing industry to understand how these ingredients will come together. Catherine says once a prototype was ready, they were able to hold a few demos and tests in the market, where Good Edi has had an overwhelmingly positive response from customers and the cafés. “We’ve talked to loads of café owners, baristas, and people in the industry, and they usually saw the sustainable value of this solution without us having to explain it,” Catherine says. “We’ve also worked hard to make it convenient not just for the consumers but for baristas and cafés too. In terms of handling, it has to be hygienic. We put a paper sleeve around the outside of the cup, so the barista doesn’t have to touch it directly and it’s clean when the consumer eats it.” When the cups launch in May 2021, they will be available in a standard eightounce size. Good Edi was able to set up a production space in Melbourne thanks,

Good Edi cups taste similar to a waffle cone and don’t impact coffee flavour.

in part, to a successful crowdfunding campaign on Ready Fund Go. That start-up raised $148,593 on a $140,000 goal to purchase the much-needed cup baking machine. Good Edi also won the $50,000 first prize in the Taronga Hatch Accelerator Program, which aims to support innovative ideas to address environmental problems. “Winning the grant was a big help and contributor to ordering our cup baking machine as well as increasing our exposure to people across the industry,” Catherine says. “Being involved with Hatch and the community put us in touch with a lot of likeminded businesses and individuals that helped us build our business and ability to grow in the market.” Good Edi’s focus after launch will begin on the local Melbourne coffee scene, followed by the rest of Australia. “We’re in discussions with many cafés at the moment, particularly those with a strong interest and aligning values on sustainability,” Catherine says. “This is just the starting point for us. Once we have rolled out into the domestic market, we want to start with export and franchising so we can make an impact globally.” Aniyo adds that, with 500 billion takeaway cups going to landfill globally, there is a great need around the world to solve this problem with waste. “It makes no sense, especially when the average lifespan of a coffee cup is only about 15 minutes,” Aniyo says. “We want to provide a solution in the market that makes it easy for people to do the right thing, for both cafés and consumers.” For more information, visit www.good-edi.com

Good Edi presents an edible solution to Australia’s problem with coffee cup waste.

2021 Dairy & Dairy Alternative feature BeanScene celebrates the many brands that are shaping the Australian café landscape with a comprehensive listing of products that are in demand, on trend, and reflective of consumer preferences. Riverina Fresh Full Cream Milk Riverina Fresh milks have a leading reputation across the specialty coffee industry for their quality, functional performance, and consistency. It aims to provide their partners with the best coffee experience with their consistently great milk. Riverina Fresh’s reputation as a leading milk for specialty coffee has been built from years of developing an understanding of both the science and the art of delivering quality milk for coffee. It understands the key role of milk composition, the importance of on-farm practices, and the many other factors that influence the functionality of fresh milk with coffee. Riverina Fresh Full Cream consistently delivers on taste, texture and functionality. It has a smooth, full-bodied flavour, delicious taste and exceptional mouthfeel that make it the milk of choice for many of Australia’s leading baristas and roasters. It was the official milk for the 2020 World Barista Championships. It delivers a rich mouth feel and creamy flavour, complementing a wide range of coffee blends. Riverina Fresh produces a range of milks, creams and yoghurts and distributes a full range of leading dairy and non-dairy products to meet café’s needs. For more information or for a free trial in your café, call 1800 993 081 or visit www.riverinafresh.com.au *Maximum of 2 mixed crates per store.

Riverina Fresh Gold Milk Riverina Fresh knows that not all coffee blends are the same and that making great coffee requires great ingredients. That is why it’s developed Riverina Fresh Gold milk, the extra cream milk for a variety of coffee blends. The company worked closely with Sasa Sestic and the team from Ona Coffee to create Riverina Fresh Gold milk. It has been specially crafted to deliver a rich, creamy mouthfeel that balances darker, stronger coffees, while also allowing subtle, fruity and sweet notes to shine. Riverina Fresh Gold was the milk of choice of recent Australian Barista Champions Matthew Lewin and Hugh Kelly, and was used in competition by both at the Australian Barista Championships and World Barista Championships. “Riverina Fresh Gold was perfect for my competition blend, balancing the darker style chocolate flavours. It complements a range of coffee flavours and is why we use it at all our Ona cafés,” says Matthew Lewin. Riverina Fresh Gold milk is available in in two-litre and 10-litre formats. Riverina Fresh produces a range of milks, creams and yoghurts and distributes a full range of leading dairy and non-dairy products to meet your café’s needs. For more information or for a free trial in your café, call 1800 993 081 or visit www.riverinafresh.com.au *Maximum of 2 mixed crates per store.

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The Alternative Dairy Co. Barista Almond Milk Literally nuts for coffee. The Alternative Dairy Co. Barista Almond Milk is specifically blended to create a delicious and creamy plant milk that highlights the espresso. Made with Australian-grown almonds and crafted for cafés, it’s the milk that is nuts for coffee – literally. In recent years, almond milk has grown to become one of the most popular alternative milks on the café scene, with baristas striving to perfect the ultimate almond latte. As with the rest of its range, The Alternative Dairy Co. worked with baristas and industry players to design a plant milk that delivers on performance, with a neutral taste to hero the coffee. Aussie owned, grown and made, see why it’s the preferred almond milk for the likes of Ona Coffee, Soul Origin, and many more. For more information, visit www.altdairyco.com or email enquiries@altdairyco.com

The Alternative Dairy Co. Barista Oat Milk Aussie oats for coffee notes. Crafted especially for cafés, The Alternative Dairy Co. Barista Oat Milk is made locally with Australian-grown oats and simple ingredients. It’s a high performance plant milk that is easy to work with and delivers consistent texture for a creamy, coffee-forward cup. Oat milk is quickly on the rise in cafés around the country, with many attributing this growth to its likeness to dairy. The Alternative Dairy Co.’s Barista Oat Milk was developed in conjunction with industry experts and truly delivers on complementing the espresso, providing a naturally sweet and creamy flavour. That it is Aussie owned, grown and made is just the crema on top, and why The Alternative Dairy Co considers it the number one oat milk in Australia. For more information, visit www.altdairyco.com or email enquiries@altdairyco.com

Bonsoy Almond Milk Pair your beans with our nuts. Baristas – we’re not being crude, we’re being healthy. At Bonsoy, that’s very important. Our all-natural almond milk uses roasted almond paste. (Hint: it’s the good stuff, that’s really good for you.) With a light flavour profile that holds when heated, and a natural nutty almond fragrance, it’s the perfect pairing for whatever you’re blending. And boy, does it love to froth. 100 per cent vegan. Nothing artificial. But we won’t wax lyrical. We’ll leave that to your happy customers. For more information, visit Bonsoy.com or follow socials @originalbonsoy

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Bonsoy Soymilk We can handle you at your hottest. Not only are baristas attractive, they have to work under pressure. Nine bars of pressure, to be exact. Not to mention the steam. Sounds like a good party? It can be, as long as everyone turns up and plays their part. All milk is not created equal. Not everyone can handle the heat. Fact: Bonsoy won’t change its flavour profile when heated. With quality ingredients and organic soybeans, Bonsoy is non-GM and vegan, and it’s the perfect canvas for latte art and creamy coffee because it stretches further. In short, (or long macchiato) we do hotter, better. It’s no wonder our famous golden cartons are a beacon for quality around the globe. For more information, visit bonsoy.com or follow socials @originalbonsoy

Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend When it comes to dairy alternatives, Australian baristas love Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend because it’s delicious and so easy to work with. Califia worked closely with the barista community to create this premium plant milk, which is made with whole rolled oats and is completely unsweetened with no added sugar or gums. Oat Barista Blend is rich with a full-bodied mouthfeel that perfectly complements the natural, robust flavour of coffee without overpowering it. Equally important, it pours smoothly and steams without splitting which allows you to create delicate foam for impressive latte art. It’s the ideal dairy alternative for barista quality coffee, without compromising on taste or performance, which is why it’s now served in more than 1500 cafés across Australia. Califia’s Oat Barista Blend is available now in one-litre shelfstable cartons. For more information, visit califiafarms.com.au or contact Australia@califiafarms.com

Califia Farms XX Espresso Cold Brew Coffee Looking for a quick coffee fix? Califia Farms XX Espresso Cold Brew Coffee is a refreshing way to hit the spot – no espresso machine required. A delicious double dose of smooth cold brew coffee blended with Califia Farms signature almond milk, Califia’s XX Espresso has significantly less sugar than traditional flavoured milks and is dairy free, so it’s better for you and the planet. Made from 100 per cent Arabica coffee beans sourced directly from farmers themselves, the cold brew process creates more antioxidants and less acidity than hot brewed coffee for a smoother tasting refreshing cold brew. Califia Farms XX Espresso Cold Brew Coffee is available now in the fridge at Woolworths and independent retailers nationally. For more information, visit califiafarms.com.au or contact Australia@califiafarms.com

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Milklab Lactose Free

Milklab Almond

Milklab Lactose Free is a collaboration supporting Australian dairy farmers to produce a high performance foodservice exclusive Lactose Free milk for espresso coffee. It adds a natural enzyme – lactase to its 100 per cent Australian dairy milk to produce a dairy milk which is lactose free for digestive benefits. Its milk comes from New South Wales and Victorian farmers, including farmers in the Goulburn Valley – home to some of Australia’s tastiest dairy milk. Using the best quality dairy milk and state-of-the-art technology ensures that Milklab Lactose Free tastes like fresh dairy, with the convenience of being a long-life UHT product. For more information, visit milklabco.com

Milklab Almond is Australia’s foodservice exclusive Almond milk for coffee. It is designed to texture and stretch with high performance. Its almond milk is rich, creamy and offers a delicious nutty taste which compliments the flavour of espresso coffee. Milklab Almond is also proudly lower in sugar and fat than regular dairy. For more information, visit milklabco.com

Chobani Oat Barista Edition The Chobani Oat Barista Edition was crafted with baristas in mind, to help them deliver a top-notch oat coffee, every time. This plant-based dairy alternative textures well and has a creamy mouthfeel that has been likened to real milk. With a superior taste and amazing versatility, it’s a barista’s new best friend. Oat is on the rise in Australia as a dairy milk alternative choice, but it can have its challenges: watery, thin consistency, or an unfrothable texture that leaves a lot to be desired. That’s why Chobani set out to create the ultimate oat drink that will have baristas producing oat coffees that look, and taste, amazing. Chobani Oat is made by using whole, organic oats and crafting each batch individually for added richness and flavour. The Chobani Oat Barista Edition is currently available through the foodservice channel and is set to take the coffee world by storm. For more information, contact foodservice@chobani.com.au or visit www.chobani.com.au

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Sungold Fresh Milk Sungold Fresh Milk comes from the South West Victoria region of Australia. It consistently tests for quality, composition, and frothing ability. Only the best quality milk with all the ideal attributes is selected. Sungold Milk gives good stretch and texture to every drink, and pairs perfectly with darker coffee bean roasts as the flavour, while rich, won’t overpower the coffee. For those who want the full flavour of fresh creamy milk, Sungold Fresh Milk is a popular choice in the Sungold range. It’s high in calcium and a source of protein. For more information, visit www.sungoldmilk.com.au

Sungold Jersey Milk Jersey Milk is sourced from 100 per cent Jersey cow herds. A heritage breed originating from the British Jersey Isles, Jersey cows are renowned for their rich, creamy milk. Its herds are from the South West Victoria region of Australia, largely within an hour of the Sungold plant at Allansford on the Great Ocean Road. A multiple awardwinner, Sungold Jersey Milk is beloved by baristas who like to pair it with their specialty coffee roasts. After all, if their coffee is single origin, their milk should be too. For more information, visit www.sungoldmilk.com.au

Rebel Kitchen Barista Mylk Rebel Kitchen has created a plant-based Barista Mylk specifically for use in coffee. The unique blend of organic ingredients was developed with the help of coffee expert James Hoffmann to make it taste and work just like dairy milk in coffee, unlike other alternatives. The recipe took 146 iterations and countless hours of rigorous testing with James Hoffmann to achieve the perfect balance of ingredients to ensure it both tasted like dairy in all types of coffee and performed as well as cows’ milk when foamed and poured. The final recipe contains organic ingredients which have been minimally processed, such as oat for smoothness, coconut cream for creaminess, and faba bean for savouriness, and is free from nuts, preservatives, thickeners, stabilisers, and refined sugars. Rebel Kitchen applies it’s uncompromising attitude to ethics and sustainability. The brand is a certified B Corporation, donates one per cent of it’s revenue to projects that support regenerative organic agriculture, and is 100 per cent carbon netural. The new Barista Mylk is an addition to the brand’s existing range of Mylks, Original and Extra Creamy, developed for every-day use such as on cereal and in cooking. Barista Mylk is available nationally through distribution partner Feel Good Foods. For more information, visit www.rebel-kitchen.com/au

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Tweedvale Milk Tweedvale Milk is made from happy, stress-free cows in the idyllic surroundings of the Adelaide Hills. For decades, it’s quietly honed its craft, producing creamy, textured milk that is pasteurised and 100 per cent nonhomogenised. Its goal is a product with a smooth, sweet flavour that always makes coffee stand out from the crowd. All of its artisan products contain zero additives and zero thickeners, and are made exclusively for the South Australian market. Tweedvale Milk is proud to have won multiple gold medals over the years through DIAA, the South Australian Dairy Awards, The Sydney Royal Cheese & Dairy Produce Show, and the Australian Food Awards. Tweedvale Milk is the savvy baristas’ milk of choice in cafés and restaurants across South Australia. For more information, visit: www.tweedvalemilk.com.au

Happy Happy Soy Boy Happy Happy Soy Boy is a premium soy milk, crafted for coffee. Containing just five natural ingredients including premium grade, non-GMO soybeans, there are no additives or stabilisers. It’s also gluten free and 100 per cent vegan. Happy Happy Soy Boy’s subtle, balanced taste and creamy texture complements espresso. Already loved by many of Australia’s favourite specialty coffee roasters, this plant-based alternative delivers ‘maximum happiness’ and a smoother tasting latte. Being alkaline, this soy milk is designed so that it performs best with the acidity of espresso. Having launched its ‘Climate Happy’ program earlier this year, Happy Happy Foods is proud to announce that its products and people are now 100 per cent carbon neutral. Happy Happy Foods is at the forefront of climate labelling and you will find a carbon emissions footprint stated on each carton. Happy Happy Foods engage Carbon Cloud as its environmental climate emissions auditor. Find out more information on this initiative by visiting www.eatdrinkhappyhappy.com/climate-happy As a climate responsible company, Happy Happy Foods believes you should never underestimate the power of the individual in making change. By fully embracing the challenge of transparency and accountability, Happy Happy Foods is committed to taking responsibility for its own environmental impact. Co-founders Lloyd Smith and John Cruse state: “Our business mission is to continue to develop plant-based options that replace traditional products with an aim to helping consumers reduce their climate impact”. Look out for more products from this exciting and innovative business later in 2021. It’s time to upgrade your plant-based milk – choose Happy Happy. For more information, visit www.eatdrinkhappyhappy.com/climate-happy

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Vitasoy Oat Finally a plant milk that works like dairy. Vitasoy Café for Baristas oat milk has been specially formulated to deliver a perfect plant-based coffee. Made from 100 per cent Australian grown whole oats, it has a mild and balanced flavour that lets the beans speak for themselves. At Vitasoy, we make our plant milk using only the best ingredients, through a process we’ve refined to be as simple as possible. We believe in supporting local Aussie farmers, proudly manufacturing our Café for Baristas products in regional Victoria, Australia. Proudly grown and made in Australia. For more information, visit soy.com.au

Vitasoy Soy Vitasoy’s original plant milk for coffee, crafted using the humble soy bean. Vitasoy Café for Baristas Soy has been specially formulated to complement barista skills and deliver the perfect soy coffee every time. Grown in the fertile Australian soils by a small group of local farmers, our soy beans are harvested and delivered to our Wodonga Factory where they undergo a process we’ve refined to be as simple as possible. The result is soy milk coffee that your customers will return for every time. Proudly grown and made in Australia. For more information, visit soy.com.au

NuYu Attention plant-milk lovers, there’s a new product on the shelves… introducing NuYu, an Australian range of premium long-life vegan friendly plant-milks boasting flavour, versatility, and sustainability. Proudly made in South Australia, NuYu’s ambient plant-milk products have a shelf-life of nine months and consists of five delicious variants – Almond, Oat, Macadamia, Cashew, and Pistachio. The range is barista friendly, with a formula that keeps the quality and consistency of your plant-based milk ‘up’ while keeping the sugar content ‘down’ (and by ‘down’ it means zero added sugar). “People opting for a dairy alternative will perceive this as a positive choice and feel confident knowing there is no compromise on quality, function or flavour,” says NuYu Brand Manager Amelia Wright. “Why settle for good, when you can feel great?” The NuYu range is multi-purposed and promotes different usages in both hot and cold beverages, smoothies, and baking. For more information, visit www.nuyuplantmilks.com.au

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

All in one, yet individual With IndividualMilk Technology, Franke Coffee Systems is enabling the automatic market to meet growing demands for alternatives to traditional dairy milk.

or years, alternatives to traditional dairy – whether they be lactose-free or plantbased milks – have become increasingly popular in the coffee industry. David Downing, Sales Director Oceania for Franke Coffee Systems, estimates that almost one-fifth of milk coffees in Australia are made with a non-dairy product. However, short of installing a second machine in a venue, he says the automatic market has struggled to accommodate preferences for dairy alternatives. “There is a strong demand in the

Franke Coffee Systems is responding to a growing demand for dairy alternatives.

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café market for non-dairy products, but it’s not an option available in many other segments. Here in Australia, we spoke to distributors and customers in the corporate, convenience, and hotel sectors, and saw there was a need for different milk options through an automatic system,” David says. “But how to separate those milk types in an automatic system has been a challenge for many years.” With demand for non-dairy products expected to grow, Franke set out to overcome this hurdle with its latest technological innovation, IndividualMilk Technology, unveiled in March 2021. Rolled out in Franke’s Specialty Beverage Station (SB1200), IndividualMilk Technology uses two independent milk systems to prevent mixing, residue, or cross-contamination between different milk alternatives. “We wanted to develop a technology that can tag along to that growing demand in the market for dairy alternatives and offer them in other segments where it hasn’t been available,” David says. “From the moment the customer touches the screen to select the beverage to when the milks are dispensed, they’re kept completely separate, so the consumer can be very confident that just the milk or non-dairy alternative they selected is what they get.” David calls IndividualMilk Technology a progression of the FoamMasterTM milk handling technology which Franke successfully implemented into its fully automatic A-range in 2010. Franke is able to calibrate the settings of the SB1200’s FoamMasterTM and iQFlowTM espresso extraction technology to best cater to the customer’s milk of choice. David says this support from Franke extends beyond the initial installation.

“If a customer decides, for instance, almond milk isn’t selling and they want to switch to lactose-free, we’re there to help them calibrate it for whatever needs to be done,” he says. “It’s important when we introduce new innovations to work with those customers to adapt to that technology and give sound guidance on how to best use it. It’s not just about selling equipment for us. We want to help our customers and evolve the market.” Franke also intends to work with local dairy and dairy alternative suppliers to ensure IndividualMilk Technology can be optimised for different products, and that milks are available in formats and packaging suited to operators’ needs. But Franke IndividualMilk Technology is just one way the SB1200 embraces variety and customisation. The modular station serves as a full coffee solution, including a benchtop coffee machine with optional add-ons, as well as payment solutions and cup warmers. Under-counter features include a Franke Flavor Station, CleanMaster cleaning system, and milk fridge/cooling unit. Another optional add-on is the Franke Iced Coffee Module that chills espresso as it leaves the machine to allow the user to serve cold coffee drinks. Either hot or cold coffee can also be combined with hot or cold milk and milk foam to produce a variety of beverages. “In a normal café environment, you have a two- or three-group espresso machine, maybe two grinders for different blends, maybe a nitro system or cold brew option, and then you have a barista. With the SB1200, this all comes in one unit,” David says. “With both dairy and dairy alternatives, it can offer the customer not only hot beverages but authentic iced coffees. Because we reduce the

Franke IndividualMilk Technology allows an operator to serve more than one milk option from the SB1200.

temperature of the extracted coffee before it’s dispensed, you’re not getting ice melting as soon as the hot coffee touches it, which dilutes the drink.” David says the SB1200 caters to many trends in the Australian coffee market, beyond the popularity of plantbased milks. This includes increasing appreciation of cold brew, in both the café and retail space. The SB1200 has it all, including the ability to serve cold brew and nitro beverages in addition to iced coffees. “We’re seeing a lot of the mainstream roasters pushing nitro and cold brew, cafés are starting to offer it, and you see it in retail too, whether that’s in a bottle or a can,” David says. “But many of the markets we operate in haven’t had this type of inclusive and flexible offering before. We can now go to customers, whether that’s in a corporate environment, where staff used to have to leave the office to get their coffee, or convenience, where they’d lose business because they couldn’t offer a nondairy or cold product. “There’s even areas like mining sites. A lot of the miners travel remotely and when they go home, they get their cold brews and dairy alternatives in cafés. When they go back to mining sites, there’s an expectation they get those there as well.” Like all Franke automatics, the SB1200 is telemetry enabled and can connect to the Franke Digital Services platform. This allows the operator to access, monitor, or download usage and maintenance data. Or, information can be remotely uploaded, such as for sales, promotions, and messages to staff

or customers. David says COVID-19 has accelerated people’s need and understanding of telemetry. “There’s a massive advantage in how we can not only download but also upload information and data remotely. There’s a lot of cost savings there for a business and advantages for roasters and distributors who want to tap into the data on the performance of the equipment and the ingredients,” David says. “Australia is a big country, and the cost of service is quite expensive. Resolving a customer concern over telemetry, rather than having a service technician drive a couple of hours to visit a site, really pays dividends to the customer when it comes to after sales support.” He adds while there used to be a stigma attached to automatic coffee machines, the quality of coffee from automatics has taken leaps and bounds, and pre-conceived notions of ‘traditional versus automatic’ are starting to fade. “If you look at the traditional side of the market, in the café, you see selfadjusting grinders, hybrid systems, and automatic tampers and milk steamers. That tech is coming closer to where we play in the automatic market,” David says. “People used to shy away from automatics because they didn’t meet that standard of what we’d see in a

café, but now that’s completely changed. Thanks to iQFlow, the quality of the coffee that comes out of our system is second to none, whether that be in terms of milk texture or espresso extraction.” Quality relies on machine hygiene too. Cleaning on the Franke SB1200 is fully automated, including spout and Flavor Station, with CleanMaster, making daily operations and maintenance a breeze with no disassembly required. With a high consumption of milkbased coffees, dairy or otherwise, David says Australia is an important market to Franke, and it’s one primed for Franke IndividualMilk Technology. “We’re a very mature coffee market and when it comes to the beverage itself, we lead globally in the development of roast profiles and innovations in beverage types,” David says. “Australia also prides itself on leading in or adaption to new technology, whether that’s traditional or automatic. We see that every time we launch a new machine, system, or feature, and I think we will see that again with Franke IndividualMilk Technology.” For more information, visit www.franke.com/content/corporate/ ch/en/cs/campaigns-group-page/ individualmilk-technology.html

The SB1200 embraces customisation to provide a full-system automatic solution.

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

Feeling the flow The Flow coffee telemetry system from Barista Technology Australia provides new levels of transparency, consistency, and information to the coffee industry.

Flow communicates information such as a brew recipe or daily report to a telemetry-enabled device.

onsistency is one of the most important elements when it comes to coffee, but it’s something that has always been difficult to accurately measure. Is the barista following the right recipe from shot to shot? Does the coffee taste the same from barista to barista? Or is a blend brewed similarly from café to café? Short of tasting every shot – hardly practical or hygienic – there was no way to tell. Until now. The Flow coffee telemetry system from Barista Technology Australia can be connected directly to an espresso machine from any major manufacturer, tracking the information produced with each and every shot. “If you look at the industry now, with a manual coffee machine, there’s very little transparency around the data and consistency of the coffee,” says Brett Bolwell, CEO of Barista Technology Australia.

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“The type of data we can extract with Flow gives coffee companies transparency to their coffee that’s never been achieved before. Telemetry is going to take making the perfect coffee to the next level.” Installing Flow at a café is relatively easy. Barista Technology equips sensors to the espresso machine which communicates information to a small telemetryenabled device. This can be accessed remotely by the barista, café owner, roaster, and support team. Real-time gauges can be set up to give baristas immediate feedback on whether they’ve hit the recipe. Information the unit gathers can also be viewed via an app or web-based dashboard, providing objective feedback on the barista’s performance. The dashboard can produce daily reports and compare baristas – even stores – to each other. “It effectively provides you with a snapshot of your coffee business. Especially if you’re a multisite operator, it can show all your stores on one screen and you can

physically see at what percentages the stores are performing against set brew recipes,” Brett says. “If you’re a coffee company wanting to improve or sustain your brand recognition, understanding what’s happening at a café or barista level is critical to maintain the quality.” Flow has already been trialled by several prominent players in the Australian coffee community – from quick service restaurants to multi-site operators, independent cafés to roasters, including Seven Miles Coffee Roasters. It aims to roll out the telemetry system across 200 partner cafés by the end of 2021. “Pretty much every roaster we put Flow in front of immediately see value in them, whether as a tool to improve operational efficiencies or simply as a way to acquire new business,” Brett says. “At the multinational store level, Flow is currently being trialled in Australia’s largest coffee chain. An understanding of what’s happening across 1186 stores is really

important, not just for consistency but from a supply perspective. If they notice sales have gone up, they and their suppliers can better forecast to meet demand.” Flow also provides benefits when it comes to equipment repairs and maintenance or identifying when additional training may be required at a wholesale account. “There’s a clunkiness to the way we do some things in the industry. A rep might visit a store every fortnight or so, and when they go in there, try to find ways they can help the customer. But it’s a very hit and miss way of doing things,” Brett says. “With live data of what’s going on at-site, a roaster can quickly identify issues for the customer, tell them straight away, and start fixing the problem.” But the benefits of a system like Flow are not limited to the coffee roaster. With the information accessible to the café owner and their staff, everyone is able to review their performance and where changes need to be made. “People will invest as much as $50,000 in their coffee set up, making sure they’ve got the best equipment, but then it’s up to the barista to make it worthwhile. If they’re not, your investment in that business and your customers can quickly go out the door,” Brett says. “If you’ve got great tasting coffee and shots are being pulled within the brew recipe, you’ll have happier customers, higher sales, and everybody wins.” It was in a New Zealand café that Flow began its life almost five years ago. Web developer, former café owner, and Head of Innovation at Flow, Scott Nightingale, was frustrated that all he had was a shot timer to measure the consistency of his espresso during peak hour.

Flow provides users with a snapshot of their business to improve or sustain output.

“THE TYPE OF DATA WE CAN EXTRACT WITH FLOW GIVES COFFEE COMPANIES TRANSPARENCY TO THEIR COFFEE THAT’S NEVER BEEN ACHIEVED BEFORE. TELEMETRY IS GOING TO TAKE MAKING THE PERFECT COFFEE TO THE NEXT LEVEL.” “There are a number of variables a shot timer doesn’t show you. He thought ‘the flavour’s still not right and I don’t have enough data to figure out why’. So, he set out to change that,” Brett says. Scott spoke with a friend from a large NZ coffee roaster who agreed there was a market for more information and a clearer picture of coffee extraction. They developed a program and began trialling it around NZ. “That conversation happened over a cup of coffee in Scott’s café in Auckland. Four years later, Flow came to my attention, but the product still wasn’t quite finished,” Brett says. “They didn’t have an app built. We live in a mobile world, if a coffee company has reps out on the road, how are they going to log in and look at this data? They’re not going to sit down on a computer and log in to a cloud-based backend. They need to access it quickly and the café needs to be able to see it too.” Seeing the telemetry system’s potential, Brett secured the Australian distribution rights and with his strong connections and more than 20 years of experience in coffee, began helping take Flow to the next level.

“I worked closely with them, saw some things we could improve, and they’ve taken in every piece of advice,” Brett says. “We’ve shown this technology to several coffee companies and the feedback we keep hearing from the industry is that people have been looking for something like this for years. There’s nothing else in the market like it.” While heavier scrutiny and tighter targets a potential put off to some baristas, like many other technological innovations, Brett says they’ll see the benefits on the coffee bar. “It’s no different to when we introduced PuqPress five and a half years ago. Baristas would tell me ‘it’s never going to take off, a barista needs to control their art’. Now, nearly 60 per cent of cafés use one. We have sold more than 19,000 Puqpress units in Australia against approximately 31,500 cafés in the country, according to market statistics,” Brett says. “As a café owner or coffee roaster, you don’t want to make it feel like ‘Big Brother’ is watching. It’s important to show baristas that this is fundamentally a support mechanism to help them achieve the best they can. Once baristas embrace it as a tool that helps them to grow and improve, everybody wins.” While Flow currently focuses on the espresso machine, Brett says it’s a simple step to start incorporating the other equipment on an espresso bar. This includes grinders, milk texturing systems, and “any piece of equipment that comes with a motherboard”. “The next phase for us, and something we’re working on now, is integrating water filtration monitoring. As we expand Flow, it’s going to give coffee companies a whole new level of data to analyse,” he says. “For example, you can see if workflow speed increases as you introduce different pieces of equipment to the business. There’s so much that can be done with it. We’re really at the ground floor of what telemetry can do.” For more information, visit www.flowcoffee.com.au

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

The coffee wingman The Mazzer Super Jolly V Pro – an iconic grinder used for decades by baristas all over the world, including former World Barista Champion Pete Licata – has been completely re-engineered to fit the needs of modern coffee community.

ith a unique style, distribution in 90 countries, and more than 70 years in the coffee business, many experienced baristas around the world can name a Mazzer grinder when they see one. But the Italian grinder manufacturer is not one to rest on its grinders’ iconography and longevity. Over the past few years, Mazzer has rolled out a suite of new functions and technologies to bring its classic models into the modern era. “Mazzer has built its success in offering grinders that behave flawlessly under any condition, year after year,” says Silvia Marcato, Product Manager at Mazzer. “Reliability is not a fancy feature that adds a special touch on a product: it’s the promise of excellent, consistent, and safe working conditions from Mazzer to its committed baristas.” The most recent grinder from Mazzer to be redesigned, may be, according to Silvia, the one closest to the heart of many baristas: the Super Jolly V Pro. The new Super Jolly V Pro is a premium grinder for demanding small to medium sized cafés looking for top quality, reliability, best materials and impeccable design. Ninety-three per cent of the grinder weight comes from premium materials like stainless steel, aluminium, brass, and copper, to make it not only durable but also easy to recycle and eco-friendly. “The Super Jolly V Pro is a tile of a mosaic that composes the Mazzer coffee grinding offering to the sector. But it’s also the most iconic grinder, and the barista community associates its shape with the high performance of Mazzer grinders,” Silvia says. “The new design of the Super Jolly V Pro has brought this iconicity into the new decade, adapting to the everchanging requests of the sector. With the launch of this new model, after 50 years from the release of the first Jolly grinder, Mazzer reaches a new milestone.” The Super Jolly V Pro embraces many of the updates seen in Mazzer’s top of the

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With the Super Jolly V Pro, Mazzer has redesigned one of its most iconic grinders.

range models Major V, Robur S, Kold S, and Kony S, and combines them with a few other innovations in a condensed package. The grinder has a recommended output of two to three kilograms per day, with peaks of one kilogram in an hour. Silvia says the cost-effective, low-to-mediumrange grinder is often paired with its “bigger brothers Robur S or Major V” for a secondary coffee offering. “The strength of Mazzer grinders is not only the fact they look great next each other, but they also feature the same seamless and simple user experience

through the appliances,” she says. “The new model is simple to use and beginner-proof. Anyone who’s starting a business in coffee will find a reliable friend in the Super Jolly V Pro.” One of the new features in the Super Jolly V Pro is the Mazzer Grind Flow Control (GFC) system. The removable outlet insert, equipped with a steel wire damper, sits in the chute below the burrs to maintain consistent dose weight, reduce the electrostatic charge of grinds, and prevent clumping. “As always, but even more in the

last few years, Mazzer is devoted to enabling baristas to offer consistently excellent coffee beverages and improve the performances of their businesses,” Silvia says. “Super Jolly V Pro is pointing at this scope, as it facilitates, for instance, the cleaning procedures with the opening of the chamber without loss of the regulation.” She adds that Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity features – available on request with the grinder – even provide a chance for the operator to study the working flow of the café and the customer’s perception of the coffee. “Moreover, the burrs were redesigned to speed up the dosing time and the grinder is structured to keep the grounds fresher and preserve the aromatic compounds. Super Jolly V Pro has a double cooling fan system, as for Mazzer, respecting the aroma and flavour of the coffee, as the roaster conceived it, is a dogma,” Silvia says. “The Super Jolly V Pro is the world’s coffee grinder, with which any barista has come to work in their life, sooner or later.” One such barista is Pete Licata, 2013 World Barista Champion and R&D Coffee Consultant for the Nomad Coffee Group. Pete tells BeanScene the original Super Jolly was the first grinder he used when he started working in the coffee industry at a Kansas café in 2003. “It’s always been rugged, durable, and made pretty good coffee. It’s been around 50 years now and back then, we didn’t expect grinders to do as much as we do now,” Pete says. “Mazzer has taken the approach of taking their classic line of grinders and updating them for the modern expectations of a grinder, while keeping the exact imagery of Mazzer intact.” Pete has used many Mazzer grinders throughout his career, however, he did not work directly with the manufacturer until after publishing a review of the Robur S in 2019. Afterwards, Mazzer reached out to him for feedback on its line of grinders, including the Super Jolly. “It’s the best grinder I’ve seen in that price/volume category and blows almost any other grinder rated for two kilos out of the water,” Pete says. “It’s an ideal grinder for decaf or single origins.” He says nearly all of the doses he tested were within 0.2 grams of the target, “which is as accurate as you can expect to get on a regular basis”. Once baristas have determined their preferred grind setting, they can easily track and set their own references with the adjustable Memory Track grinding collar. The Memory Track’s bottom

ring adjusts grind size while the top ring displays numbers and markings for the barista to track. “Typically, you’d have the numbers line up to random settings based on where the grinder’s tightened to. With this system, I found where the grind was great for my coffee and reset that as zero, so I know my starting point,” Pete says. Another small but pivotal improvement is the ability to adjust the depth as well as height of portafilter holder, ensuring coffee grounds are centred in the basket. The grinder can be set to automatically activate when the portafilter is inserted, or baristas can use the buttons on the control panel for one of three pre-set doses. Pete says the control panel is intuitive to use and navigate. It also tracks statistics and gives maintenance alerts, which thanks to its IoT connectivity, can be collated and analysed. Alongside these improvements to functionality, Pete says Mazzer maintains a focus on preserving the flavour and aroma of coffee the grinder is putting out. “I had some excellent tasting coffee off this Super Jolly. The acidity is much more vibrant and the clarity of flavour is very high. I was shocked by just how clean and clear the flavours are,” Pete says.

“It’s clear Mazzer has put a high degree of attention to detail and engineering precision into the design of the Super Jolly V Pro, as well as the rest of its updated line-up.” This is seen not only in the news functions and features but internal design. For instance, Mazzer has drastically minimised grind retention by reducing the extra space for grounds to build up. He found as little as five grams from the top burr through the grinds chute. “The tolerances are tighter, construction is more precise, and there are other tiny details you wouldn’t notice unless you’ve used these grinders. It’s becoming better and better with each new model Mazzer brings to the market,” Pete says. “Mazzer clearly has a vision for what they want to put out, but they’re also listening and paying attention to what baristas want and are getting that handson perspective from people using the grinder in the field.” The Mazzer Super Jolly V Pro will be distributed in Australia through Coffee Works Express. For more information, visit www.mazzer.com or www.cwe.com.au

Mazzer reached out to former World Barista Champion Pete Licata for feedback on the new Super Jolly V Pro.

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

No more crying over split milk BeanScene learns from café owners how the Ubermilk milk foaming system has revolutionised their businesses and workflow.

hen Zach Hiotis opened Regiment café in the Sydney CBD four years ago, he knew it would be a risk installing not only the first, but the first two Ubermilk milk foaming systems in Australia. Now, he wouldn’t open a café without one. “Regiment is known for its lavish, high-end fit out, and one of those elements is this expensive stone marble we used for the benchtop. I remember standing there with one of our baristas saying: ‘I want to sink the Ubermilks in a little bit, so they’re the same height as our machines’,” Zach says. “They said, ‘hang on, are we going to cut a hole in this $30,000 benchtop to fit in these machines that are basically prototypes?’ I said ‘yes, I believe in the tech. These things are going to work’.” Work they did, and that marble benchtop now decorates the top of the two units. Zach set out to create the “ultimate workflow” at Regiment, with those Ubermilks the final point in a specialty coffee ‘assembly line’, also featuring four Mythos 2 grinders, a PuqPress tamper, and two straight-inportafilter La Marzocco KB90s. “The Mythos 2 grinders weigh your shots straight into your portafilter, which goes straight into a PuqPress, then right into the KB90. With the Ubermilk taking care of milk texturing, it doesn’t get easier than that,” Zach says. “The baristas were intimidated at first because they felt like it was there to take their jobs, but I made sure they knew pretty fast that it wasn’t a ‘barista killer’. Any skilled barista should be able to see that it’s there to make their job easier, not to replace them.” Rather than using steam to heat and texture milk, Ubermilk syphons the desired volume of milk from the refrigerator into an aerator, where a needle valve controls how much air is

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incorporated into the milk. The milk then runs through a high-power heater and filter, resulting in micro foamed milk pouring out of the nozzle. Zach says not using water steam to heat the milk means the dairy can maintain its sweetness. “There are some variables to make the milk frothier or flatter, but we find Ubermilk’s amazing at setting itself, so we can still split our milk and pour a cappuccino or a flat white out of it without changing a thing,” Zach says. “And as opposed to hand steaming,

The Ubermilk system has become an essential café item to Zach Hiotis.

where you’re usually left with wastage in the jug, you’re only dispensing the milk you need. I don’t look at Ubermilk as a cost saving measure, but it definitely is in terms of milk wastage over time.” While the Ubermilks take care of full cream dairy needs at Zach’s venues, baristas are still required to manually texture skim milks and dairy alternatives so they don’t lose that classic café sound. But with one less variable to focus on, Zach says baristas are able to

dedicate more attention to the actual coffee extraction. “I’ve been in the industry 21 years and talking to café owners back then, our biggest dilemma was getting a barista that could produce good milk. Now we focus more on the coffee itself,” Zach says. “Our shots are coming out with extra love and care because the barista isn’t juggling a bunch of other things.” Zach opened a second Sydney CBD store in 2020, Sevens Specialty Coffee, with a strong focus on specialty coffee and rare coffee beans in the Sydney CBD. He added a third, Yoho Loco, in Eveleigh in March 2021, which he says shares Regiment’s emphasis on the ultimate workflow. Both sites proudly feature Ubermilks beside their espresso machines. “Ubermilk takes away the stress of whether your staff is burning or under steaming the milk, and at the same time, you’re getting better baristas. When I’m hiring baristas and they see we have Ubermilks, it excites them because they know that burden of sitting there watching milk steam is taken off their back,” Zach says. “I would not open a café without one. For me, it’s a necessary piece of equipment if a café is planning to do serious volumes of coffee.” Rouby Sidarous operates three The Street Canteen cafés in busy NSW hospitals as well as Atomic Press at the University of New South Wales, and he could not agree more. “We open a new café about every six months and Ubermilk has become a standard part of our café installations,” Rouby says. “When we got our first Ubermilk two years ago, I saw it as ‘nice to have’. But now, the question isn’t if we’ll use Ubermilk, it’s ‘do we get one or do we get two?’” He adds there have been many benefits to installing Ubermilk, though speed of service has to be number one. “Some of our busier sites do more than 100 kilograms of coffee per week, so to have that speed in our peak times is a huge advantage for our customers,” he says. “Second is consistency – managing customer expectations. It takes out the anomalies, like the temperature of the milk, that individual baristas can introduce to the process.” Another key advantage is the efficiency Ubermilk provides in the backend as well as on the bar. Rouby says Ubermilk makes the difference between having one or two staff

The Street Canteen uses at least one Ubermilk at each location, with two at its busier sites.

members rostered on for quieter shifts. “It’s like an extra pair of hands. Across rostering and wastage, Ubermilk pays itself off without a doubt within the first year. At our biggest site, it paid itself off within six months,” he says. “The other thing, which is hard to quantify, is the extra sales. We work in high-traffic sites, where people can walk in, see the queue, and walk away. Ubermilk helps us get through orders quicker, which means losing less business because of a long queue.” Ubermilk is distributed in Australia through Barista Group. Rouby says he has received non-stop support over the years and no issues with the units. “In our experience over the past two years, as long as you follow the rules in the instruction manual, the Ubermilk just doesn’t break. You can tell it’s built to last. The digital interface is user friendly, and the user experience is quite intuitive. It doesn’t take long to train new staff in how to use it,” he says. “The guys at Barista Group know their stuff, they’re professionals, and

they’re passionate about the machine. I don’t think it would be out of turn to say they treat the initial purchase as step one of the relationship, not the final stop.” Rouby was hesitant at first to use the Ubermilk and was worried about what customers would think when they saw their milk coming right out of a machine. However, as Ubermilk began to grace the benchtops of more cafés, roasters, and coffee chains across Australia, he says baristas and customers quickly realised what the machine had to offer. “Even going from manual to automatic grinders was frowned upon back in the days. I think Ubermilk is the next step,” Rouby says. “Long gone are the days where the barista has to sweat it out behind the machine for a great cup of coffee. The product stand for itself, no matter how it was made and Ubermilk is a feather in the cap of that journey.” For more information, visit www.baristagroup.com.au

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

Straight to the soul De’Longhi’s latest PrimaDonna machine is a potential soul mate for any coffee lover, designed to deliver a perfect cup of coffee in a few easy steps.

he PrimaDonna is the leading lady, the headliner, the beauty – and so it has always been, and continues to be, with De’Longhi’s premium range of PrimaDonna fully automatic coffee machines. A key point of difference with the newly launched PrimaDonna Soul however, is that this Italian helps users connect with the “soul” of their coffee beans and achieve a perfect coffee minus the stress or hassle. “The De’Longhi PrimaDonna have always been the most premium of our automated machines. Think of the Italian PrimaDonna in opera – she’s special,” explains De’Longhi Product Trainer Cheryl Bosworth. “The PrimaDonna Soul, however, is about getting to the soul of the coffee – it’s a machine that knows your beans. Simply put, this machine is going to get users to their perfect coffee with minimal effort. I feel like PrimaDonna Soul is actually like a coffee soul mate – you connect with her, she makes beautiful-tasting coffee, and she looks gorgeous in the process.” One of the main features of the PrimaDonna Soul is the Bean Adapt Technology. This is an exclusive innovation from De’Longhi that adapts its settings to produce the ideal coffee extraction for the beans used. “De’Longhi has based this technology on sensorial tests performed by coffee scientists – and essentially they’ve developed the optimum settings for different bean and roast types. Of course, you can try and make settings for every coffee in the world, but there are many other variables and then there is an individual’s taste,” says Cheryl. “What’s clever about this technology, is it starts at those optimum parameters for brewing according to the coffee bean information, and then guides the user through sight and taste to refine to their personal taste. All of this is based on the user’s input using the Coffee Link app.” The app is an important part of that communication. It guides users through

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the process step-by-step so they can create their own, personalised coffee. Users can save up to six bean profiles, with each one adapting the grind, dose, and temperature for each specific bean choice. “This makes it really easy for users to switch between different bean varieties without the knowledge of the settings,” Cheryl says. “It’s a seamless process and once a user has achieved that perfect cup, the machine remembers, so it will just be one touch of The Coffee Link app also means users can make modifications to recipes and even make a coffee remotely.

a button for the next time.” Users can photograph and label their bean types, and also their finished coffees and save them for future reference. Another key automatic feature is the electronically-controlled flat burr precision grinder. “This is easily controlled through the touchscreen with guidance for users regarding the correct grinder parameters,” says Cheryl. “What’s also amazing with the electronic grinder is

The PrimaDonna Soul is the latest premium fully automatic machine from De’Longhi.

that the settings will adjust straight away, so you don’t have to use all the beans in the hopper before the new grind setting can adjust, preventing wastage of specialty beans.” Moreover, De’Longhi’s thermoblock technology ensures the optimal extraction temperature between 88°C and 96°C, tailored to the specific coffee recipe that has been chosen. PrimaDonna Soul has 21 in-built recipes. Users can easily swipe through the selection via the large 4.3-inch touch display, similar to any smart phone or tablet device. It also provides users with easy access and customisation of the recipes, including one-touch favourites such as latte and flat white. “The [recipes] I find particularly exciting are the Mug To Go, which allows users to save the recipe to match their specific travel mug size and offers two options of either coffee, milk and water, in any order you choose,” Cheryl says. “Others include the Cortado, which is a half-milk, half-coffee espresso that’s basically a piccolo and is also popular in Australia. Another is the Coffee Pot option, where it will individually grind and dose for every two cups in a carafe. And last but not least, the Over Ice, which provides you with a low temperature coffee extraction that you pour over your ice. You end up getting this filter, cold-brew-tasting coffee that’s absolutely sublime.” To cater to Australia’s continuing penchant for milk-based beverages is De’Longhi’s LatteCrema milk system.

This world-renowned technology is patented to De’Longhi, whose engineers have refined the method of skilfully mixing air, milk, and steam with accuracy to create a soft yet compact milk froth. “The LatteCrema technology produces perfectly textured milk every single time – the right density, the right creaminess, and the perfect industry standard temperature into your cup,” Cheryl says. “As a fully-trained barista with over 25 years’ experience, I’m in awe of how this system achieves such flawless results each time I use it.” Furthermore, PrimaDonna Soul includes an easy refill option on its LatteCrema milk system. This allows users to add milk to the carafe, even as the machine is delivering their coffee. It’s features such as these, and the bespoke recipes that have been included as standard which show just how much De’Longhi appreciates its Australian customer base. “The Australian love for specialty coffee is absolutely reflected in this machine with its Bean Adapt Technology and the precision grinder – which are designed for perfect extraction,” Cheryl says. “Also, the recipes have definitely been influenced by Australian proclivities – for example, the coffee pouring before milk. De’Longhi have really listened to their Australian customer base and come up with recipes in this machine to suit their tastes.” Personalisation is also a prime part of the innovations that De’Longhi keep developing and are exampled in this latest machine. “Customisation is very important to

De’Longhi. We recognise that achieving the perfect coffee is a personal journey, but we’re constantly trying to help make that journey as easy and seamless as possible,” Cheryl says. “De’Longhi are innovators in this sector because we’re always trying to improve on ourselves, and in PrimaDonna Soul we see the introduction of this new technology that makes a significant difference to the whole user experience.” The Wi-Fi connectivity and Coffee Link app also means users can make modifications to recipes and even make a coffee remotely. “You could be walking home from the train station and remotely start making your coffee so it’s ready when you arrive,” Cheryl says. “There’s also artificial intelligence at play, which brings all your favourite recipes to the fore. Honestly, there’s so much smart technology in this machine it’s astonishing.” PrimaDonna Soul is specifically designed for coffee lovers who want to experiment with new coffee tastes and beverages without having gone through years of barista training. All they need to do is become acquainted with this leading lady. “It’s a machine made for people who love specialty coffee but don’t necessarily want to go through all the exact processes to get to their perfect tasting coffee. It truly encapsulates the name PrimaDonna Soul. A star who gets to the soul of your coffee.” For more information, visit www.delonghi.com/en-au/products/ coffee/primadonna-soul

Features like LatteCrema and Bean Adapt Technology are well suited to Australian coffee drinkers.

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CAFÉ SCENE

The Paradox Coffee Roasters Café is designed to showcase the coffee making process.

PARADOX COFFEE ROASTERS CAFÉ 10 Beach Road, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, 4217 Open seven days, 7am to 2pm (07) 5538 3235 Situated in the Gold Coast, Paradox Coffee Roasters Café provides customers with a unique coffee experience with its on-site roastery, coffee lab and training academy. “Paradox Coffee Roasters set out to provide a deeper coffee experience for both café and wholesale customers with our onsite roastery and coffee lab,” says James Rodger, Sales Director of Paradox Coffee Roasters. “Our customers can talk to the people who source, roast and serve our coffee. We always find it exciting to build people’s knowledge on the journey coffee takes from farm to cup.” The Aussie roaster opened its flagship in 2015 and continues to delight locals with its exceptional coffee, delicious food, and a strong commitment to origin, traceability, and sustainability. “We ensure every coffee served to our customers not only is on point but represents the farmers and roasting team,” James says. “We also love being part of the local Gold Coast community, not only serving

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freshly roasted coffee daily but supporting local charities like Oz Harvest.” The flagship café offers customers all four Paradox blends – Paper Moon, Penny Lane, Purple Rain Organic and Picasso Baby – alongside that month’s single origin line-up. The space is designed to showcase the coffee making process. Customers can take a front row seat at the café’s U-shaped coffee bar to watch skilled baristas behind the espresso machine.

The Paradox flagship serves all four blends and rotating single origins from the roaster.

“Witnessing our baristas pull a perfectly timed shot and pour showcases the passion our team has for delivering exceptional coffee,” says Paradox Café Manager Jason Degasperi. “We offer a full range of coffee experiences including espresso, filter and cold brew. We also love experimenting and having fun with drinks and have created our very own Nuttellatte and Salted-Caramel Iced Latte in addition to our Paradox Cold Brew which are brewed and bottled onsite.” Paradox Coffee Roasters Café café also offers a full range of whole bean blends and origins produced by its roastery to give guests the opportunity to buy fresh-roasted, sustainable-sourced coffee. The same passion for quality coffee is reflected in the food menu, sourcing ingredients from local providores. A new online ordering platform provides the convenience for customers to order food and coffee from their table. “We recommend kicking off the morning with Paradox Breakfast Tacos with scrambled eggs, chorizo, salsa verde, and chilli relish or if you have a sweet tooth the Apple and Blueberry Waffles with almond coconut crumble and salted caramel ice cream,” Jason says. “If you need to keep it healthy the house made Acai Granola Bowl, or for lunch the Buddha Bowl, are delicious, and all are prepared by our in-house chefs.” Located in an industrial bus terminal, the café has soaring ceilings with a gentrified warehouse feel. A large-scale mural created by local artist Vans The Omega is a central feature. “Being located next to a large commercial building means we often attract young professionals for coffee and lunch along with locals and tourists of all ages,” Jason says. “Paradox Coffee Roasters are ‘For The People’ and this is demonstrated by our loyal customers that visit us daily.”

UNCLE BART 607 Balcombe Road, Black Rock, Victoria, 3193 Open seven days 6am to 3pm (03) 9589 2099 Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and since Uncle Bart Café opened in 2011, owner Chris Arhondonis says it has served as the “Cheers” of Black Rock, Victoria. “We’re longstanding in the community – it will be 10 years this year. From the beginning, we’ve tried to make everyone feel at home when they come here,” Chris says. “A lot of people know each other or have met in here, networked, and became great friends. I introduce customers to each other that are in the same field. I’m

Uncle Bart is named after its owner’s uncle, Bartholomew the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

like Nokia, I’m connecting people.” After a lifetime in hospitality, working in his parents’ fish and chip shops as a kid and managing hotels in the United States as an adult, Chris was ready to put his stamp on things. “I came back from the States and wanted to do my own thing, a little café where I could play my own music,” he says. “I was looking for a café in the area and bought this one from operators that hadn’t been here long and were just serving coffee with toasties and bought-in cakes. I brought in a full menu with breakfast, lunch, and good coffee.” Since early 2021, Uncle Bart has served the Crave blend from Veneziano Coffee Roasters, a coffee Chris likes for its “strong and bold” flavours. “I wanted a coffee supplier that was consistent with their roasting and offered great support services. We’re just starting out really, but I’m already getting that from Veneziano,” he says. Espresso is made using a La Marzocco Linea PB coffee machine and Mahlkönig EK43 and Mythos One grinders. Uncle Bart also serves a Greek-style coffee offering that Chris says is popular with a handful of regulars while paying homage to his heritage. “There’s a few Greek things on the menu

Uncle Bart serves the Crave blend from Veneziano Coffee Roasters.

to go with my background. My mum makes a Revani lemon tea cake that’s been our biggest seller since day one,” he says. “We also do a moussaka that’s very popular, a couple of homemade Greek biscuits, and a nice lamb Greek salad that’s a big seller as well.” Even the café’s name pays homage to Chris’s background. “I named it after my uncle, Bartholomew the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople – the leader of the Orthodox religion,” Chris says. “He heard I call him Uncle Bart and thought it was funny, so I thought it’d be funny to call the café that too.”

PERCY 2 Te Kapua Drive, Mangere, Auckland 2022, New Zealand Open weekdays 7am to 3pm, weekends 9am to 3pm +649 600 6606 Situated right by Auckland Airport in the Landing Business Park, Percy café serves as a great start or finish to a person’s time in New Zealand. “To help make tourists’ experiences great, we have added a lot of emphasis on our food’s ‘kiwiness’, serving up a classic kiwi style to either welcome or give a great NZ send-off,” says Roger Liu, Director of Woozoo Hospitality Group, the business behind Percy. “We always try to use local ingredients too, to support our surrounding business and continue showcasing NZ in the best way possible.” Percy takes its name from an aeroplane kept at Auckland Airport called Percival Gull. Roger calls the plane “a famous piece of history” that Jean Batten flew solo from England to New Zealand in 1936. “For the name, we wanted something that had a pre-existing relationship to the area and was also friendly sounding,” he says. “The Auckland Airport International Terminal was named after the pilot, Jean Batten, therefore we decided to name our café after her plane. It’s a small connection that helps

Percy was designed by RTA Studio and Material Creative to a good place to bring any guest – client, colleague, or cousin.

make Percy a part of the community.” Expecting a diverse range of customers, Percy was designed by RTA Studio and Material Creative to a good place to bring any guest – client, colleague, or cousin. “It was important to consider the environment and the neighbours, there were a lot of very established surrounding companies, so we wanted Percy to feel part of ‘The Landing’ family, to be aspirational with a level of sophistication,” Roger says. “We wanted to merge this style choice with the feel of an inner-city eatery, so it would feel like your ‘local’ and not just part of a chain of cafés.” Percy serves coffee from Atomic Coffee, which focuses on high quality and fair-trade

green beans, roasted carefully on a Loring Kestrel, for a complex and rich flavour profile. “The team at Atomic Coffee Roasters provide us with a specific extraction recipe designed for each of their blends. Each dose and its yield is weighed to ensure a consistent extraction,” Roger says. With COVID-19 restrictions limiting traffic from the airport, Roger says Percy has been lucky to be embraced by the local community. “Our customers really appreciate what we are trying to do, and they continue to support us,” he says. “It’s been great to have the community rally behind us and we are thrilled to continue serving them great experiences and great coffee.”

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CAFÉ SCENE COMMON GROUND COFFEE & KITCHEN Westfield Hurstville, 301/3 Cross Street, Hurstville, New South Wales, 2220 Open seven days 8:30am to 5pm Over the past five years, Common Ground Coffee & Kitchen has provided the residents of Hurstville in New South Wales the kind of artisanal café experience you’d expect in the ‘coffee capitals’. “I honestly think it’s one of the best cafés in the area. We’re known for our great food and coffee,” says Co-owner Harvi Singh. “My background is working as a chef, so we take a lot of pride in our food.” While Harvi and Co-owner Amit Khatri enjoyed sharing their culinary experience with customers, built over years of travelling the world, he knew Common Ground could do more with a larger space. When another location in the same Westfield shopping centre opened up in 2020, Harvi saw an opportunity to bring to life the café he spent five years envisioning. “It’s very chic industrial. It continues the industrial look we previously had, but with more refined and modern elements,” he says. “It’s a fantastic location, more open and in the middle of the centre, so there’s a lot more traffic. We were closed for about two months during the move and the best part of reopening was really seeing all the regulars come right back. They missed us, which was great to see.” Harvi says Common Ground’s new look has continued to prove popular with customers since the reopening in November. One of the many cool elements combining the chic and industrial themes are brass pipes hanging from the ceiling that dispense takeaway cups for the barista. The centrepiece is an electroplated bronze Tech-Bar below-

Takeaway coffee cups are dispensed through brass pipes hanging from the ceiling.

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An electroplated bronze Tech-Bar is the centrepiece of the redeisgned Common Ground Coffee & Kitchen.

counter espresso machine, one of the first of its kind in NSW, maximising bench space while inviting customers into the coffee making experience. “The Tech-Bar works like a dream, and with it, our espresso stands apart from the rest,” Harvi says. “There was always a lot of clutter on top of the bench [in cafés], and having the machine there, blocking out the customer, just didn’t make a lot of sense. But people just got used to the idea. Now, when customers see something like the Tech-Bar,

they actually stop. It starts a conversation. It’s a great icebreaker as well as looking really good.” Common Ground serves coffee from San Pedro, running its Super X blend for milk-based coffee, Cartwheel for black, as well as the Night Bloom blend and rotating single origins for filter. Harvi says the recent partnership began out of a desire to serve a bolder coffee. “We did a lot of research and San Pedro hit all the right notes for us. I think the market here is NSW is a little obsessed with lighter roasts,” he says. “These guys from San Pedro came in with this darker roast, that was bold with a lot of character and way less acidity. It packs a punch and that’s what I like in my coffee.” On the food side of things, Harvi says the menu takes inspiration from many influences, particularly Taiwanese dishes. The Pork belly and Crispy fried chicken bao, served with Asian slaw, peanuts and toasted sesame seeds, is a particular favourite, though with such a diverse menu, Harvi says there is something for everyone. “We have lots of different people come in, with a good balance of ages and backgrounds,” he says. “That’s what I wanted to do here with this café, create a common ground for everyone.”

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TECH TALK

Maurizio Marcocci is the Director of Service Sphere.

Ultimate road test Maurizio Marcocci puts three multi-boiler espresso machines through their paces as Service Sphere welcomes new Rancilio, ECM, and Victoria Arduino models to its portfolio.

t’s an exciting time to be in the market for a new espresso machine. Whether you’re continuing to work from home, looking for a new addition to your office, roastery or coffee shop to meet demand for you and your customers, three new multi-boiler machines come to mind: the Rancilio Silvia Pro, ECM Synchronika and Victoria Arduino Eagle One Prima. In a time when space, sustainability and usability are front of mind, these machines are serious market contenders. To prove so, I’ve put them to the test to help you make an informed purchasing decision.

RANCILIO SILVIA PRO

The Silvia Pro is the new single group espresso machine by Rancilio. A vast upgrade from the previous versions, the Silvia Pro provides precision and control over every shot, with limited footprint due to its compact design. The Silvia Pro is a blend of the professional performance of Rancilio espresso machines and the robust simplicity of the Silvia. With the addition of two proportional integral derivatives (PID), a digital display, two independent boilers and a wider range of coffee solutions, the Silvia Pro is designed to provide café quality espresso from the comfort of home.

FEATURES:

•D ouble boiler: Electronic control over water and independent regulation of different temperatures for both coffee extraction and steam delivery are easily manageable via the display buttons. Two PID controllers – located in the coffee boiler and the new steam boiler – keep the heat consistent and stable, offering extremely precise temperature stability, shot after shot. •T hermal stability: The Silvia Pro’s

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impressive thermal stability puts it in the top class of commercial espresso machines, offering extremely precise temperature delivery for espresso. •P owerful steam: Steam like a pro with high powered steam delivery. All espresso-based milk beverages can be made with ease with luscious foam and creamy steamed milk. •D igital display: The display presents temperature levels, a shot timer, water level alert and a “wake up” function that can switch on the machine at a pre-set time. •B uild quality: High-quality professional build with heavy-duty components. This includes an ergonomic portafilter, insulated boilers, multi-directional stainless-steel steam wand, cup tray and dedicated coffee boiler. This machine features Rancilio’s commercial components and brewing technology in just 25 centimetres.

ECM SYNCHRONIKA

The Synchronika from ECM is an adapt dual-boiler machine boasting a wealth of innovation focused on impressing the most expert home barista. Top quality components offer raw power, excelled thanks to ECM’s custom styling. The Synchronika guarantees a maximum in flexibility with its dual boiler system.

FEATURES:

•S tainless steel coffee boiler and steam/ hot water boiler •S ubtle, silver-coloured PID display - for the individual adjustment of the temperatures - to indicate the coffee brewing time - for an optional display of the brew group cleaning reminder •H igh-end ECM brew group with

innovative stainless-steel bell •L ow-noise rotary pump •S witchable from water tank to a fixed water connection •L arge boiler and pump pressure gauges in a retro design •P rofessional quick-steam and hot-water valves, in an extravagant design, with an ergonomic movement mechanism •T wo ergonomically angled ECM portafilters with weight-balanced shape.

VICTORIA ARDUINO EAGLE ONE PRIMA

This one-group espresso coffee machine is ready to bring you the ultimate Victoria Arduino coffee experience. This machine presents a new way to prepare and enjoy espresso coffee at home, at the office, or for any venue on the market for a compact machine with all the same technology Victoria Arduino is renowned for, but in a small size. It is a versatile and eclectic machine that opens up a new way of living.

FEATURES:

•N ew Engine Optimisation (NEO): The NEO engine uses an instant heating system with a unique insulation mechanism, that reduces not only the heat dispersion but also energy consumption. It works almost instantly, allowing only the necessary amount of water for the extraction to be heated, thus reducing energy-related costs •1 00 per cent digital: It’s possible to set the temperature and see the extraction time along with the steam and hot water from the Victoria Arduino app. You can create recipes and share them with the community. It has all the functions of a professional device at hand, controlled by a user-friendly and straightforward app.

•V ersatile: The Prima is available in many colours and textures to adapt to current trends. •L ow environmental impact: The Prima is a sustainable alternative that considers the machine’s environmental impact in terms of economic and energy savings. NEO technology uses less energy to heat

water for coffee extraction. Its boiler size is also reduced and covered with an innovative insulating material to avoid possible energy dispersions. The choice is yours, but whatever you decide, know that you’re making an investment in your coffee experience from three exceptional machines.

For more information, a complimentary one-on-one demonstration, or to purchase a unit, contact Service Sphere on 1300 730 680 or visit servicesphere.com.au * The below table of information has been collated as a result of Service Sphere testing.

EQUIPMENT ATTRIBUTES

VA EAGLE ONE PRIMA

RANCILLIO SILVIA PRO

ECM SYNRONICA

MADE

ITALY

BOILERS

STAINLESS STEEL – THERMALLY INSULATED

BOILER CAPACITIES

TWIN B\BOILER – BREW & STEAM

TWIN BOILER – BREW & STEAM

TWIN BOILER - BREW & STEAM

WATER RESERVOIR

TANK OR PLUMB

BOTH – OUT OF THE BOX

TANK

BOTH – OUT OF THE BOX

PUMP

ROTARY

VIBRATING

ROTARY

PUMP PRESSURE ADJUSTABLE

YES

PID

YES, BREW & STEAM

DISPLAY

SHOT TIMER

LED LIGHTS

YES, REAR & WORKING SERVICES

VOLUMETRIC BREWING

YES

PRE-INFUSION

YES

MANUAL

APP CONTROL

YES

POWER RATING

10 AMP

HXDXW

379 X 510 X 411

390 X 420 X 250

410 X 490 X 335

GROUP HEIGHT

153 MM

160 MM

150 MM

WEIGHT

37KG

20KG

30KG

MACHINE HEAT UP TIME

15 MINS FROM COLD

10 MINS FROM COLD

20 MINS FROM COLD

WARRANTY

12 MONTHS

RRP

$7350

$2850

$4990

WHERE TO BUY

SERVICESPHERE.COM.AU

STARTER PACK INCLUDES GROUP HANDLE SINGLE

YES

GROUP HANDLE DOUBLE

YES

SINGLER PORTA FILTER

YES

DOUBLE PORTA FILTER

YES (21 GM)

YES (16 GM)

YES (18 GM)

BLIND FILTER

STAINLESS

PLASTIC

STAINLESS

TAMPER

METAL

MEASURING SPOON

YES

USER MANUAL

YES

CLEANING PRODUCTS

COFFEE & MILK QUALITY ATTRIBUTES: MILK FOAMING FULL CREAM MILK 200ML TO 65°C

17.5 SEC

37 SEC

32.5 SEC

FULL CREAM MILK 300ML TO 65°C

36 SEC

57 SEC

45.5 SEC

HOT WATER (DEGREES)

82.5°C

83.5°C

94°C

BOILER SET POINT (DEGREES)

92°C

ESPRESSO TEST

16.4GM

TIME

22 SEC

21 SEC

22 SEC

MILLILITRES

IN CUP TEMP (DEGREES)

66°C

63.3°C

62°C

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ESPRESSO YOURSELF

Caleb Cha is the 2015 World Latte Art Champion and Pura ASCA Australian Latte Art Champion.

Caleb’s Giraffe 2015 World Latte Art Champion Caleb Cha makes a guest appearance as this edition’s latte art columnist, sharing his African safari Giraffe design.

hen BeanScene asked me to make a comeback in the magazine and share one of my favourite latte art patterns, I was thrilled to get back to the skill I know and love so well. It’s been six years since that fateful day I was crowned the Australian and World Latte Art Champion. It’s a day I’ll never forget. And in times like these when where we’re restricted to international travel and large gatherings, it makes this win seem even more precious and memorable. Attending the ASCA Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships in March with restricted attendees also made me thankful for the small and close-knit coffee family I share here in Australia. This time however, I wasn’t the one performing, I was on the other side of the table judging the Pauls Professional Australian Latte Art Championship. I made sure to show compassion to each competitor that stepped up to perform in the same way other judges had done to me when I first competed, shaky hands and all. But it was the sheer talent and skill of

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the baristas that blew me away. I had the best seat in the house to some of the most amazing, detailed and realistic latte art designs. I wholeheartedly congratulate this year’s winner, Victor Vu of Ona Coffee who will soon take over this column as per the tradition of national champions. I can’t wait to see what knowledge and patterns he shares with you. Until then, I’m going to demonstrate a fun design that brings me joy every time I look at it, my Giraffe. I’ve always loved giraffes and wondered how to replicate it in the cup. The trick is in the detail. I challenged myself to see how realistic I could make this animal, then I had the idea to add a tree, and before I knew it, I’ve painted an African safari in the cup with the giraffe trying to eat the tree branches. So there it is, my giraffe. It came to life in the cup and I hope it will for you too. Until my next guest appearance, good luck, happy pouring, and congratulations to all of this year’s talented Australian baristas who have found a passion for latte art as I did all those years ago, and still share today.

1. With the handle at three o’clock, pour a six-leaf rosetta from the centre of the cup pointing towards four o’clock. Then, pour a 10-leaf rosetta along the bottom of the cup.

3. Turn the handle back to three o’clock and pour a small four-leaf rosetta in the top left corner. Pour a parallel four-leaf rosetta just below the centre of the cup.

5. From the centre of the cup, pour a small C-shape for one front leg then pour another slightly curved line almost touching the bottom rosetta.

7. Starting at the top rosetta, pour a line out slightly to the left and pull back through, just passing your starting point. Then, finish the face of the giraffe with an upwards curved line.

2. Turn the handle towards six o’clock and pour an 11-leaf rosetta from the centre of the cup towards three o’clock, forming the neck of the giraffe.

4. Pour a curved line connecting your two right-most rosettas, and a second just to the left of the first to form the back legs.

6. Pour a line connecting the left of the bottom rosetta to the centre of the lower small rosetta. From the middle of that line, pour another that connects with the top one.

8. In the empty space to the right of the neck, create a cloud with four to five drops of milk foam (like the Olympic rings symbol upside down). Finish with another small drop of foam slightly above it for the sun.

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WATER WORKS

Birgit Kohler is the Head of Organoleptic Department at BRITA.

Hidden gem Birgit Kohler, Head of Organoleptic Department at BRITA, discusses the work of a water sommelière and what secrets lie beneath the surface of H2O.

ine is one of many complex beverages where people can turn their passion and expertise into a profession. A sommelière or sommelier is one such occupation representing someone with an extensive knowledge and experience in wine, with the ability to identify its many flavour characteristics and ideal pairings. Baristas may not use terms like sommelière to describe their broad understanding of coffee – yet – but they do play a similar role. The understanding of water composition is another complex world, and I am proud to be a certified sommelière of this much used and transparent liquid. A water sommelier is an expert in water – someone who is aware of its differences regarding sensory and chemical aspects. Like wine sommeliers, they often work in the hospitality business and advise in the choice of beverages. I trained to be a certified water sommelière with a comprehensive

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The BRITA Organoleptic Department includes (left to right): Alexandra Merz, Birgit Kohler, Marion Felleisen, and Vanessa Reinhardt.

program at the renowned Doemens Genussakademie in Germany. This provided the basis for my understanding of water, chemically and physiologically, as well as the sensory perception of individuals and peer groups. I started working for water filtration company BRITA in 2008. Since 2013, I have been the Head of the Organoleptic Department and analysing the sensory aspects of water is my daily job. My qualification as a water sommelière is only one pillar of my profession and expertise. In addition to my background of studies in nutrition science, I am also a qualified coach. At BRITA, my focus – alongside

a team of trained experts – is on understanding the sensory perception of water, tea, and coffee and bringing this knowledge into product development. Adequate hydration is the basis of all metabolic processes in our body and, thus, the basis of our health. Without any doubt, water is the most important foodstuff, but it is just as well the most underestimated. Water offers a broad variety of sensory experiences but still, the majority of people would say that water is tasteless, or that there is no difference between waters. In reality, people call water “tasteless” because they do not pay attention to its sensory properties. Sensory of water is a complex interaction of all water ingredients. Additionally, sensory perception is only rarely a linear correlation of ingredients. For example, most people do evaluate water without any minerals as bitter, sour or slightly sweet. Water with only a few ingredients is perceived as “neutral”, while water with a lot of ingredients can

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generate several sensory experiences. The reason for this is, that we are surrounded by water day by day. Water in food and beverages, water for brushing our teeth or to drink. We do not realise how often our senses get in touch with water. From a physiological perspective, it doesn’t make any sense to receive sensory information about the taste of water. The senses of most people adjust to the water which they are used to. We are not used to water without ingredients. Because people often lack words to describe sensory of water, the team at BRITA has developed the sensory water wheel. Sensory wheels describe foods and beverages and are a tool to train sensory panels. The BRITA Water Wheel displays the three main sensory dimensions of water: taste, odour, and mouthfeel. The attributes of each sensory dimension are differentiated in the inner circle. The second circle is used to detail the quality of each attribute The outer circle contains so-called ‘reference substances’ – known to generate the corresponding sensory effect – and is designed especially for panel trainings. We are not used to water without a few ‘extra ingredients’, and there are three main influencing parameters on the sensory of water: minerals, organic compounds, and substances from water treatment. I think each of them have their own specific fascinations. Minerals mainly influence taste and

mouthfeel, while organic compounds and substances from water treatment affect odour and mouthfeel. They also influence each other. These compounds determine the water itself but also every beverage which is prepared with it, especially coffee. I regularly host sensory water trainings. Since we started these at BRITA, each and every participant was able to differentiate waters according to their taste or, more precise, according to their sensory properties. Tasting water is similar to tasting any other beverage. You need to be prepared properly and train regularly. This means no intense drinks or food at least one hour before the tasting, no perfume, no chocolate, et cetera. I personally drink warm filtered water in advance to a tasting to prepare my taste buds and I train as often as possible. Your emotional condition has a huge influence on sensory perception.

Therefore, before a tasting I try to take some time to sort my thoughts and to find my inner balance. And, of course, I prefer tastings in an adequate environment. Even a sensory professional like me can’t focus if there is a lot of distraction. That’s why most tastings take place in our sensory lab at BRITA. There the conditions are perfect: silence, comfortable temperature, odour-free air, light colours, and separate tasting booths. When it comes to water, we look at similar sensory dimensions as you would for coffee: optic, odour, taste, aftertaste, and mouthfeel. Unlike in coffee, the role and importance of each sensory dimension and its corresponding attributes are quite different. For example, while optic is important in coffee, it is of minor relevance to water. I would say odour or smell plays the most similar role between both beverages. However, the most important dimension in the sensory of water is mouthfeel. Whenever people are asked to describe water samples, they often use terms like “soft”, “flat”, or “drying”. So, water sensory is not only about taste and odour, it is also about the feeling that water causes during and after drinking. I want people to reflect on the sensory of water, encourage them to taste different waters in order to find their personal preference, and simply enjoy drinking water. Water is a jewel which we have in our daily life without noticing it. It’s my hope that people are becoming more and more aware of its value. Water sommeliers are one way to raise awareness of the value and varied sensory qualities of water. The importance of water composition has become increasingly prominent when it comes to brewing coffee, and I can see this translating into how water is served in other ways by gastronomy. For more information, visit www.brita.com.au

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ASCA

Kieran Westlake is the President of the Australian Specialty Coffee Association.

We are back and we are live The 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships once again demonstrates our leadership on the world coffee stage.

fter thorough and careful planning, I can proudly say that the 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships were a resounding success. When ASCA first planned to host the competitions in South Australia last year, we did so with the intention of making it our largest Nationals to date. While COVID-19 presented difficult, challenging times and a lot of unknown, we didn’t abandon our hopes and ambition for an Australian Coffee Championships unlike any other. We knew the 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships would look and feel different. It was my vision, along with the ASCA Board, to deliver a first-ever fully digital championship. We could see the resilience of our coffee industry and the work and sacrifices all Australians were willing to make to beat this pandemic, and we wanted to give back and provide hope for all our members, sponsors, and competitors. By the start of this year, we were confident we could make these competitions happen. A snap five-day lockdown in Victoria only weeks out had us on edge, but things quickly settled, and the coffee industry’s best of the best flew in from around the country to demonstrate why Australia’s coffee talent is world renowned. We are one of the very few countries able to host a national coffee championship this year and this is testament to Australia’s handling of

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the pandemic and our commitment to evolving and supporting the coffee community and industry. Our first-ever livestream of the 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships gave us the ability to broadcast to all of our coffee community in the country and to those around the world. This would not have been possible without the support of our marketing partners at Show Pony, with a special mention to Matt Basso. There are a number of people I’d like to thank for our accomplishment – all of our sponsors who made these competitions possible, my fellow Board members in particular Vice President Bruno Maiolo and the Competition Committee for organising the event, judges and volunteers who gave their time and energy, and the competitors who put on a great show. Our audiovisual, production crew, and emcees all delivered an incredible quality show. A big congratulations to our champions: Vitasoy Barista Champion Hugh Kelly who believed enough in his coffees to present two species to judges that weren’t Arabica and first time competitors Sttoke Brewers Cup Champion Carlos Escobar and TCX Cup Tasters Champion Charlie Chu who beat the odds against seasoned competitors. Further congratulations to Danny Wilson who claimed the Monin Coffee in Good Spirits Championship for the third year straight, and Pauls Professional Latte Art Champion Victor Vu – who’s patterns reminded us of coffee’s ability to connect people. It’s not quite clear when our

The 2020 Vitasoy Barista Championship top three: Anthony Douglas, Hugh Kelly, and Lena Richrath.

champions will be able to represent Australia on the world stage – right now Latte Art, Coffee in Good Spirits, and Coffee Roasting are the only world championships that have dates set. But whenever it may be, I believe we can all be proud and confident of how they will represent Australia’s coffee talent. While 2020 proved to be a year of challenges and compromises, it led to what was one of our most successful nationals to date, with a wider reach and longevity than any past competition. If you missed any of the action, you can catch the highlights on our website: www.australianspecialtycoffee.com. au/2020-nationals Sign up for our FREE newsletter at www.australianspecialtycoffee. com.au

NZSCA

Emma McDougall is the Communications and Administration Co-ordinator of the NZSCA.

Coming of age Emma McDougall uncovers the rise of the New Zealand Barista Championship and its impact on the specialty coffee industry over the past 20 years. Part one of three.

n 2021, New Zealand will crown its 19th New Zealand Barista Champion. However, with COVID-19 throwing the world out of whack last year, it will also mark 20 years since Emma Markland Webster won our first NZ Barista Championship way back in 2001. A fortuitous winner indeed, as Emma (who placed fifth in the World Barista Championship 2002) has gone on to become the Events Director for the New Zealand Specialty Coffee Association’s creating a world class professional Championship portfolio in Godzone and overseeing Championship Judges and committees at World level. The NZSCA’s current treasurer, Nic McClean of Extra Shot Coffee Consulting, led the charge for our first barista championship back in the day while working for Robert Harris Coffee. Nic and Robert Harris continued to run the event for another seven years. “Before we could host an event and send a NZ rep to the worlds, we had to get permission from two officials of the World Barista Championship (WBC). It was far more informal than what is required today,” Nic says. “[One of the WBC’s founders Alf Kramer] read our proposal, asked a few questions, and gave us the nod. Literally, no contract just a shake of the hand and a welcome to the club. Then on to Bern, Switzerland to meet Markus Blaser from the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe. This meeting was a lot longer, but he liked what I had to say.” After receiving the go-ahead to host the competition and send the winner to the next WBC in Norway, the Robert Harris team’s next step was finding competitors. “Even the word ‘barista’ was still new to many people so the concept of getting people to enter a barista competition,

Nic McClean helped establish the New Zealand Barista Championship.

with no such thing as social media, was an imposing task. We printed flyers, had great buy in and support from across the industry, and roasters all over were inviting their café clients,” Nic says. “Having not run or seen a national barista competition at that stage, the process was very much guess work. We decided to run three regional heats and a final at the Culinary Fair in Auckland. We encouraged anyone to enter and I think we had about 120 contestants in the first regionals.” While those involved in first New Zealand Barista Championship remember it fondly, it was not without hiccups. When the container meant to be carrying equipment arrived at the venue, Nic opened it to find it was completely empty. “Luckily, the correct container was not far away, and the show went off after just one more hitch. When all the machines were powered up, the resulting power surge blew most of the fuses at the venue,” he says. “One last panic that year was a few days before our inaugural winner, Emma, was setting off for Oslo. We discovered that competitors were supposed to take their own grinder, just a small thing no one had remembered to tell us.”

While the NZ Barista Championship may now host a fair few less than 120 competitors, its role and importance to the specialty coffee industry has only grown over time. Nic says while some things have changed, much of what goes into running a coffee competition remains the same. “As it is today, it was a big logistical job running an event and getting espresso machines around the country in one piece and on time,” Nic says. “We had the added complexity of three regional and one final event and over a hundred competitors. Getting everyone through on time meant we had all three workstations on the go, each starting on different cycles.” Nic attributes the success of the first, and every following, New Zealand Barista Championship to the willingness of the specialty coffee community to collaborate. “A huge number of coffee companies joined in and helped in everything from getting competitors to sign up, training and supporting them, runners on the day to setting standards and then judging the events and cleaning up afterwards. It was a big call for them to all get behind what was an event branded by one of their competitors,” Nic says. “Everyone agreed ‘competitions drive standards and standards drive volume’, which was good for everyone in the coffee business. I will always be grateful to those roasters who picked up on the plan and were critical to getting the competition off the ground.” The Meadow Fresh NZ Barista Championship 2021 took place from 20 to 21 March in Upper Hutt. For more information on the New Zealand Specialty Coffee Association, or to join, visit www.nzsca.org

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E-SCENE

Every edition we highlight BeanScene’s digital coffee community, hearing from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram followers. For more information, visit www.beanscenemag.com.au ‘Like’ us on Facebook/BeanSceneCoffeeMag

ANNABELLE DAVEY I am a 20-year-old, born and raised Melburnian, whose love of coffee arose from my job at Axil Coffee Roasters. I have just passed my two-year anniversary working with the amazing crew. During COVID-19, I really delved into my coffee making skills and started working behind the bar as a barista, practising latte art and trying to perfect my swans and tulips. My usual order is a flat white, however, I drink most types of coffee and all sorts of milk – it is lucky I have access to so much variety at work. A favourite of mine though, is a New Orleans brew that Axil makes in-house: a sweeter, spiced iced milk beverage. I absolutely love the coffee culture that Melbourne has to offer, in particular our barista/ customer relationship. Those connections truly make coming to work such a pleasure.

SARAH MANGAN I’m Sarah, a mum of three, a primary school PE teacher, in my mid 30s, living in Kyabram in regional Victoria, and I love coffee. I have always been a morning exerciser but during the COVID-19 lockdown last year, my neighbour and I turned it into a daily habit. We would walk into town and get a coffee from one of our many cafés called Morocco’s. This little gem is our go-to for an early morning caffeine hit thanks to the owner Rocco who is always there at the crack of dawn prepping for the day. Visiting each morning gave us something to look forward to. I always know I’m going to get a good brew and I love seeing the staff each day. My coffee of choice is a small flat white, but no more than two per day. Coffee cocktails, however, are a different matter. At home, if I’m feeling like a caffeine hit late afternoon then I turn to my trusty Nespresso capsule machine and indulge in a homemade espresso martini. I continue to enjoy my daily walks and love finding new little coffee shops to support and grab a coffee, it’s a ritual I can’t live without.

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MAX CURTIS

I am in the final year of my Law and Commerce double degree at Monash University. I studied law in Prato (Tuscany) and lived in Florence for three months. This is where my love for coffee originated. The only Italian I hold onto is ‘un caffè per favore’. The process of drinking coffee in Italy certainly startled me at first, however, I began to love the idea of standing up in the bar, ordering an espresso for one euro, and passing over the change strictly after finishing. I was warned not to dare order milk except in the morning, and witnessed many other tourists innocently ordering a latte and receiving plain warm milk to their disappointment. Since returning to Melbourne, I have explored our coffee scene far more extensively. Previously, I never ventured away from my daily long black. I am embarrassed to admit, prior to my Europe travels, I often resorted to 7-Eleven $1 coffee. However, I now treasure Melbourne’s unique coffee culture. I enjoy a ‘magic’, despite still feeling slightly uneasy ordering one. I was gifted an AeroPress for Christmas, and I am absolutely loving it. I am still experimenting with different beans, having enjoyed various blends from Axil Coffee Roasters and Market Lane. My favourite Melbourne cafés include 8 Murray Street in Abbotsford, King St Espresso Bar in the Melbourne CBD, and Kupid Espresso in my local suburb of Kew.

WE WANT YOU! Have a coffee passion you’re dying to share? We’d love to see it. Email a 150-word bio about your love of coffee, your favourite coffee moment, and a little about yourself with a high-resolution image (1MB or greater) to BeanScene Editor Sarah Baker: sarah.baker@primecreative.com.au

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