Beanscene Jun 2020

A World-Class Coffee Magazine

JUNE 2020

All for one An industry bound by strength and resilience

A virtual world

Coping with COVID Farming now and into the future

The espresso formula Open for business

NZ $11.95 No.57 ISSN 1449-2547

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9 771449 254002

RAISING THE ESPRESSO BAR

Find out more camposcoffee.com

JUNE 2020

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contents

30 46

UPFRONT

FEATURE NEWS

SKILL BASE

Campos Coffee adapts to the virtual world of cupping to keep international coffee competitions alive

Jibbi Little returns with one thirsty camel – the perfect design to practice in iso

10 NEWS 12 STUFF ON THE SCENE

The latest must-have products

INDUSTRY PROFILES

14 THE WOLFF PACK

23 A VIRTUAL WORLD

26 COPING WITH COVID

Peter and Penny Wolff on pioneering the Brisbane specialty coffee scene and the importance of education

Businesses find creative ways to stay afloat that could extend beyond the pandemic

18 CELEBRITY CHEF

What you need to know about COVID-19 and how it impacts your business

Matthew Wilkinson shares an alarming admission about running one of Melbourne’s most iconic cafés

30 AT ALL COSTS

50 THE COFFEE FORMULA

34 ADAPT TO THRIVE

A study discovers the key to espresso reproducibility and how to save cafés thousands of dollars

37 BEST IN SHOW

Who's open, what's available, and how you can support the industry

Fairtrade helps producers adapt to the challenges of coronavirus so they can continue to farm The Australian International Coffee Awards celebrates its 2020 winners

40 ON THE GRID

Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters releases a new tool to align expectations and make coffee tasting more accessible

42 FAMILY VALUES

Martin Monin joins the family business, with his eyes focused on Asia and sustainability

52 OPEN FOR BUSINESSES

TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

46 WORTH EVERY PENNY

Three Pence Coffee Roasters takes the next leap in Imf roasting equipment and the value in staying connected to its customers

48 KONY 2020

Mazzer launches the compact sized Kony S grinder

70 ESPRESSO YOURSELF 72 TRAINING TACTICS

Suntory’s Jared Chapman on the importance of staying relevant

74 R&D LAB

Dr. Monika Fekete shares a home experiment to remove the bitterness from coffee

CAFÉ SCENE

44 WHEN REALITY BITES

Espressology’s Instaurator on why business ownership isn’t all rainbows and unicorns

64 CAFÉ SCENE

68 TECH TALK

Service Sphere launches the Bean Barn – a one-stop retail shop

76 A UNITED FRONT

ASCA recognises the strength and unity of the coffee industry

77 NZSCA

How New Zealand coped in the face of a complete hospitality lockdown

78 E SCENE

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Around Australia

Fans of the magazine

MO

MONICI

CO

COPERCHINI

PA N

PANETTIERI

SINCE 1954

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 JOURNALIST Ethan Miller ethan.miller@primecreative.com.au

Campos Coffee 144 Elgin St, Carlton, VIC, 3053 www.camposcoffee.com

ART DIRECTOR Blake Storey

There's a comforting feeling when you step into your regular coffee shop. There's the friendly smile from your favourite barista, the familiar ambience and a level of excitement about the delicious coffee you'll soon be enjoying. This is how the team at BeanScene feels when it visits the Campos Coffee Melbourne flagship store, and a feeling it hopes will return for café lovers all over the country.

Undoubtedly, the situation over the past few months has been challenging for our beloved coffee shops and baristas. Many have been forced to close, or operate via takeaway only as social distancing was enforced to stop the spread of coronavirus.

For this reason, the cover of our June edition was taken at the Campos Coffee Elgin Street store, pre-corona. In this shoot, we admired the wall of artefacts Campos Coffee Founder Will Young has collated on his many years travelling to origin. Travel is something he is forced to put on hold right now, but the cover image is a reminder of the connection each cup of coffee has to our supply chain. Many hands helped put that cup together, from the farmers to the exporter, roaster to the barista, each playing their role for the sake of the end consumer. It's for this reason we celebrate the power of the cup.

Campos Coffee is passionate about continuing to support farmers despite the challenging circumstances. Coffee judging competitions like Cup of Excellence and Best of Panama will continue under revised conditions, and Campos Coffee will play its role as the Australian judging representative (see page 23).

“We want to continue to celebrate coffee excellence and support the farmers,” Will says. “If the COE competitions didn’t run, all of the momentum we’ve built over the past two decades would be undone overnight. Hopefully, everyone can still buy one or two coffees and do their bit to support the program.”

BeanScene is also committed to supporting the Australian coffee industry. Now, more than ever, communication is key. Since COVID-19 made its mark, BeanScene has offered free at-home subscription deliveries of the printed magazine in addition to regular news updates on its website, and a new digitial subscription to keep our readers informed.

“It is so important the industry knows we are here to support them.

This edition we focus on sharing All for one informative and educational content, and stories that celebrate our industry and individuals, like we always do,” says Editor Sarah Baker. “We need to keep the momentum and keep the industry moving forward, just like Campos Coffee has committed to.”

JUNE 2020

A World- Class Coffee Magazi ne

An industy bound by strength and resilience

Wolff pack pionee

rs

A virtual judging world

Coping with COVID

Farming now and into the future

The formula for espresso reproducibili ty

NZ $11.95 No.57 ISSN 1449-2547

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9 771449 254002

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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 Blake Storey, Jessica Chia Essence Images, Steven Woodburn, Four Pillars James CONTRIBUTORS Jibbi Little, Jared Chapman, Maurizio Marcocci, Emma McDougall, Kieran Westlake, Dr Monika Fekete 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.

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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.

Jared Chapman is the Group Customer Manager at Suntory Coffee. He has an extensive background in coffee, training, and consulting, working with cafés of all shapes and sizes, from independent cafés to corporate coffee chains. Jared’s passion is sharing this experience to help others in the industry run their businesses successfully.

Rawirat Techasitthanet, also known as Jibbi Little, is originally from Thailand and lives in Sydney, Australia. She is a barista, latte artist, and roaster at Jibbi Little Roasting Co. She is also the designer and creator of the Jibbijug milk pitcher. Jibbi has worked in the coffee industry for the past 10 years. She is a five-time Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) NSW Latte Art Champion and the 2019 ASCA Pauls Professional Australian Latte Art Champion.

Jibbi is also a Q Grader, competition judge, and founder of the Jibbi Academy.

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

RISE TO THE CHALLENGE

B

efore the year started the phrases “unprecedented”, “social distancing”, and “flattening the curve” were far from my most used vocabulary. While I’d be happy to never hear them again, the one exception I’ll make is for the word “pivot”.

Since COVID-19 jumped into our island home and stripped us of our social liberties, family, and friends, what the country has managed to do so well, is pivot. Companies turned homes into functioning offices overnight. Zoom meetings quickly replaced the need for interstate business travel, and parents became teachers without the pay cheque.

On the hospitality front, cafés turned into general stores supplying everything bar the kitchen sink. Some businesses decided to use staff, space, and equipment to produce in-demand products such as hand sanitiser, and others changed direction entirely from paper cup manufacturing to face mask creation. The ability of our industry to pivot and adapt to the new environment we find ourselves in has been nothing short of incredible.

With that flexibility, however, comes frustration for many businesses who aim to do one thing and one thing only: serve customers delicious coffee.

Takeaway service has provided some relief, but many are hanging out to start in-house trading again. So what will the new norm look like? One would imagine communal tables, split cash bills between friends and mere centimetre gaps between customers are a thing of the past. Instead, metre-long spacings, card payments, and constant cleaning may be more realistic.

At home, “coffee snob” may have taken on a whole new meaning. A Nielsen Consumer Insight report saw a significant spike in premium coffee options in supermarket coffee sales in April, stating many consumers are looking “for little luxuries during uncertain times”.

Before finishing this column, I tuned into the Riverina Fresh web chat with some of Australia’s most iconic roasters, talking about the impact “iso life” has had on their businesses. No one said it was easy. One speaker even mentioned he’d been through the five stages of grief over the impact coronavirus had on his business, before an outpouring of consumer support and engagement left him in tears for days. Emcee Ross Quail summed up the spirit of the Australian roasting industry best, describing them as a “bunch of risk takers, deep thinkers, and trail blazers” with our eyes fixed firmly on our customers the entire way.

There’s still so much uncertainty in the world, but I know our industry will emerge stronger because of our ability to “pivot” and protect the product and communities we so proudly represent.

SARAH BAKER

Follow us on Twitter @BeanSceneEd ‘Like’ us on Facebook @BeanSceneCoffeeMag Follow us on Instagram @beanscenemag

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Grown from plants for barista made coffee.

Everything you do with dairy, you can now do with plants.

Made exclusively for trade, our CafĂŠ range has been specifically formulated to froth like dairy, complementing your barista skills to deliver the perfect plant-based coffee every time.

NEWS

SMARTMEALS PROVIDES THOUSANDS OF MEALS TO THE HOMELESS WHILE SAVING JOBS CafeSmart organiser Streetsmart Australia has provided more than 5470 meals to vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic through its SmartMeals program.

StreetSmart Australia says charity meals programs are shut across the country. With gatherings restricted and older volunteers protecting their health, food security for vulnerable Australians is an emerging challenge. At the same time, restaurants and cafés are closing or reducing hours. This is making people with limited

Ladro in Fitzroy is supplying food to St Mary’s House of Welcome.

resources vulnerable to poverty, hunger, and homelessness.

“These are rapidly changing times and there is great uncertainty for community services, and even more for the people we support,” says Patrick Lawrence of the First Step Program in St Kilda, Victoria.

“It’s been great to be able to offer our clients a nourishing sandwich.

It’s been greatly appreciated by our vulnerable clients and has doubtless had a positive impact on their mental and physical health.”

The launch of SmartMeals was fast tracked on 30 March.

StreetSmart is raising funds for local homeless services who then pay cafés and restaurants to create the meals they need.

“SmartMeals enables people to receive a free meal and that is critical at this time. Linking a café with capacity with Uniting Prahran through Streetsmart is a win-win-win for all involved – but more so for our customers,” says Mike Scott of Uniting Prahran in Victoria.

For 17 years, StreetSmart says its community impact has been built on the generosity of the people in hospitality. Together, DineSmart and CafeSmart were supported by more than 3000 hospitality businesses.

“Jobs have definitely been secured

SmartMeals is connecting cafés and restaurants with overstretched community groups.

with this program, across the team from prep, to making each morning and then the delivery team. It’s given us the confidence to have an extra person there all week,” says Jackie Middleton of Earl Canteen.

SmartMeals is part of StreetSmart Australia’s COVID-19 Emergency Reponse Fund, which provides grants to small grassroots organisations.

For more information, visit www.streetsmartaustralia.org

LA MARZOCCO NAMED A GREAT PLACE TO WORK Great Place to Work recognises great company cultures across the globe.

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La Marzocco in Scarperia, Florence has once again been named a “Great Place to Work” in Italy, achieving the 19th position on Great Place to Work’s 2020 list.

Great Place to Work is an international brand dedicated to the examination of workplace culture and management support in creating an environment where employees define their workplace as empowering and remarkable. On 23 April, the organisation hosted a virtual event ceremony on Facebook to announce Italy’s top 60 companies.

La Marzocco says the recognition by Great Place To Work acknowledges it as an excellent work environment that creates a positive impact on the residing territory and in the industry.

Today, the Florentine manufacturer “continues to cultivate and sustain a workplace culture where people feel safe, encouraged, and equipped to explore and develop their talent, grow in their careers and personal lives”.

La Marzocco has been included on the list for several years in a row.

FIRST CUP OF EXCELLENCE ETHIOPIA AWARDS THREE COFFEES MORE THAN 90 POINTS Niguse Gemeda Mude has won the first Cup of Excellence (COE) Ethiopia with his Sidama sun-dried natural coffee, which scored 91.04 in the competition.

This was one of three coffees to score more than 90 points in the competition, each receiving the Presidential Award. Rumudamo Coffee Industry Trade scored 90.89 and RumuDamo scored 90.25 with their 74110 varietal washed coffees, both from Sidamo.

COE organisers, the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) and Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, with USAID’s Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain Activity, announced the top 28 winning coffees from the competition. They will be sold in an online auction on 25 June.

“It’s exciting to know my coffee has made it this far. Becoming number one was what I was aiming for. I am very happy to promote our great coffee and to benefit from the market opportunities that will follow the result” Niguse says.

“It’s an honour to receive the special recognition. This encourages me to do more.”

Dr. Adugna Debela, Director General of the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, says the success of the competition is a result of the commitment by the organising team and participating producers.

Niguse Gemeda Mude has won the Cup of Excellence Ethiopia.

“The decision was made to move forward with the competition by adjusting to the new realities created

by COVID-19. We had to move location, changing the original plan to conduct the competition in Ethiopia, and send the sample of each coffee to the jury. This has paid off with a successful completion of the competition, which will benefit the producers and the country as a whole,” Adugna says.

“I would like to congratulate all the winners, and the organising team

who worked very hard to make the competition a success.”

The ACE says international buyers are excited to be involved in the June online auction with more than 134 already registered.

“The competition has been exciting and broke several records including the highest number of entries and highest number of buyers registered for the auction. Congratulations to all the winners,” says Darrin Daniel, Executive Director of the ACE.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND UNCERTAINTY BALANCE OUT IN APRIL COFFEE PRICES According to the International Coffee Organization (ICO) April 2020 Coffee Market Report, concerns over supply chain disruptions are being weighed against uncertainty over future demand in the unprecedented situation of COVID-19.

Because of this, the ICO composite indicator only decreased by 0.1 per cent to 108.91 US cents per pound in April.

After reaching a high of 113.86 US cents per pound on 15 April, the daily indicator price declined over the next two weeks and reached a low of 103.63 US cents per pound on 27 April.

Global exports fell by 3.7 per cent to 11.06 million bags in March 2020 and shipments in the first six months of coffee year 2019/20 decreased by 3.9 per cent to 61.96 million bags.

In coffee year 2019/20, the ICO’s estimate of global coffee consumption has been revised to 166.06 million bags, which represents an increase of 0.5 per cent compared to 165.27 million bags in 2018/19.

As a result, production is expected to exceed consumption by 1.95 million bags.

The ICO composite indicator landed at 108.91 US cents per pound in April.

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STUFF ON THE SCENE

Stuff on the scene ALTERNATIVE DAIRY CO BARISTA MILKS The Alternative Dairy Co Barista Milks are made locally, prioritising Australian grown ingredients for perfect performance and taste in espresso-based coffees. The team worked closely with baristas, café owners, and non-dairy milk consumers to create this popular range of plant-based milks that are quickly becoming a barista’s best friend.

Expanding on its soy and almond milk range, The Alternative Dairy Co’s Barista Oat Milk is made using only Australian grown oats to create a creamy blend that will appeal to plant milk devotees and dairy fans alike. Oat milk is the closest tasting alternative to dairy milk. Its naturally sweet and creamy flavour has driven unprecedented global demand with category sales up by 425 per cent in the past 18 months.

For more information, visit www.altdairyco.com/Barista-Hub, or contact enquiries@altdairyco.com.

WEGA AIRY The Wega Airy is a coffee machine capable of adapting itself to every environment and any style.

Versatile and practical, the Airy’s uniqueness comes from the interchangeable coloured side panels, which allow it to blend into to any space and design.

Apart from using the programmed touchpad selections, the barista can personalise their coffee with the override button, in conjunction with the shot counter timer.

On the technical side, the machine features LED lighting on the barista work area, 10-millimetre stainless steel steam wands with four-hole steam tips and four programmable doses per group.

The Wega Airy also has manual brewing buttons, automatic cleaning and group head backflush, raised or standard height groups, ergonomic-handle portafilters, lowered feet, and a pressure gauge cover.

It is available in two and three group models in black or white.

The Wega Airy is distributed in Australia by Coffee Works Express.

For more information, visit www.cwe.com.au

THE COFFEE ENTREPRENEUR At age 22, Instaurator stumbled into coffee roasting after working in a dead-end job in a warehouse and failing to gain entry into university. At age 27, he was appointed CEO of a business and fulfilled his dream of travelling to various countries in Asia, the Americas, and Europe as a self-employed coffee entrepreneur. He has built up businesses, adding hundreds of millions of dollars in equity for their owners. In 2004, Instaurator was appointed Executive Director of the World Barista Championship in Trieste, Italy, and a few years later, was practically bankrupt. He began a new startup business called Espressology in 2008, which has gone on to succeed.

Read about Instaurator’s journey in his new book, The Coffee Entrepreneur, available on Amazon, Kindle, ibooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

For more information, visit www.espressology.com/shop

EAGLE ONE The Eagle One is the latest espresso machine from Victoria Arduino.

It achieves new levels of energy optimisation with its new NEO (New Engine Optimisation) engine, which guarantees high performance while reducing the energy consumption of the machine.

There is minimal environmental impact thanks to a new constructive design with less internal systems. This means the Eagle One can maintain its high-performance level while reducing the environmental repercussions.

Its patented TERS (Thermal Energy Recovery System) uses discharged water to preheat incoming water through a recycling method, thus minimising waste.

The Victoria Arduino Eagle One is available in Australia through Espresso Mechanics.

For more information, visit www.espressomechanics.com.au

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MAHLKÖNIG E80 SUPREME Coffee shops and individual baristas need high-quality, reproducible, and accurate grinding results. Mahlkönig’s E80 Supreme is one of the fastest and most advanced premium espresso grinders of its class on the market.

It features high-capacity precise dosing and fast grinding abilities without compromising on consistency and taste. The powerful motor has active temperature management to maintain a high daily output while ensuring uniformity in all taste parameters, which is especially important in heavy-duty environments.

The E80 Supreme is a high-performing, durable espresso grinder equipped with unique 80-millimetre steel burrs and pioneering Disc Distance Detection technology.

For more information, visit www.mahlkoenig.de

MILKLAB LACTOSE FREE For many Australians, regular dairy milk is off the table due to lactose intolerance, however, there are many great alternatives.

Milklab is an Australian collaboration between foodies, baristas, and farmers to develop milks that taste fantastic and texture and stretch with any coffee type.

Among the range is Milklab Lactose Free, a Gold Award winning dairy milk, awarded by the New South Wales Dairy Industry Association of Australia. It offers the same nutrients as regular milk, a flavour which compliments the intensity of espresso, and is softer on tummies sensitive to lactose.

Milklab Lactose free is also Australian made from 100 per cent fresh Australian dairy milk, supporting local farmers.

For more informaiton, visit www.milklabco.com

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Image credit: Jessica Chia Essence Images.

THE WOLFFS GIVE BACK Wolff Coffee Roasters is proud to support its local community by donating coffee beans to schools, churches and organisations aiding people in need. At origin, it supports coffee communities with infrastructure projects in Mexico, Costa Rica, Kenya, and Fiji.

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KNOWLEDGE LEADERS

The Wolff Pack Peter and Penny Wolff have mastered their craft, pioneered the Brisbane specialty coffee scene, and taken their customers on a journey over the past 36 years.

P

enny and Peter Wolff’s relationship resembles the plot of a romance novel. There’s the initial moment of electricity, a chase, a rekindling, and a happy ending.

They met in 1995 at the opening of Brisbane’s International Airport. Peter was helping establish Aromas’ terminal café and Penny emerged fresh off the plane from a 12-month gap year in Canada.

“There was a definite connection. It was electric when we met. The coffee shop manager was interviewing for staff and Penny walked by. In that moment I said: ‘You hire that girl’,” Peter recalls.

“We got to know each other but the timing wasn’t right. We each had partners.”

Penny says she loved her time working at the international terminal while studying her first university degree.

“The people, culture, and energy were intense, the busiest venue I’ve worked at,” she says. “I would start on the espresso machine at 4am, being the only coffee outlet open. We would easily do 30 kilograms of coffee a day. That’s with no volumetrics.”

Fast forward 13 years, and Peter and Penny reconnected. This time, the timing was right in more ways than one.

Penny had been teaching for more than 10 years in the university and school sectors. She had recently completed her Masters in Education when she decided to leave her education career and join Peter in starting their first café together, Dandelion & Driftwood.

“At that time, there wasn’t much happening in the Brisbane specialty scene.

It hadn’t taken hold yet, but we were determined to try. We wanted to focus on offering a specialty product and experience, and create a place where anyone felt comfortable. So, we opened the café in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, and it became an institution,” Peter says.

Concurrently, Peter started getting attention for his roasting prowess. He would receive phone calls from the world over asking him how to roast coffee – one even offered to name their first child after Peter if he shared his wisdom.

“Thanks to Penny’s creative mind and persistence, she encouraged me to write the curriculum for a beginner’s roasting class.

We launched the first one for 13 people and it sold out in two hours,” Peter says.

That was the birth of the Wolff College of Coffee, which over time, has developed into a range of courses including barista, sensory, and roasting development. Penny and Peter estimate the College to have nearly 15000 alumni and 80,000 followers on YouTube around the world.

Over his career, Peter has observed the rise in technology and respect for those who pursued a coffee profession.

While many would credit the rise in volumetrics and automation as the biggest developments, Peter says the humble fax machine helped forge the time gap between producers and roasters, enabling direct communication in light speed.

“The day we decided to stick a probe in the beans instead of the top of the roaster was also impressive, and we moved to

“I’VE MADE A LIFE AND CAREER OUT OF COFFEE, AND THAT’S WHAT WE WANT OTHERS TO KNOW. WHEN YOU HAVE A CAREER IN COFFEE, YOU BECOME PART A WIDER COMMUNITY.” Peter has been roasting since 1984. He credits his roasting skills to fifth generation coffee merchant Chris Bryant and Robyn Horley, who in their generation were considered pioneers of the Brisbane café scene. Peter says their business, Aromas Tea and Coffee, became a juggernaut, and at the height of its success had 14 cafés.

“Chris was my mentor. When I left high-school, I studied law at the University of Queensland and my parttime job was at Aromas on Hale Street in Paddington. This place was an odyssey,” he says. “It had 96 different teas and 28 different single origin coffees.”

Peter started working at Aromas as the human dishwasher. It was only when Chris asked Peter to help in the roastery that it opened his eyes to a career in roasting.

“After my first day I knew it was what I wanted to do. The only thing I was worried about was how I would tell my parents I wasn’t going to be a lawyer,” he says.

It didn’t take long before Pete, aged 19, was travelling to origin three times a year and being mentored by Chris on buying coffee.

computer profiling and monitoring. At that stage I was in my 30s,” Peter says.

“People had the attitude that they didn’t need a computer to tell them what to do, but I thought ‘what an amazing thing if it can make me better at my craft’. That’s when ‘consistency’ became a bad word for a while. But I challenged this because, at the end of the day, that’s what the customer wants: awesome consistent coffee.”

As the specialty industry started to grow rapidly, consumers became hungry for information at the same time roasters relentlessly chased cupping scores. But what was forgotten along the way, Peter says, is that people were offered a first-class experience for the price of an economy seat.

“We’ve never seen a dramatic price increase in the cup price of coffee here in Australia. What held that in check was the growth of our industry, and I’m partly responsible for that because I was training everybody. I was selling machinery too [first for Giesen then Probat]. As more competition entered the marked, it became more competitive and everyone

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KNOWLEDGE LEADERS

was less reluctant to talk price or move price,” Peter says. “When I think about the industry’s current position, we sit at a unique point in history with COVID-19 that allows us an opportunity to recalibrate the entire industry.”

Dandelion & Driftwood closed in March as the pandemic hit, but Penny and Peter also have Wolff Coffee Roasters, Queen of Pops and Big Bad Wolff Espresso Bar to manage. Penny says much of their businesses’ success is reliant on their ability to pivot and respond to everchanging situations. “[The coronavirus outbreak] has rippled across every industry. I think, inevitably, we will see consolidation from restaurants to bars to cafés,” Penny says.

“It also means that if we want to provide a higher-level coffee experience for people, then we have to match what we charge. As much as customers don’t want to hear that now in this environment, pricing needs to go up. The industry is too fragile. The advent of GST was the last and largest singular retail increase of coffee.”

For Peter, the industry has given him too many highlights to recall. He says going to Africa for the first time is a memory he’ll never forget, as was being

involved in David Makin’s World Barista Championship (WBC) campaign.

Penny, on the other hand, fondly recalls winning the 1996 Australian Barista Championship with Pete as her trainer, then taking her love for coffee to the other side of the table. Penny became the first person to represent Queensland as a certified WBC Sensory Judge, and continues to dabble in teaching and judging.

Penny and Peter say the biggest highlight and enjoyment is providing leadership, coaching and mentoring to others across the hospitality and coffee industry.

“I’ve made a life and career out of coffee, and that’s what we want others to know. When you have a career in coffee, you become part a wider community.

You’re in the people’s business, and how you treat people in terms of integrity is very important. That permeates through your business and brand,” Peter says.

“The key thing is to clearly articulate what coffee business you want to be.

Everyone is different. Some want to be the biggest and best. For others, it’s about the craft and the artisan, and that’s fine. You’ve got to own your laneway. You can’t be

everything to everyone. You need to find your audience, keep putting yourself out there, and don’t be afraid to do so.”

Wolff Coffee Roasters coffee is available in 150 venues throughout Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Its mission statement is to be “the world’s most respected specialty coffee brand”, and many would argue it is.

While that legacy alone is powerful, at the heart of Wolff Coffee Rosters is its philanthropic work.

Last year, Penny raised just over $52,000 for Women’s Legal Services Queensland, and percentages of their profit each year are allocated to local schools or projects at origin, such as infrastructure needs in Mexico or water tanks in Kenya.

After 36 years, Wolff Coffee Roasters is still a family business and at the heart of it are two people who still look across the room at each other with the same respect for each other’s unique qualities since the day they met – Penny with her creativity and focus, and Peter with his relaxed nature and eccentricity.

“We’re focused on resetting and recalibrating Wolff Coffee Roasters so we have a business for the next 20 years, and we get to do that together,” Peter says.

FUTURE

BEGINS PH: 1800 000 162 A: UNIT C1, 53 HUNTLEY STREET, ALEXANDRIA NSW 2015 E: SALES@ESPRESSOMECHANICS.COM.AU W: WWW.ESPRESSOMECHANICS.COM.AU

IN UNCERTAIN TIMES, LOOK FOR THE THINGS YOU CAN TRUST. BUILDING RESILIENCE FOR OUR COFFEE COMMUNITY: FOR THE GROWERS, THE TRADERS, THE ROASTERS, THE CAFES AND THE COFFEE DRINKERS. SPECIALTY. AWARD WINNING. ETHICAL. FAIRTRADE.COM.AU

VEGGIES REIGN SUPREME Matthew Wilkinson is the author of three topselling cookbooks. His first, Mr Wilkinson’s Favourite Vegetables, was published in 2011 and was translated into nine languages. His books have sold more than 150,000 copies worldwide.

A smaller collection is due for release in 2021.

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Image credit: Steven Woodburn

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CELEBRITY CHEF

Matt’s coffee awakening English-born chef Matthew Wilkinson shares a rather alarming admission about running one of Melbourne’s most iconic cafés, and why queuing isn’t always a bad thing.

F

or years I owned one of best coffee shops in Melbourne and did not drink coffee,” says chef Matthew Wilkinson. “We used Allpress Espresso, I fell in love with the look of La Marzocco machines – the Ducati of the coffee machine world – but I hated coffee. I opened Pope Joan when I turned 30 and after while, I thought enough was enough. It was time to force myself into it and get on board with coffee.”

Matthew trained his palate over a series of months. He started with a cappuccino, but he hated the volume of hot milk to coffee. Then he tried a long black, but it wasn’t to his liking. He describes his first attempt at a short black like “torturing [his] tongue with the combination of acidity and alkaline together”. Then, he discovered the piccolo. “It got me. That was the one. I was hooked,” Matthew says.

Only years before his coffee epiphany, Matthew went to Italy for the 2010 SlowFood International Expo and would go around town asking for cups of tea to the dismay of locals. He returned in 2014 for five weeks and says it was a “game changing” experience.

“I stayed in a house in Portonovo on the eastern seaside of Italy, right on the beach for two weeks. I remember trying to explain a piccolo to the local coffee shop and the guy just stared at me. I went to the same shop every morning and finally a lady who spoke beautiful English asked ‘darling, you want a macchiato?’ That became my drink. I’d go get a macchiato every morning and walk the one kilometre back on the beach. It was the best time of my life,” Matthew says.

These days Matthew drinks two to three macchiatos a day, and “definitely a lot more” when he was running Pope Joan. “My first coffee of the day has to be a macchiato, my second is a short black, which I also have at the end of a restaurant meal. But at night, I don’t mind it with a

cheeky shot of Amaro, Grappa, Campari, or my favourite, an Italian liquor that’s the equivalent to Ouzo,” he says.

Matthew was born in South Yorkshire in the north of England, which he says explains why he was a “classic Yorkshire tea man” – drinking up to 12 cups a day, black or white, with around seven sugars in each. His parents, also classic English tea drinkers, were partial to Nescafé.

“As a child I remember hating the smell of it. I couldn’t stand it, but I’d make it for mum while she’d critique my bad instant coffee-making skills saying, ‘you’ve put too much in or not enough’,” Matthew says.

“THE SMELL OF ROASTING COFFEE IS A TRULY ICONIC MELBOURNE THING. IT’S ONE FOR THE SENSES.” “At age eight, my parents separated. Dad worked at Fosters UK and then went into work in the pub industry. He had around 14 classic English pubs. I remember at the end of every service, a big coffee percolator came around for the staff, but I still didn’t like it. Coffee just wasn’t part of my world.”

When Matthew came to Australia at age 20 in 2000, he recalls a similar experience when he did a stint at Melbourne restaurant Circa.

“Coffee time in restaurants is like being at Trafalgar Square and watching bread thrown up to pigeons and having them

attack it,” Matthew says. “Having the front of house staff bring the chefs their coffee was almost a ritual at Circa.”

Matthew says you can imagine being the ‘token Englishman’ in a commercial kitchen when he didn’t partake in the coffee drinking ritual, which was further exacerbated when he worked at Vue de monde restaurant and was trained to make a de-constructed tiramisu using a coffee liqueur, which he despised. Oddly enough, Matthew says if there’s tiramisu is on a menu now, he’ll always order it.

In his first year working in Melbourne restaurants, Matthew recalls buying The Good Food Guide with Vittoria Coffee’s ad always placed on the back and observing just how massive the coffee was in the Melbourne restaurant scene.

“I remember when my dad flew out to visit me and we had an amazing meal at the Latin, a then iconic institution on Lonsdale Street. I had a cold Coopers beer for the first time with lamb tartare, squid pasta, beef, and a caramel dessert. The standard was just incredible, and still is. I still remember my dad saying how good the coffee was at the end of the meal,” Matthew says.

“The Italians may have started Melbourne’s coffee culture, but we’ve made it a uniquely Australian thing.

When you’re in New York, they talk about how good the café scene is in Australia.

My mum comes out here every year and the one thing she misses aside from her grandkids, is the coffee.”

When Matthew took the leap to open Pope Joan in 2010 with business partner Guy Foster, he says it was a pathway to something “completely different”.

“Before Pope Joan, I was in New York and I remember going to a restaurant called Prune, which was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I can remember thinking, ‘there’s no way I’m queuing for breakfast’. I swore I never

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Four Pillars’ Creative Director James Irvine created this Spiced Negroni Gin with coffee. Spent grounds are sent to Frank Body.

While Matthew says people will still travel for quality coffee, and that there will always be a place for neighbourhood cafés, like food, trends come and go.

“We’ve seen the development of collective roasting spaces and now, the way forward for Melbourne coffee shops will be to roast their own beans to make the right profits and for wholesale,” Matthew says.

“Middle ground restaurants will take that place where cafés were, and I think we’ll see small businesses adopt one thing they do well, like bread or croissants, and pair it with a coffee offering, like Falco Bakery does – their toasties are great but the coffee is banging as well.”

Image credit: FourPillarsGin and FourPillarsJames

would. But then we opened Pope Joan and there was always queues out the door.

We were one of AllPress Coffee’s first big accounts in Melbourne. At the time, they were flying the coffee over from New Zealand until they started roasting in Sydney. The café culture of Melbourne was wild at that stage,” Matthew says.

“We opened at a time when the quality of breakfast food was starting a movement.

My idea was really to impart something a little different not seen in the food scene in terms of food quality. I think we were a leader for change of how food in cafés is.”

When the doors closed to the Melbourne institution on 24 June 2018 after nine years, Matthew says it was the end of a chapter, and a relief in some ways.

“It was a unique place. I miss it for its coffee, food and the night-time events.

It was a great community hub, but I’m actually enjoying life on the other side,” he says. “There’s now so many amazing cafés with high standards of food. I don’t think for Pope Joan would work if we opened again. It worked because it was unique at the time.”

The one thing Matthew misses about working in the Brunswick and Fitzroy suburbs of Melbourne is the aroma of roasting coffee, home to brands like Jasper and Padre Coffee, one of his favourite roasters.

“The smell of roasting coffee is a truly iconic Melbourne thing. It’s one for the senses. One of my first memories was smelling Jaspers Coffee on Brunswick Street when it was all grungy in 2000.

I love cycling past that suburb and getting a whiff of that toasty, burning, chocolate smell,” he says.

Matthew Wilkinson is also the Creative Director of Four Pillars Gin.

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Image credit: FourPillarsGin and FourPillarsJames

CELEBRITY CHEF

Delivery services like Deliveroo and UberEats have changed the way society accesses food, and more than ever with businesses adjusting in COVID-19 lockdowns. Matthew says the one risk to coffee culture, however, is how quality coffee will continue to be perceived.

“We used to associate delivery services with Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza, and dodgy Chinese restaurants, but it’s changing. Now, there’s $1-dollar coffee at 7-Eleven or Maccas. I’m worried the social formalities around how you get coffee are getting lost, and that coffee could become just a quick fix or an energy boost,” he says. “Time will tell.”

As for Matthew, time has slowed down after the closing of Pope Joan. He took six months off to enjoy with his two young kids and wife and do some ‘soul searching’ before opening a Pope Joan pop-up in the city (to which he has now sold his stake), The Pie Shop, and vegetable-forward diner Crofter. For the past two years, he’s also been the Creative Director of Healesville distillery’s Four Pillars Gin, winner of the 2019 International Gin Producer of the Year award.

“One of my passions is trying to better the world we live in, and working with spent gin botanicals, looking at something unutilised that’s still got lots of flavour, like spent coffee grounds,” he says.

Matthew is also working on developing a gin salt, a new cookbook to add to his collection of six, and figuring out what a new business venture could look like.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” he says. “And like everyone else right now, I’ll just keep going.”

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FEATURE NEWS

A virtual world

As the world adapts to life during coronavirus, coffee judging competitions have vowed to continue in a revised, virtual format, to support farmers and share top quality coffees with the world.

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here’s something special about cupping a freshly brewed coffee in the origin of where it’s produced. It could be the sound of Spanish words echoing in the room, the squawk of a toucan in the nearby tree, famers looking on, or the unique slurping sounds of international judges who collectively make the Cup of Excellence (COE) competition one of the most revered in the world.

This year, however, due to COVID-19 restrictions, lockdowns, and bans on international travel, COE international jurors are prohibited from cupping some of the world’s finest coffees in the countries they were created. Instead, they’ll be doing so from a distance.

“This year will be unlike any other,” says Campos Coffee Founder and CEO Will Young. “I, like many experienced and new COE judges, will not be travelling to origin for the COE. It’s a real

shame, but we are grateful we can still participate and honour some of the best coffees in the world.”

Campos Coffee in Sydney has been nominated as one of five Global Coffee Cupping (GCC) centres to participate in the international judging of COE competitions, starting with the Nicaraguan COE in May. “We are the only Australian judging representative. It’s a heavy weight, but we’ve been one of COE’s top buyers for a long time. They trust us to follow the new guidelines and critique each coffee to the highest standard,” Will says.

The other GCC participants are located in Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States. After national judging, 40 green coffee samples are sent to each representative, with instructions to roast, calibrate, and solo cup the coffees over two rounds. The entire process must be completed within 10 days of

the coffee arriving.

“It is the ultimate blind cupping experience. We never know what the coffees are from start to finish,” Will says. “Once they are cupped and scored, we send the results back to Portland [at the Alliance for Coffee Excellence headquarters] for a final cupping. The coffees remain blind until all results from GCC representatives are received.”

Ethiopia was the first country to have an altered COE judging program due to coronavirus restrictions. Green samples from the national jury selection were then sent to Portland in April where ACE Head Judge John Thompson roasted the coffees for a small and experienced jury to cup.

At the time of print, judging for the Ethiopia COE had just finished, and ACE Managing Director Darrin Daniel assures BeanScene the quality of coffees judged did not suffer.

“There are some stunning coffees

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FEATURE NEWS

Will Young of Campos Coffee with 2018 Cup of Excellence El Salvador winner Emilio Lopez Diaz.

throughout the 40 lots that moved onto the final phase. I have heard great reports of quality in El Salvador and Guatemala. We hear the same thing for Nicaragua as well.

We are hopeful and keep getting results from the pre-selection and national phases that are quite positive,” he says.

Cancelling the COE was never an option. Although traditional international juries for COE Ethiopia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, or Mexico cannot be held at this point in time, what’s important, Darrin says, is vetting the coffees and judging process to still hold the competitions and auctions.

“The feedback has been touching and the most empowering aspect of this year. I have had numerous emails and communications with producers thanking us [for continuing],” Darrin says.

“We have to back coffee farmers more now than ever. This may be challenging for our organisation but imagine the need that we have, with producers already facing a price crisis, a climate crisis, and now a pandemic crisis. We felt obligated and knew this was the correct and right thing to do.”

In order to proceed with the judging, the ACE’s Erin Wang and Paul Songer spent more than 15 hours creating a new COE judging and cleanliness protocol without compromising the safety and health of the panellists, roasters, auditors, coordinators and support staff.

Under normal conditions, four panellists are assigned to one table where they share a total 40 cups of coffee. Now, under revised hygienic standards and cleanliness protocols, an individual set cupping method has been introduced so that each panellist has their own set to evaluate.

“This allows for social distancing and no cross contamination,” Erin says.

“Since there is still the possibility of a

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defect, we require the first taste of the coffees be evaluated using the double cupping method.”

Darrin says for him, the most challenging aspect of the new COE format is not having the calibration and group ‘think tank’ that makes the COE “the most amazing experience for our global community”.

Will agrees, noting that of the 20 COE competitions he’s attended, the judging camaraderie is what he treasures most.

“You can’t replace the importance of having these competitions at origin and the intimate knowledge you gain,” he says. “The conversations you have away from the coffee table are so important, like the side conversations you have at a G20 summit. A lot of the time, you learn more about the coffee, the producers, their country, and their coffee industry, just by being together.”

This year, however, Campos Coffee will conduct a silent cupping. It will only talk about its findings and signature attributes of ‘wow’ coffees internally via written notes, or through a GCC WhatsApp group.

“It will be interesting to see how cupping in general will change

permanently following the new cupping format,” Will says. “I expect changes to be adopted for at least a generation, and to have a resounding effect for the next 20 years.”

Thanks to operational restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19, many companies are feeling the financial pinch. Although understandable, the risk, Will says, is the future of competitions like COE. “This year, all the companies that normally bid for a coffee will have a lot less cash to put towards buying amazing coffees, and that is a real worry,” he says.

“If the COE competitions didn’t run, all of the momentum we’ve built over the past two decades would be undone overnight.”

Will says producers are aware auction prices won’t be as high as 2019, which saw coffees sell between US$100 to US$300 per pound, and expectations have to be “wound down, with an asterisk against this year”.

“Price is driven by demand and the demand isn’t there right now. Hopefully, everyone can still buy one or two coffees and do their bit to support the program,” he says.

The Best of Panama (BoP) is another

The future of Cup of Excellence and Best of Panama competitions is reliant on support from the roasting community.

competition taking place in July that has had to diversity its program.

This year, green coffee samples will be sent to participating judges to roast, calibrate, and cup together online.

“We will set cameras up in the cupping room, ensure the internet connection is good, turn Zoom on, unmute ourselves, and cup simultaneously with all the other judges around the world,” says Will, the Head Judge of the BoP. “So yes, we will still be hearing each other slurp, just like being in the same room together.”

The BoP is making every concerted effort to ensure it presents an engaged, community-based competition where judges still commit to the four-day event. The only difference is the time difference.

“The cuppings will favour us and the Asian participants, but the North American and Panamanian judges will do the vampire shift after sundown,” Will says. “They will essentially be cupping at night and talking about their coffees to 3am or 4am. Fatigue will be a factor, the environment to which they cup will be harder too, even variables like water and grinders used, which will all be different but up to [Specialty Coffee Association Cupping Lab] standard.”

To re-enact the competition’s community vibe, deliberations and discussions will take place post-cupping through Zoom, which Will will oversee.

“The BoP believes strongly in its customer and market focus, that’s why deliberations are so important to have altogether. The producers take notes and try to understand what consumers like, what they don’t, and take that transferred knowledge to improve their coffee for the next harvest,” Will says. “People also get very excited about coffees, and that can be hard to articulate in bold, cap-lock text.”

Last year, Wilford Lamastus of Elida Estate made BoP history when he won in both washed and natural Geisha categories for the second year in a row, breaking the competition’s record for its highest scoring coffee at 95.25. Wilford broke his own record when his coffee sold for US$1029 per pound. Despite this year’s changed conditions, Will is still confident this year’s BoP will deliver 95-plus scoring coffees.

“These are not everyday coffees we’re talking about. These are the best from these countries, so you have to expect the best scores. For BoP and COE, everyone involved has to be in the mindset that although we’re not at origin, we are judging the finest coffees of these countries. If you give out all 84 scores, it’s probably not the coffee, it’s you,” he says.

In fact, Will says the quality might be slightly higher than usual, because farmers have little else to distract them and are passionately working to perfect their product.

“We have seen many people discover a newfound hobby in isolation, like baking sourdough bread, which people are determined to perfect. And just like them, our farmers are working harder than ever on their coffees, meaning some excellent micro-lot coffees might be on the way,” he says.

FEATURE NEWS

Coping with COVID The coronavirus has hit the coffee industry hard. But true to its strength and resilience, many businesses are finding creative ways to stay afloat that could extend beyond the pandemic.

T

he world has been brought to its knees. In just a few short months, the coronavirus spread across continents, shutting down countries, economies, and businesses in its wake.

Australia has fared better than other countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, with confirmed cases and deaths well below those of the United States, Italy, Iran, and China. Stage three restrictions introduced at the end of March left people with few reasons to leave their homes, and mandated that cafés and restaurants function as takeaway and delivery only. These restrictions were necessary to flatten the curve and have since been loosened, but they were not without casualties.

Once busy streets were barren. City

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cafés that used to flood with workers every morning sat empty at the bottom of office buildings. Many were forced to close their doors, some temporarily, others not.

Most of those that stayed open had to drastically reorganise and make cuts.

Hospitality is one of the industries the pandemic has hit hardest. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than a quarter of all jobs in accommodation and food services were lost between midMarch and the first week of April.

Although JobKeeper payments began at the start of May, some businesses struggled with enrolment or didn’t make the cut, and many of the industry’s casual and foreign workers were omitted.

This hit to cafés has rippled through the coffee industry. Roasters, traders, technicians, and manufacturers were forced to rethink their operations and

their future. Despite the challenges, many businesses have found new – or improved existing – ways of operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. From an increased online presence to becoming a broader service provider, these strategies could prove to be long-term solutions, and even the new normal for the coffee industry.

Ona Coffee Marketing Manager Jordan Montgomery says obstacles aside, the coffee community has drawn together in incredible and innovative ways.

“We are in completely uncharted waters at the moment. In our generation, we have never had such a greater threat to our industry, economy, and way of life,” Jordan says.

“Times of difficulty are often the periods that motivate us the most and cause the most amount of change in such a short period.”

RISE OF RETAIL

With consumers less able to visit their favourite cafés for their coffee fix, many have turned to home brewing. This had led to roasters around the world experiencing an uptake in online, retail, and delivery orders.

Nielsen data has revealed Australian households have spent an extra 37 per cent on coffee from supermarkets in the four weeks prior to 22 March compared with the same time last year, largely attributed to the increase in premium coffee options. In contrast, the study found that the number of trips to coffee shops plummeted 39 per cent from early March to early April.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in demand for retail coffee, but it’s come at the same time that wholesale sales to cafes have decreased,” Jordan says.

“We’re doing our best to encourage people across Australia to continue to visit their favourite coffee shops and to buy coffee from them while practising social distancing to maintain the health and safety of others.”

St Ali Coffee Roasters General Manager Lachlan Ward tells BeanScene some of St Ali’s wholesale partners have also turned to retail to increase sales.

“A $20 transaction [of wholebeans] on top of a $4 coffee goes a long way in these times,” Lachlan says.

“A lot of cafés might typically sell a handful of bags per week, but making that central to your operation, even if you are still open for takeaway, makes a massive difference.”

Many businesses have run promotions to encourage online orders, including discounts and free shipping.

Others are doing what they can to help.

For example, equipment specialist Service Sphere has partnered with several businesses to launch Bean Barn, a one-stop shop for coffee and ancillary products.

Veneziano Coffee Roasters CEO Craig Dickson says the demand for retail coffee has helped the company adapt to the current landscape.

“We’re settling into our new normal and see no impact on our ability to roast coffee through the COVID-19 crisis,” Craig says.

“Our people have been working cross functionally and stepping into roles they don’t normally do. For example, our sales team, HR team, and others have been picking up shifts to support the packing and warehouse team to send out online orders. We’re so proud of our people for banding together, keeping Veneziano united and strong.”

OUT OF THE BOX

Some roasters are taking the opportunity to promote new or innovative ways consumers can buy and consume coffee. While many businesses produce capsules for the single serve market, customers without a machine can take comfort in Toby’s Estate’s new single serve coffee bags.

Others like Veneziano and Danes are taking advantage of their ability to pre-prepare bottled or canned cold brew coffee for online sale or takeaway. Some, including Seven Seeds and St Ali, have taken this to the next level with four-litre cold brew casks.

“People are looking for ways they can continue their regular life habits in their own home,” St Ali’s Lachlan says.

“We’ve had the ‘coffee goon bag’ on the backburner for a long time and I’m sort of kicking myself that we didn’t

“The spread of COVID-19 across the world has had a significant impact on many industries, and the hospitality industry in particular is feeling the strain,” Sam says. “We wanted to create something fun, exciting, and inventive to keep people excited about coffee, even if they can’t have the same experience of sitting in their favourite café to enjoy it.”

ON THE MOVE

Delivery apps like UberEats, Deliveroo, and Menulog, and pre-order apps Skip and Hey You were already popular with consumers before the virus. Now, they’ve become almost a staple for cafés to remain operational as takeaway- and delivery-only. Online ordering system HungryHungry has allowed Veneziano to set up a new service structure at its flagship cafés.

“HungryHungry means we can

Many cafés became takeaway only to comply with social distancing restrictions.

release it earlier. We sold a crazy number of units over the first weekend and were thrilled to see how well it went, because every dollar counts at this point.”

For some, restrictions aren’t putting a stop to releasing new blends, single origins, or limited-edition products. Following the success of its Flavours of Spring series in 2019, Ona Coffee shared its Flavours of Autumn special release in March.

Ona Coffee Head Roaster Sam Corra says the blends were intended to provide coffee drinkers with something fun during a difficult time.

continue serving coffee and food from our cafés to our local customers via delivery, pick up, or drive up. We’re essentially able to turn our outlets into drive-through venues for coffee,” Veneziano’s Craig says.

“With the impacts of social distancing, it enables us to continue providing a quality service to our customers, to make their day during this challenging time. On the flip side, we can keep our people in jobs, give them meaningful work, and a purpose through COVID-19.”

Drive-through has been a particularly

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FEATURE NEWS

Veneziano Coffee Richmond is one of many cafés to embrace a grocery format.

“It’s about trying to maintain a connection with your regular clientele in a different way through this period,” Lachlan says.

“If someone is coming in for eggs on toast and a latte every day, how can you take that experience home to them?

That’s going to mean different things to different cafés.”

SUPPORT LOCAL

popular alternative in the United States, with Starbucks, Dutch Bros, and Caribou Coffee among those embracing the model. A few other Australian businesses have made it work, like Danes Specialty Coffee in New South Wales, which set up contactless drive-through pickup at its Brookvale roastery.

However, not all cafés or roasters have the capacity for this type of service. St Ali’s Lachlan encourages cafés limited to in-store takeaway or delivery to remember what makes them special and to offer it. 1 6/03/2020 9:59:19 AM Half continue Page April Beanscene.pdf

When talk of restrictions and social distancing first emerged in March, St Ali began thinking of ways it could continue to operate if cafés were forced to close.

One of those was as a grocery store.

This idea came into fruition later that month, when the roaster reorganised its South Melbourne café as the St Ali General Store. This shop format allowed St Ali to continue serving coffee and meals, sell produce and stock from its suppliers direct to consumers, and reconnect with the South Melbourne community.

“When we set about reformatting St Ali, we had in the back of our heads: ‘How can we offer the dining experience that people get at St Ali in a form they can take home and enjoy?’,” Lachlan asks.

“It’s been fantastic. A lot of people who live in the area are home much more, so we’re seeing locals who might only visit once on the weekend come in more often. South Melbourne isn’t just full of offices. It’s also a neighbourhood, and you’re seeing this in suburbs across Australia.”

Many cafés and roasters, like Veneziano Coffee Richmond, have set up similar groceries. Declining café sales have rippled through the industry, affecting business-to-business suppliers too. To boost sales and support, several cafés are selling products like milk, dairy alternatives, bread, eggs, and produce direct to consumers. Some have even

bundled these items into care packages for customers apprehensive to visit a busy supermarket.

PART OF THE SOLUTION

Hospitality may be struggling, but the need for sanitary or hygiene products is on the rise. Coffee businesses around the world have adapted their production to assist.

Super automatic manufacturer Eversys has produced protective visors for hospitals in Switzerland. German coffee giant Melitta has shifted its paper filter facility to manufacture face masks.

In Australia, Detpak parent company Detmold has employed 160 extra staff to produce respirator and surgical masks for the South Australian and Federal Governments.

St Ali has also gotten onboard, partnering with chemical production company HydroChem to produce and distribute hand sanitiser, a product that has seen a surge in demand during the pandemic.

“HydroChem doesn’t specialise in sanitiser, but when all this started happening, they had one of their major clients reach out and see if they could make it. We happen to be good friends with HydroChem through various connections and had a lot of staff that all of a sudden didn’t have any work. It was fortuitous timing,” Lachlan says.

“This has meant we’ve been able to keep more people employed [saving 72 jobs], have breathing space to continue doing everything we can for our wholesale customers, and keep the lights on. It’s been the lifeline we’ve needed to get through this period and an opportunity we’ll always be grateful for.

“It’s been an enormous challenge to fulfil the volumes we’ve had coming our way, but I think we’re going to come out of the coronavirus pandemic stronger than ever and with a team that has each other’s backs.”

M23UP has Arrived 1300 730 680

CONNECTING THE COMMUNITY

Roasters may be experiencing a boost in retail sales, but for most, this won’t outweigh the damage done to their wholesale business and partners, and are doing what they can to support the cafés that buy their coffee.

St Ali launched its Wholesale Assistance Package in March to provide its partners with some financial relief for its wholesale customers to still operate.

Single O in New South Wales has launched a Kickback program, giving cafés a 30 per cent cut in free coffee credits when their customers buy from its online store. Grinders Coffee Roasters is offering counselling services to customers and released a Coffee Care Kit, including advice on service changes, government assistance, and digital marketing.

Social media and the internet have also provided opportunities for roasters to continue training and education. Campos Coffee, Genovese, Veneziano, and many others are sharing advice and instructions on Youtube, Instagram, and their websites for brewing at home. Ona has even used Zoom to broaden the audience of its training courses.

“We believe that more than ever, it is important for people to have access to information, feel connected to the wider community, and continue learning,” Ona’s Jordan says.

“We are focusing less on practical skills and paying more attention to theory… It’s no use just learning how to make coffee well on one machine. It’s essential to understand brewing variables, techniques, coffee ageing, and more. We’re also looking at providing online training for other techniques, such as the freezing and preservation of coffee.”

Post-coronavirus, it’s unlikely the coffee industry will snap right back into the place it was before. While the financial impact will eventually fade, a

cultural shift in consumption behaviour and new demographics of specialty coffee drinkers could persist. Jordan says new technologies, methods, and styles of service that emerged during this period will permeate the industry for years to come.

“The global coffee community is one

that is bound in community, sharing, traceability and knowledge,” Jordan says.

“I feel optimistic that no matter what changes occur to our industry and the world at large, these ideals will be upheld and that we will be a brave, new world of coffee that has been thrust into the forefront of the modern world.”

St Ali has begun producing hand sanitiser during the health crisis, saving 72 jobs.

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FEATURE NEWS

At all costs BeanScene asks finance experts what government support small businesses are entitled to, and the value of their venues post COVID-19.

T

he Federal and State Governments have released a range of support programs for small businesses struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, with much uncertainty about the future and so many initiatives in place, small businesses may be left confused and with unanswered questions.

BeanScene speaks to Parikshit Kikla, Founder of 360 Accounting Services; Nadi Elias, CEO of Equus Partners; and Dan Levitus, Senior Partner of Vision Brokers and Advisors; for clarity on the situation.

Parikshit (P) and Nadi (N) have years of experience helping cafés keep track of their finances, while Dan (D) specialises in the hospitality retail market.

Can I apply for JobKeeper if my turnover hasn’t fallen by 30 per cent yet, but I believe it will soon?

P: If you believe your turnover will fall in future, you can nominate the month from which the turnover will reduce by 30 per cent. For example, you can forecast turnover falling by 30 per cent or more in the month of July. In this case, you can nominate July when you enrol and get the JobKeeper payments for that month.

What financial support can I receive if my business is less than a year old?

N: The JobKeeper Payment is not dependent on being in business (or having permanent or full-time employees) for over a year. You may still apply if you meet the basic eligibility criteria.

A business that employs people may also be eligible to receive a Cash Flow Boost if the business was established prior to 12 March 2020 and can prove it was legitimately in business prior to that date.

The Federal Government is providing up to $100,000 to eligible small and mediumsized businesses, and not-for-profits, that employ people, with a minimum payment of $20,000.

State governments are also providing financial support to businesses.

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How is pay-as-you-go (PAYG) tax and superannuation handled in regards to JobKeeper?

P: For PAYG, the employer needs to withhold tax before making the payment to the employee. For super, the business has the option of choosing to pay the superannuation guarantee on the additional amount. For example, Nick is a permanent part-time employee on a salary of $1000 per fortnight before tax who continues working for the business.

The business needs to pay super on the regular $1000, on the additional $500 it will be optional.

Do my employees need to be working shifts in the café to receive the JobKeeper payments?

N: If any eligible employee currently earns less than $1500 before tax per fortnight, you will need to pay them $1500 per fortnight before tax to receive the JobKeeper Payment.

Does it matter if I pay my staff weekly or monthly instead of fortnightly?

P: No. You only need to make sure the staff receive $1500 per fortnight equivalent in each pay period. For example, if paid weekly, then $750 per week, if paid monthly, then $3000 per month.

What are the requirements for casual staff to be eligible for the Jobkeeper payment?

N: If they meet all other eligibility criteria, they will need to be long-term casuals, and have been employed on a regular and systematic basis for longer than 12 months as of 1 March 2020.

Special rules apply for circumstances where, for example, the business owner has changed within the last 12 months and the casual employee has worked for both owners. A similar allowance applies if they were transferred from another member of a corporate group within the last 12 months.

An eligible casual employee

cannot be a permanent employee of any other employer.

What concessions are there for foreign workers?

P: There are no concessions in JobKeeper for foreign workers [except NZ citizens on the 444 Visa]. However, the Victorian State Government has announced $1100 relief grants to struggling foreign students.

N: The Government has announced that foreign workers may be able to drawdown (withdraw) up to $10,000 from their superannuation. They would need to discuss this with their superannuation fund.

If JobKeeper is providing support for my Australian workers, can I prioritise giving shifts and regular payments to my foreign staff members?

P: I don’t see any issues with this.

You can give foreign staff shifts.

N: Employers must follow the relevant employment award (including any temporary arrangement) applicable to their business. There cannot be any discrimination within a business. They are urged to discuss their circumstances with FairWork Australia for clarification.

What if my business continues to struggle past the end of September?

N: At this stage, the government has not indicated it will extend any stimulus beyond September 2020. I advise that all businesses have a Business Continuity Plan and Cash Flow forecast in place to predict early if the business can continue postSeptember after factoring all incomings, outgoings, and the impact of COVID-19 on

their operations. The best person to speak to is your accountant, who is trained in these areas, understands the business, and the goals of the owner.

What tax concessions or reliefs can my business claim?

P: 1. A 50 per cent subsidy on apprentice wages, up to $21,000.

2. A 100 per cent Cashback on PAYG Withholding, up to $100,000 in total.

3. Assets write off up to $150,000 for assets purchased between 12 March 2020 and 30 June 2020. Your Tax accountant will process this when they do the end of year accounts.

4. A 50 per cent additional depreciation for assets purchased between 12 March 2020 and 30 June 2020 that are over $150,000.

5. Tax Payment Deferrals from the ATO

6. The Government is providing a 50 per cent guarantee to any new loans to SMEs. Contact your bank and enquire about this.

What are my entitlements and requirements around paying my lease?

P: Small and medium-sized businesses hurt by the coronavirus economic downturn will be given at least two years to catch up on any deferred payments.

It is important to note that this is a deferment only. So, to reduce the impact of the debt on the business in the future, tenants should pay as much rent as they can afford right now.

How should I approach my landlord about reducing rent payments?

N: If you can’t afford to pay your rent, take the following steps:

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FEATURE NEWS

Clockwise top left: Parikshit Kikla, Founder of 360 Accounting Services; Nadi Elias, CEO of Equus Partners; and Dan Levitus, Senior Partner of Vision Brokers and Advisors.

Step 1: Keep paying what rent you can afford and work out your reduction in turnover associated with the premises during the relevant period.

Step 2: Apply for rent relief from your landlord in writing. Be nice about it. It is important to maintain a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with your landlord. They’re also somewhat affected

by COVID-19 too. The way you negotiate will likely impact how they treat you when it is time to extend or transfer your lease in the future and that could make or break a potential sale of your business.

Step 3: If an agreement is reached, document what has been agreed to in writing.

Step 4: If an agreement cannot be reached, lodge an application with the Victorian Small Business Commission if in Victoria or your equivalent Small Business Commission in your state or territory.

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What is your best advice to help cafés upsell or add to their regular income?

P: It is important to be flexible as a business owner. During this period of lockdown, many people are supporting their favourite businesses by ordering takeaway and delivery.

It is important to maximise your ingredients, staff, and sales when developing a simple takeaway menu. By keeping the menu simple and utilising the same ingredients across multiple dishes, you will guarantee a greater profit margin with less food wastage.

Encourage people to buy gift vouchers.

This will bring cash in the short term and ensure you will have guests in the restaurant in the future.

Promote [your café] online, via an email database, and on social media.

There are best practice hashtags and keywords businesses can use to increase their visibility. It is important to reinforce through your messaging your ongoing commitment to reduce contamination via cleaning changes and social distancing protocols within your business.

What are some easy cost-cutting ways a small business can save money?

P: Wherever possible, employers should focus on upskilling their staff. They can train their existing staff in additional skills to increase productivity and efficiency, rather than hiring more staff.

Reduce the operating hours to core trading periods to reduce variable costs like heating/cooling and staff wages.

N: Request an immediate rent reduction and review all expenses. Suspend, reduce, or stop anything that

doesn’t assist your business to make more sales, run more efficiently, access financial support and funding, is a legal requirement; or ensure your business continues operating.

Can you extend your supplier terms? Can you obtain a discount for paying early?

Liquidate stock at just above cost price if you are holding too much of it and sell unused equipment.

What are some easy mistakes that I should avoid during this period?

N: Thinking you’re the only one that is doing it tough. We’re all in this together and have been affected somewhat because of COVID-19. In all of this negativity, you need to be and remain positive because positive thinking leads to positive decision making that ultimately helps you, your business, your family, and your community.

Don’t try to learn or do everything yourself. Engage professionals who are experts in helping businesses get through crises such as COVID-19. Listen to those professionals.

P: If you are leading a team or a company, you need to understand that your ability to manage other people in this crisis is critical. While we need to maintain social distancing, we also need to make sure that we are in touch with our team.

Make sure you also take care of yourself. It is very easy to get overwhelmed and not invest in one of your most valuable assets, your mental health. Be sure to talk to family, friends, and your GP if you feel that you are not able to cope or need additional help. This is a time when people are banding together, and if you need help, all you need to do is ask.

How can I prepare my business in case something like COVID-19 happens again?

N: Have a Business Continuity Plan in place – a plan that focusses on seven key areas of your business: cash, protection, banks and funding, management team, employees, customers and suppliers, and mental health.

Remember that while cash flow is under control, then so is your business.

Downturns can be scary in the moment, usually because there is no plan in place for your business and the world around you appears to be panicking. An accountant can work with you to develop a continuity plan for your business.

How is COVID-19 likely to affect the value of my café?

D: A café will only be worth less if you decide to sell during the restrictions.

There are plenty of buyers looking for bargain cafés, because they know the value of cafés will recover. Think of a business like any other asset class. When the value goes down, it is only realised if you choose to sell.

I know a lot of brokers are promoting the fact that there are plenty of buyers in the market and that now is a great time to sell, but what they are leaving out is that these are highly experienced buyers, looking for bargain deals. We strongly encourage all café owners to take advantage of the various stimulus packages and hang in there.

What can I do to improve the value of my café if I want to sell?

D: One of the most significant factors attributing to value is the lease.

Vacancy is expected to increase by 300 per cent over the next 12 months, and all the leverage has shifted towards tenants. In conjunction with the new mandatory code of conduct for commercial leasing, there has never been a better reason to negotiate a new lease with your landlord. A prudent landlord will be highly incentivised by longer lease terms, even if it means some short-term pain for them now. If your lease is less than 10 years, strike up a conversation.

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How is the café buying/selling market likely to looking post restrictions?

D: We also anticipate the demand for cafés will increase just like they did at the end of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009. What happened was, new buyers flooded the market as a result of massive corporate redundancies. Newly unemployed people were literally buying themselves jobs, and the perception was that cafés were relatively simple businesses to run. I know most café owners will laugh at that sentiment, however, we expect a similar pattern to play out over the next 12 months.

What are my obligations if I buy a café that has accrued significant debt over the pandemic?

D: If you buy the business with a new ABN, creditors will only be chasing the old ABN via the old owner. However, creditors may associate the business name with the new ABN and be less inclined to do business with you. It’s important to address this, and understand which creditors are still owed monies. Communicate with the creditors and give them confidence that you are a new owner, in a stronger financial position, and they are safe to sell their products/services to you and get paid.

What should I keep in mind if selling a café post-restriction?

D: A buyer will hold a microscope over one thing: your trading figures and how strongly they recover. They will want to see trading figures on a weekly basis from the time the restrictions were lifted. It will be critical for café owners to make sure their bookkeeping practices are improved and updated on a weekly basis if they aren’t already. Don’t wait until the end of the month or quarter to reconcile, do it every week.

What else should I know regarding buying or selling cafés during/ after COVID-19?

D: Whether you are buying, selling, or just continuing to operate, check in with the staff and do it regularly. This has been an incredibly uncertain time for a lot of them, and the best investment you can make is to ensure they are OK. The staff are the crown jewels of any business, when they don’t shine the business will inevitably suffer. As a business owner, you are also a leader – not just the person in charge.

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Adapt to thrive Fairtrade is helping producers adapt to the challenges and restrictions of coronavirus so they can continue to farm coffee now and into the future.

W

hile COVID-19 has been less widespread at origin than in consuming countries at this stage, producers are feeling the blowback. Peter Kettler, Senior Coffee Manager at Fairtrade International, tells BeanScene coffee farmers have felt disruptions on multiple levels.

“It really all depends on how regional and national governments have responded. Colombia, for example, has limited internal travel, which has affected the movement of temporary labour for harvest,” Peter says.

“It also depends on where the country is in its harvest schedule. Fortunately, a lot of production has gone on as normal.

Ethiopia is pretty much finished with its harvest, so all the coffee is either at port or already exported… But we’re starting to see bottlenecks in the transport of coffee from milling sites to export facilities, which have limited capacity.”

This makes delivery of samples

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harder for both exporters and importers, who have closed their physical offices or labs and have traders working from home.

Peter says a mounting concern is a global shortage of shipping containers.

The virus originated in China – the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter of goods – shutting down production, leaving many unused shipping containers stuck in the country’s ports.

With the extent of the pandemic on farmers hard to predict, Fairtrade has acted to help producers and cooperatives adapt to the situation.

On top of the US$1.40 per pound minimum price paid to producers, coffee buyers pay a Fairtrade Premium of 20 US cents per pound, part of which is typically dedicated to yield and quality improvement. Fairtrade has broadened producers’ ability to use the premium to best provide COVID-19 mitigation and other services to the community.

“This is supporting farmers with direct cash payments to help them

through this time. A lot of expenses are being incurred, especially in countries that are about to or have already begun their harvest, such as Colombia and Peru,” Peter says.

“In both of these countries, producers hired labour to help in their harvest and are now unable to get that product to export. We’re providing them with funds to absorb some of these additional costs while also providing for their families with basic needs like food and shelter.”

Many Fairtrade-certified producer groups have also applied the premium to help their local communities. The Amazonas Alto Mayo Producers Association and Cooperativa de Servicios Múltiples Adisa Naranjos in Peru, for instance, have set up food banks and distribution for the most vulnerable members of their communities. Others are doing what they can to help farmers and their families financially and logistically.

“A lot of larger cooperatives prefinance their farmers during pre-harvest times and are increasing those payments.

They’re also providing support for the transport of coffee, milling of coffee, and delaying processing fees until the farmer can get back on their feet,” Peter says.

“Whenever something like [COVID-19] strikes, the volunteer reflex kicks in and people do whatever they can to help those around them.”

The actions of these cooperatives are helping to ensure the wellbeing of these communities in the long-term. Peter says the sustainability of the coffee industry is dependent on the strength and resilience of farming communities.

“For most coffee farmers, you can’t separate their family and community life from their work life. It’s so intimately intertwined. If these communities can’t succeed with coffee farming, we might start to see producers leave it for other – sometimes illegal – crops just to feed their family,” he says.

“Right now, we’re trying to help them get over these immediate needs. Then, we can determine together what longterm actions might be required, based on whether their coffee has shipped, if there’s more internal restrictions on travel, and how the disease impacts the population of their countries.”

As well as its adaption of the Fairtrade Premium, Peter says Fairtrade is launching three funding mechanisms to help producers of coffee and other crops around the world reduce the impact of the pandemic, now and into the future.

One of these is a shared pot of funding that can be used to finance a variety of producer-led and identified initiatives specifically focused on relief and recovery from COVID-19.

“We’re trying to create a rapid response mechanism within Fairtrade to respond to the most extreme impacts of the coronavirus as they start to emerge,” Peter says.

A second level of funding is designated for larger projects that producer networks have also brought to Fairtrade’s attention. These longer-term projects could include those already in place that are deemed a priority and require a higher level of investment.

“We’re starting to see businesses at the other end of the supply chain understand what it’s like when your very livelihood is threatened by conditions you can’t control,” Peter says. “Unless coffee farmers and, just as importantly, the next generation of producers, see this as a viable business, their land is going to be sold off or used for other crops with a greater return on investment.”

The third level of support is intended to relieve or assist farmers in the paying of their audit costs to maintain their

certifications and premiums.

Peter says despite its many challenges, the coronavirus has provided not only the coffee industry, but the world at large, a chance to reflect on how things are done.

“Everybody is experiencing some kind of impact from this and it’s an opportunity to hit the reset button on a lot of different levels. Within the coffee industry, we can see how each link in the supply chain is interrelated and how each one depends on another,” Peter says.

“Hopefully, this will produce some empathy and understanding for coffee farmers as an important part of the coffee community that need to be supported.

If they’re not, the consequences of COVID-19 are going to be dire not only

for those farming families but the coffee industry itself.”

While it’s difficult to predict exactly what long-term ramifications COVID-19 will have, Peter says ensuring the sustainability of coffee producing communities will be key.

“Everything is built on the ability of farmers to do their work and realise a decent standard of living from doing that work,” Peter says.

“The coffee industry depends on about 25 million smallholder farmers getting up every day and saying ‘yes’. Once they say ‘no’, the whole industry starts to crumble like a house of cards.”

For more information, visit www.fairtrade.com.au

Fairtrade has enabled certified producers to use the Fairtrade Premium to best provide to their communities during COVID-19.

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Campos Coffee Head Roaster Jamie Djambazov collects three AICA trophies.

Best in show The 2020 Australian International Coffee Awards provides roasters a chance to put their brand on the map in a rigorous judging process that celebrates the complexity and craft of roasting.

A

ustralia is considered a leader in the global coffee industry. That high regard is brought to the fore every year in the Australian International Coffee Awards (AICA).

In 2020, the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV) awards program received 800 entries from 172 roasters across 15 countries. Kirsten Stubbings, Manager of the AICA, tells BeanScene there was an overall quality improvement in coffees submitted in the competition this year. “[Head Judge Melissa Caia] was impressed with what Australian and international roasters on the whole are producing, which was reflected in the results,” Kirsten says. “It’s also reflected in how happy our exhibitors are with the results, because it feels as though they’ve received accurate feedback.”

Using the RASV scoring system, any

coffee awarded 44 to 48 points received a bronze medal, 49 to 53 points a silver, and 54 to 60 points a gold. A total of 291 medals were given out in 2020 – 184 bronze, 92 silver, and 15 gold.

The top scoring gold medal coffees in each category – Espresso, Milk Based, Soy Based, Filter, and Cold Brew – win a Best in Class Trophy. Three more trophies are awarded tp the Champion Australian Roaster, Champion International Roaster, and Champion Direct Trade or Microlot Coffee every competition.

This year, Campos Coffee took out the Champion Australian Roaster title, as well as Champion Direct Trade or Microlot Coffee, and Champion Filter Coffee for its Panama Esmeralda Super Mario Geisha.

Founder and CEO Will Young describes the award as a recognition of the hard work the Campos team has put into its roasting and green bean buying programs over more than a decade.

“I feel like we’ve been building up to it for so long. It’s a testament to the experience and knowledge of our roasting team,” Will says.

“Then there’s all the time we spend working with the Cup of Excellence – we’ve got seven qualified judges in our team – and the Best of Panama.

That teaches you a lot about coffee, connects you with producers, and helps with knowing what coffees to select for competitions.”

Super Mario was sourced in a private auction from Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama. Campos Coffee sold the coffee in 18-gram single serve pouches to make it more accessible price-wise for baristas, roasters, and those who would appreciate it most. Will says a good relationship and communication with its producer, Rachel Peterson, helped Campos bring the best out of the coffee.

“We’ve been buying coffees from

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Caffe Artigiano in Taiwan was awarded Champion International Roaster at the 2020 AICA.

Hacienda Esmeralda every year for the last decade, but this one was particularly brilliant. Rachel visited us in Sydney last year and we worked with her on the coffee. After discussions and cupping, she gave us feedback on how to get more out of it. This was invaluable.” Will says.

“Quite often in coffee, feedback goes in one direction with roasters telling growers what can make their coffee better. But in a healthy relationship where you’re close with the farmer, you realise they can help you make the most of their product. They know their product better than anyone.

They’re the ones processing and cupping it every day.”

Super Mario wasn’t Campos’s only coffee to receive recognition. Its Blade Runner blend received a silver medal in the Milk Based category, and its Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Worka Sakaro won silver in Filter and bronze in Espresso. Campos’s Colombia La Negrita Geisha Natural won bronze in the Espresso category, and its Panama Elida Natural ASD won bronze in Filter.

Will says Campos’s success, particularly in the pour over Filter category, reflects its commitment to “ultra-premium” coffees and the producers behind them.

“Pour over is where price differentiation happens [in the café]. These higher prices move the industry in a good direction, because it shows people good coffee is worth paying for. You’ll have to spend more if you want spectacular tasting filter and that same concept applies to all

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coffee. We believe people will increasingly gravitate to higher quality coffee both in café and at home,” he says.

“I’m thrilled these are the coffees that placed in the competition. The truth comes out when these coffees, which are thought of as the best in the world, still win medals when judged blindly.”

Will is excited to share more coffees from these producers with the wider community and in the 2021 AICA. “Competitions like AICA help a lot in showing what it is that is important in coffee. We really want to win it again.

We’re a pretty competitive bunch and our roasters are hungry for the gold,” he says.

Of the 2020 AICA’s 173 exhibitors, 67 international roasters submitted 248

coffees for consideration. Claiming the title of Champion International Roaster was Caffe Artigiano in Taiwan, which also won Champion Espresso for its Super Species and Champion Milk Based Coffee for its Super Coffee.

Caffe Artigiano Taiwan was formed in 2011 and now also operates in Hong Kong, Macau, and China. As well as the gold medal winning Super Coffee and Super Species, the roaster’s Fruit Collection won silver in Espresso and bronze in Immersion.

Mars Huang, Founder of Caffe Artigiano Taiwan, says entering in the 2019 AICA helped him learn what judges look for in a coffee.

“I chose to enter this contest to see how my ‘direct fire’ roast would be evaluated in such a high mature market like Australia. I got some good results last year and thought a lot about how to improve it for next time,” Mars says.

“We really improved compared to last year. The cupping notes from judges showed that they appreciated the flavour complexity of Super Species and the blueberry ice cream of my Super Coffee.”

Super Species is made of 50 per cent Kenyan, 20 per cent Guatemalan, and 30 per cent Ethiopian coffees. Each bean is roasted until the end of first crack then post mixed.

Its other house blend, Super Coffee, is a mix of Guatemalan, Colombian, and Ethiopian coffees. These are roasted until the point of second crack then post mixed.

Mars says Taiwan has a coffee market surprisingly similar to Australia, with a large number of micro roasters creating a need to differentiate.

“It may be the place with the highest roaster density in the world and each one has its own unique character. Because of that, there is a lot of competition between

Gourmet Espresso in NZ pairs its award winning Ice Brew with a curated dessert.

each coffee shop no matter if it’s in the high-priced specialty coffee industry or to-go market,” he says.

“The coffee drinking habits are related with food culture. Compared to Hong Kong and Macao, most consumers in Taiwan enjoy coffee with milk, like a latte or flat white, much more than espresso.”

Mars says winning the awards has already led to increased interest in his coffees. It also allows Mars to spend more time on the parts of his business he is most passionate about.

“I would rather focus on roasting than marketing or advertising. But people around the world now know Caffe Artigiano because of the AICA. More consumers want to buy Super Species and Super Coffee, wondering why it won the champion [titles], especially in Hong Kong and Macao,” he says.

“Winning Champion International Roaster is amazing, of course, but whether or not I won, joining the contest motivated me to explore new ideas. I believe I will enter the competition next year with different ideas and new blends.”

One other hotly contested award was handed out at the 2020 AICA ceremony on 12 March.

In 2019, the Champion Cold Brew Coffee award was not presented after no entry in the category received a gold medal. In 2020, only one business rose to the challenge.

Gourmet Espresso in New Zealand opened in 2020 so Founder Henry Lee could share his love of cold processed coffee with the world. The shop aims to be dairy- and sugar-free wherever possible and showcase the collective efforts of the best of the coffee industry, from organic farmers to master roasters and brewers.

The café is only open two afternoons per week, serving exclusively ice brew tastings with a rotating menu that pairs with the coffee. Henry tells BeanScene he spent seven year perfecting his “Ice Brew” method, which was behind the two coffees he entered in the AICA. “Cold brew is a new introduction in New Zealand and most existing suppliers of cold brew are very commercialised, either being too diluted or lacking specialty taste profiles,” Henry says.

“While I had complete confidence in my winning taste, there were many chefs and baristas that were hesitant and critical.

I entered my Ice Brew creations into AICA 2020, in a bid to compare myself against international peers and to gain recognition for my work.”

Ice Brew OsmEsp won the coveted gold medal while Ice Brew RSEsp picked up a silver. Judges approved of OsmEsp’s

complex aromatics, delicate profile, and tasting notes of peaches, cocoa, papaya, and blossoms.

Henry says during New Zealand’s lockdown restrictions, he took time to further refine his coffees, and looks forward to sharing his improved ice brew method on the new platform the AICA has provided him.

“My goal is to become a pioneer in innovative cold process coffee brewing, so that my bottled coffee can be exported to the rest of the world, especially to the gourmet food sectors,” Henry says.

“Winning the AICA 2020 Champion Cold Brew Coffee trophy had a profound effect on my advertising and marketing…

I am creating a new crowd of followers who are intrigued in exploring new dimensions of coffee.”

Since the AICA was first held in 2013, RASV’s Kirsten says the awards program has become recognised around the world as an opportunity for roasters to receive valuable feedback from some of the world’s top coffee experts. In 2020, the awards moved from judging on paper

sheets to an inhouse-developed tablet system to capture more comments and information from the judges.

“This has attracted more international roasters to enter the AICA to benchmark their products on an international scale and leverage their trophy and medal wins in order to promote their businesses and expand into new markets,” Kirsten says.

“Locally, Australians are more interested in coffee than ever before.

Consumers are actively engaged, and learning about their products, where it comes form, and its quality. A medal is a distinguishing mark that helps inform their purchases.”

With the awards boasting a high retention rate of exhibitors, the RASV plans on growing international participation and reaching exhibitors in new countries for the 2021 AICA. “There are many international roasters who are producing coffee of outstanding quality,” Kirsten says.

“It’s really reflective of the constantly improving quality of the coffee being produced on an international scale.”

The 2020 AICA‘s esteemed judging panel was led by Melissa Caia (centre, bottom).

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

On the grid Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters has developed a new tool to focus on aligning expectations and making coffee tasting more accessible.

Toby’s Estate uses its grid tool to align the expectations of its staff and customers.

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asting coffee can be intimidating to people new to the industry, especially if what they taste is different to what someone more experienced is describing.

This can cause problems if the barista, café owner, and roaster are not aligned on what to expect from a coffee. Realising this, Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters looked into what it could do to simplify the process. Head of Coffee Nich Rae says while flavour is subjective, most people can agree on its intensity.

“If I say I’m tasting florals and strawberries, but you taste chocolate and apples, we can’t say the other is wrong.

What we can agree on is whether the intensity of acidity and flavour is high or low, and that goes for finish and mouthfeel as well,” Nich says.

“In the coffee industry, one of the hardest things to achieve is delivering on expectations – not only to customers and consumers, but also to your café partners. Even with other roasters, there’s expectations of certain coffees or blends. Taste is very subjective, so we need to align what we expect and

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experience without telling other people they’re wrong.”

Focusing on intensity instead of flavour descriptors, Toby’s Estate has developed a tasting grid ranking acidity, flavour, finish, and mouthfeel on a scale of one to eight.

Filling out the grid creates a shape that can be compared to others.

“You don’t need to be a skilled barista to understand those four characteristics.

People feel more comfortable talking about the coffee if they can just pick a number out of eight to rank the intensity. Then we can start having better conversations about how we got there, what we’re tasting, and help each other align,” Nich says.

“Rather than getting stuck on things like ‘why aren’t I tasting strawberry?’, people start asking better questions about how to understand what they’re tasting and then change the extraction or the roasting for better results.”

Toby’s Estate has used the grid system behind the scenes for more than a year, testing its efficacy before sharing it with the wider community. A grid shape has been made for each of Toby’s Estate’s blends and individual coffees in each blend to ensure each roast is fulfilling its role. This has

helped align Toby’s Estate’s roasteries – in New South Wales, Western Australia, and the Philippines – on what to expect from their coffees week in, week out.

“When I was travelling around Indonesia and the Philippines, I noticed they wanted to improve their coffee. We had to figure out how we were going to do that without going back and forth every week,” Nich says.

“We had an intensive session with the Philippines team around the grid. Then, they would taste their coffee, fill out the grid, and send their coffee with the grid attached to us. We compared it to our grid and talked through it afterwards.

Their coffee drastically improved almost overnight. It was just understanding what to look for out of the coffee and adjusting their roasting to achieve it.”

Following the grid’s success in Asia, Toby’s Estate began using the tool in conjunction with its recipe cards at its Chippendale café in Sydney. Nich says it has helped the roasting and green bean buying teams share their experience with the baristas and café staff.

“We’re running three single origins and a blend every day. One of the things

Grids are produced for the components of a blend as well as the end product.

we realised is, if we give you a natural Colombian and you’ve never had one before, how do you know what to look for with only three tasting notes?” Nich asks.

“If we’re saying the finish should be a three but they’re getting higher than that, then it’s pretty obvious that’s not what we want from that coffee. The grid provides a bullseye to shoot for and the recipe shows how to reach it.”

The grid has also proved useful in the training of new staff. For instance, a trainer can share a coffee that is a four in acidity to align students with what a mid-strength acidity is like. Nich says it also helps with complex ideas like blending coffees.

“Within our training, we look at the blend and the coffees that go into it, each with their own grid, and overlay those grids to project what we want from the blend.

This helps people understand what’s in the blend and why it’s in there,” Nich says.

“It highlights how things happening in the background deliver certain expectations from the blend. A lot of people might think a blend is just a blend, but for us, each coffee has a purpose, and it helps us deliver and explain that to people when they’re training.”

Toby’s Estate plans to expand the use of this tool, sharing target grids with its single origin coffees. Nich says this will help its café partners make sure staff and baristas are on the same page, like it has done for Toby’s Estate’s roasteries.

“You can’t have one barista working all day seven days a week. When someone else steps onto the machine, having that target means they can adjust as needed and still make consistently great coffee,” he says.

“When it comes to less experienced baristas, it helps them understand the expectations, adjustments, and see the results for themselves. It’s easy for me to say ‘if you make the grind coarser you’ll

have more acidity’, but doing it yourself and seeing that change has a real impact.”

Information for the grid is also easily conveyed to the end consumer by floor and service staff. Customers can use it themselves to identify characteristics they enjoy in a coffee and broaden their horizons by trying others with similar qualities.

“If they enjoy a coffee from Brazil, they might not know they liked it because it’s a natural processed coffee with low acidity.

But they can see the shape of the grid and start to understand why they like to drink coffee from Brazil,” Nich says.

He adds Toby’s Estate hopes this will help the consumer approach different coffees with an understanding of what characteristics matter to them, so they can

explore a range of coffees with a similar grid. That way, the roasters, its partners, and their baristas can be confident the customer will be happy with their choice.

“The purpose of the grid is to help people understand what they’re achieving when they make the coffee so they can set clear expectations with their staff and customers,” Nich says.

“Once your team is aligned, baristas will produce coffee with similar grids day to day even if they prefer different settings. Those standards are going to provide an extra level of consistency to the café. At Toby’s Estate, we call it complex simplicity.”

For more information, visit www.tobysestate.com.au

The grid is used in Toby’s Estate’s training of new staff so they can easily express what they’re experiencing.

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Family values Martin Monin is set to one day take the reins of the family syrup business, breaking new ground in Asia and ensuring the sustainability of Monin for years to come.

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Martin Monin heads up the Malaysian branch of the family business.

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artin Monin hadn’t always intended to join the family business. He began his professional career in the tech startup arena, however, having a child of his own at a young age opened his eyes to the importance of continuing the legacy.

The family business was Monin, founded in France in 1912 by Martin’s great grandfather Georges. Martin’s grandfather Paul shifted the company focus from wine and spirits to the emerging syrups market in the 1940s.

Martin’s father Olivier capitalised on the growing United States and international markets in the 1990s and made Monin one of the market leaders it is today.

The business now produces and distributes hundreds of premium syrups, liqueurs, gourmet sauces, fruit smoothies, cocktail mixes, and frappe powders in more than 120 flavours to bars, hotels, and cafés in 140 countries.

With such a strong heritage behind him, Martin could have gone to work under his father in France, but instead saw an opportunity to leave a mark of his own in Asia.

“There was an opening in Malaysia.

I discussed it with my father, and we thought it was a good time for me to take the reins. It’s good to be a bit away from Europe and get my own free space,” Martin tells BeanScene.

“It’s still pretty early, but I’m really happy to be so far from Europe. In Europe, it feels like everything has been done and there’s not much room for creativity or young people. It’s good to be in another region with more energy, where people are eager to try new things and take risks.”

Martin heads up Monin’s Asian branch, established 10 years ago in Kuala Lumpur.

From there, he oversees the company’s business in Malaysia, Korea, and Japan.

Martin says these markets can differ wildly in consumer trends.

“In Southeast Asia, people drink coffee with condensed milk, an egg in it, or even with coconut milk. It can become very sweet stuff and the coffee is roasted very

dark and strong to match. Then you have Japan, which is very purist,” he says.

“The trends and flavours that are popular really vary. Some countries will like to flavour their coffee with fruity notes, like pear or cherry. Cold brew is for sure a big trend across Asia. In some markets it’s going down, in others it’s on the up.”

Martin says the biggest lesson he has learnt from this role is how to communicate with people from many different cultures.

“It’s been very eye opening and forces you to always adapt. To be in touch with the local culture, you need to think about the person you’re speaking with and not only what you want to say,” Martin says.

He adds this ability to adapt to different cultures and markets is tied to Monin’s values and structure as a family business.

“It’s funny, people study new forms of management, horizontal ways of making decisions, and at Monin, we were doing this without realising it. People have autonomy in the field to try new projects or ways of selling. As a result, we can adapt very fast to demand from local customers for new flavours or faster shipping,” Martin says.

“And there is a passion for the brand.

My father is a passionate guy and he translates that in the way he works, with his team, and the way we recruit people from the industry, many of whom are formers baristas or bartenders. We’re very focused on the field. We’re not just thinking of flavours we want to push, but seeing what’s required from the market, and providing it.”

In March 2020, Martin visited Australia to connect with local distributors and gain a better perspective of the Australia coffee industry. Monin is used in hundreds of cafés and restaurants across Australia, for their flavoured coffees, cold brews, and other drinks. Martin says Australia is very influential over the markets he manages in Asia.

“I see a lot of maturity and care by

Monin syrups can be used to produce customised and unique coffee beverages.

Monin distributes flavoured syrups to bars and specialty cafés around the world.

professionals for the product. There’s a lot of coffee roasters in Australia, which is interesting because it goes back to the heart of the industry. Many of the markets in Asia are less developed in terms of coffee consumption,” Martin says.

“It’s an advantage for Monin to be in so many countries, because we can identify trends, key local players, and share this with our different markets.”

Martin hopes to introduce more platforms and tools within Monin to make communication between representatives in different countries even easier.

“We’re small but global. To align with someone in Brazil and another in Germany at the same time is not always easy,” he says.

This is one of many new ideas Martin plans on bringing to Monin. Alongside his role overseeing Asian markets, Martin is heavily involved in the company’s corporate social responsibility and product development. In terms of new flavours, Martin believes it’s important to broaden people’s horizons.

“We’re going more into botanicals, the rare plants that people just don’t know about. There’s so many to discover and taste. Asia is great for that, because there’s a lot of variety to explore,” he says.

“We’re engaging in more partnerships with universities and researchers to identify those plants and present them in a drink so it doesn’t cover the coffee flavour but actually matches it.”

Monin’s projects are not limited to exploring new flavours. He wants to look harder at the ingredients used in syrups, and how their quality or sustainability can be improved.

“For the coffee scene in particular, we want to work more on sugar. In Asia, we’re using cane sugar but I want to explore more local ones, like Okinawa black sugar from Japan, or muscovado in the

Philippines,” he says.

“Our goal is to focus more on the raw material, and ways of processing it through slow cooking or fermentation, to really come back to the simplicity of sugar and offer this to baristas.”

While Martin brings many new ideas to Monin, he says like many businesses, the urgency of climate change is at the front of his agenda.

“We cannot continue doing business as usual. We rely a lot on natural products and have a duty to rethink the way we use fruits, plants, and sugars, and the way they’re produced. In France, there’s almost no organic sugar made locally, so we’re working with farmers and different companies to help farmers transform their practices,” Martin says.

“We have a farm in Portugal that produces some of our fruit – citrus especially – and we really try to take care of the soil and farm ecosystem, rather than just get the most out of the earth. I’m really proud of what we’re doing there and would like have a farm in each country we’re based in to produce some of our raw materials and share good practices with local farmers.”

With three generations behind him, Martin looks forward to, one day, leading the company and ensuring its sustainability for future generations of Monins to continue the family legacy.

“I’m trying to understand the basics of the business while also looking to the future, how the company could evolve and transform itself,” Martin says.

“This is something we’re very focused on, as well as getting closer to what nature has to offer. This involves our whole team, and is very important moving forward.”

For more information, visit www.stuartalexander.com.au/ our-brands/monin

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ESPRESSOLOGY

When reality bites Espressology’s Instaurator paints a genuine picture of why business ownership is a complex beast that isn’t all rainbows and unicorns.

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inston Churchill is quoted as having once said “success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”.

Certainly, it is hard to maintain enthusiasm when things don’t go your way – take the industry’s current impact of the coronavirus for example, which has forced businesses to close – some temporary, others not – and reduce staff. However, it is important to learn from these lessons so that, hopefully, we can move onto success and leave COVID-19 as all but a distant memory.

But what does success look like?

At the height of mine I was a partowner in a coffee-roasting business that supplied about 350 in-house stores.

The business was making a lot more than it was spending.

Then, one of my business partners had a serious heart attack and was clinically dead for several minutes. Thankfully, he was revived, but he did have to have a

pacemaker permanently inserted. Not long after this, he suggested I might want to think about the possibility of selling out of the business. I wasn’t interested at all.

It turned out, even though I wasn’t aware at the time, my partners wanted to join a completely independent coffee business together with their main franchise business that would make it easier and more valuable to sell the business as a package deal to investors.

In the process, I was laid off without pay a few weeks before Christmas.

Then, we were at a stand-off and the negotiations began. They made me an offer for my shares in the company but I thought their value was worth a lot more, and so I declined. I did, however, stay on as a director.

In my mind was the fact I had four children in good private schools with expensive school fees, a new house with a large mortgage, an investment property, and not enough income to cover the costs of this lifestyle. In retrospect, I should have sold the larger

Instaurator says no matter how small the business, traders should always operate with a profit and loss report.

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second house straight away and reduced our loan expenses. I could then have probably hung on without taking the kids out of the very good schools they were attending and have avoided disrupting their lives too much. It would have been humbling, but it took quite a while to realise this was even necessary. In the meantime, the debts were mounting up and the negotiations stalled. Having less income than expenses is a very stressful way of living.

At the same time though, I figured I could open a new café near to where we lived and not have any conflict with my directorship of the wholesale coffeeroasting business. I approached my brother-in-law, Rob Murrell, to invest in the business with me.

At this point in my career, I had established two successful wholesale coffee-roasting businesses and three of my own successful cafés in the competitive Sydney market, and helped establish training and support systems for hundreds of coffee entrepreneurs with their own

Business ownership is no walk in the park, but every experience is a learning curve.

successful cafés nationally. All this in just over 20 years. Naturally, I felt very confident I could open one single new café successfully. How wrong I was.

I made so many rookie errors it was embarrassing. I tried to merge a new concept store that could potentially be replicated and possibly franchised. The idea was to offer a range of alternative healthy fresh salads, a range of different flavoured Australian-style meat pies, and great coffee. This was a bad idea.

As you can probably now appreciate, healthy salad-eating customers and meat-pie lovers are two completely different tribes. It is true they both love good coffee, but together, it made for a conflicted retail offering and the store lost money from the get-go.

When your personal expenses are more than your earnings, you make a loss. When your business expenses are more than your earnings, you also make a loss. Combine the two and your losses really mount up quickly, and they hurt.

This was where I found myself in a very short amount of time. This is also why businesses must have a profit and loss report (P&L). I always made sure I had a good bookkeeper who gave me an accurate monthly P&L, but unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried to improve the business, it kept floundering on the ‘loss’ side.

Losing money is very demoralising, but personal losses are even more painful than business ones. So, the idea of actually making a personal profit becomes a very real and urgent necessity.

Ask any family who can’t pay their bills.

It is bloody painful.

As the losses mounted, I tried anything I could to make ends meet, including international consulting, but I couldn’t cut the deadweight of a shop that was dragging me further and further underwater financially. I tried selling it to different people but, as anybody who has tried knows, it is very hard to sell a business that is losing money. I had signed up for a six-year property lease in a small shopping centre where the rent was too high. It was like a prison sentence where I was being tortured daily.

I had to make really unpleasant phone calls to the Australian Tax Office because I couldn’t pay them the money I owed.

I needed it to put food on the table. To its credit, the tax office personnel were invariably personable and sympathetic, which I’m still grateful for.

Eventually, after almost 20 months of negotiations, my business partners offered me the same amount as they had in the first couple of weeks of our negotiations, and I accepted their offer.

I managed to hang on to our family home, but my personal monthly P&L and my new shop’s P&L were both still in the ongoing red. In other words, I was still making losses every month on both fronts.

I turned a corner thanks to my wife Looloo, a trained midwife who had the guts to listen to a little voice in her head telling her to ‘open a little café’, and she acted on it. I set her up with some space in the warehouse at the time, and she started serving coffee. Looloo offered her customers a loyalty card – buy eight coffees get the next free, and go in the running to win a prize. Well, one of her customers was so thrilled he’d won, he decided to open his own café down the road, attached to the house we had bought. It’s crazy how things happen.

After a while, this gentlemen realised he couldn’t run the business, and sold it to Looloo at a very good price. Looloo got the place up and running and Looloos, as it’s known, continues to make a healthy turnover, even today.

Business can be a brutal game.

I’ve been there, I’ve experienced it, I navigated out of it, and I’ve come out stronger with a greater sense of accomplishment.

Unfortunately, the reality is that there will be many business owners who may find themselves in a similar predicament because of an event out of their control.

For someone who has experienced the highs and lows of business ownership, know that obstacles can provide many learning perspectives, but at the end of the day, you’re not alone. * This information is an edited extract from Instaurator’s book The Coffee Entrepreneur. For more information, visit www.espressology.com/shop

Instaurator published his first book, The Espresso Quest, in 2008. With his second book, The Coffee Entrepreneur, he turns his attention from the art to the business of coffee.

The Coffee Entrepreneur is available on Amazon, Kindle, ibooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

For more information, visit www.espressology.com/shop

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

Three Pence Roasters has installed a 60-kilogram Imf industrial drum roaster.

Worth every penny Three Pence Coffee Roasters talks to BeanScene about taking the leap to Imf roasting equipment and the value in staying connected to its customers.

T

here’s an obvious sign when it’s time to take the next step in growing a business.

It could be high volume of sales or the need to employ more staff. For Anthony Preston of Three Pence Roasters, however, it was when his wife took one look at the family garage filled with palates of green beans and said, “enough is enough”.

Anthony started his journey in the coffee industry around 15 years ago with school friend and now business partner Mark Gentle. They opened their first café called Miami Ice, “back in the day when Italian imported coffee was King”, and years before the specialty coffee industry as we know it took off. At the height of their café success, the boys owned and operated eight cafés at any one time with 110 staff.

“Those early days working in cafés is where our love for the industry comes from. We learned a lot from that

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experience,” Anthony says.

In 2005, the boys saw a shift in roasting standards and a higher consideration in sourcing, traceability, sustainability, and flavour experimentation.

“There was a clear difference in the quality of commodity coffee we were serving and the fresh, specialty roasted coffee appearing on the market. It was a movement we wanted to be part of,” Anthony says.

As such, in 2015, Anthony and Mark invested in a 10-kilogram Roastmax roaster from company Owner Will Notaras after meeting at an industry tradeshow.

The new investment – a standard drum roaster with gas modulation – made its home in Anthony’s Cronulla garage in New South Wales. It didn’t take long before Anthony was supplying each of his cafés with his own roasted coffee, and outside interest followed.

After one year in the garage and

feeling the pressure of needing more space, Anthony and Mark relocated his 10-kilogram Roastmax roaster to a much larger premises in the suburb of Caringbah.

“We were roasting a tonne to 1200 kilograms of coffee a week on our 10-kilogram Roastmax roaster, seven days and two nights a week,” Anthony says.

With a growing portfolio of wholesale customers, Anthony and Mark made the decision to upgrade their roaster and started doing their homework on the myriad of models on the market.

“I learned how to roast on a Petroncini.

I was torn whether to stay old school or go down the modern track. Thankfully, Will is such a knowledgeable guy and explained how advanced the technology in today’s selection of roasters are,” Anthony says.

Thanks to expert insight, Anthony and Mark bought a 60-kilogram Imf industrial drum roaster from Italy. Getting the machine into the Three Pence warehouse

was the next step. The Imf roaster arrived fully assembled. All they had to do was hire a crane to lift the roaster off the back of a flatbed truck, and forklift the machine into position.

“Within a week of the roaster sitting on the floor we were test roasting coffee,” Anthony says. “It’s a very slick set up. The support from Imf has been incredible – the roaster is connected to Wi-Fi so Imf-trained technicians can see what I’m doing and visually check at any time if I have issues, which is really reassuring. But here on the ground Will’s roasting knowledge is just as invaluable – and he always answers his phone, which is a bonus.”

Unlike conventional roasters that use an afterburner, Imf roasters use only one burner chamber that sits to the side of the roaster. As the coffee is roasted, the emissions leave the roaster via a steel duct into the burner chamber to incinerate the emissions. Some of the clean heat in the burner chamber is Three Pence Roasters’ Dark Carnival won an Australian instead re-circulated via a stainlessInternational Coffee Award in the Cappuccino category. steel duct back into the roaster.

It’s recirculating heat technology further reduces gas consumption by experience, but once you get your head around that it’s really a ‘wow’ of a machine up to 47 per cent.

– and the coffee is bang on all the time.”

“The energy efficiency is amazing. It Imf’s equaliser ensures the same runs at about 550°C and sucks air from the volume of air enters the roaster, giving electronic vortex system, which manages even heat distribution across the entire accurately how much hot air mixes with surface of the coffee beans. This eliminates cold air to go into the drum,” Anthony any temperature fluctuations inside says. “It’s more convective than conductive the drum so that the coffee is evenly energy. It’s a whole new learning developed and consistent.

“The main difference I’ve noticed is the clarity and cleanliness of the coffee.

The acidity rises a lot so you need to balance that out, but you can pick the flavours of every coffee a part easily.

If you want to taste caramel, you get caramel,” Anthony says.

He adds that the roaster can be programmed to where the heat needs to be at certain times, with bean and air temperature, and airflow and drum speed easily adjusted at every point of the 12-step profile.

“No matter how technical roasters are, it’s important to still monitor your coffee visually, and assess the environment and humidity constantly.

When you’re starting out in the industry there’s huge value in learning on a smaller model and understanding the fundamentals,” Anthony says.

The proof was in the pudding when Three Pence Roasters was awarded one At the height of their café success, Anthony silver and three bronze medals in this year’s Preston and Mark Gentle owned eight cafés.

Australian International Coffee Awards.

“There’s definitely a bit of pride in what we’ve achieved, especially when the accolade comes from your industry peers who have said “good job”, in a way. Behind the scenes we’ve worked hard to create sustainable, consistent blends with constant cuppings to perfect our coffees,” Anthony says.

“To be rewarded like this makes everything worthwhile and gives you a happy flutter in your heart when you stand next to the roaster for five hours every day.”

The award-winning coffees include Three Pence Roasters’ Kenyan Barichu in the Espresso Single Origin category, known for its black currant and toffee notes; Switch Foot Blend in the Espresso class; and Parmour Blend and Dark Carnival Blend in the Cappuccino, Milk Based category. The Dark Carnival was the first blend Three Pence Roasters developed for its wholesale customers, known as “the people’s choice” for its popularity.

“We went through a trend of chasing light, brighter roasts and now we can see Sydney roasts coming back to strong flavour hits with winey, chocolatey notes that pack a punch,” Anthony says.

The Three Pence customer base agrees, with distribution to cafés now ranging from the Central Coast of Sydney, to the CBD and the foothills of the Blue Mountains.

“We know there are roasters and cafés doing it tough at the moment but on a positive note, we’ve seen our suburban customers jump in sales by 10 to 15 per cent,” Anthony says.

Anthony and Mark have ambitions to expand Three Pence Roasters, grow the business with their customers, and continue to celebrate Australia’s unique café scene.

“We’re stoked with how its progressing and what we’re putting out there. We’ve built the roastery around the knowledge of people and cafés – that’s where our love affair with the industry started,” Anthony says. “For us, it didn’t just start with coffee, it started with showing up at cafés, and experiencing the vibe and attitude. That’s what we love and don’t want to lose sight of.”

As for Anthony’s wife, she’s much happier now that there are four tonnes of green coffee stacked up in the warehouse and not in their garage: “The car’s back in its proper home now – happy life, happy wife.”

For more information, visit www.roastquip.com.au and www.threepenceroasters.com.au

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TECHNOLOGY PROFILE

Kony 2020 Mazzer has packaged its latest developments in grinder technology in a compact size with the launch of the Kony S.

I

n 2017, Italian grinder manufacturer Mazzer set out to completely renovate its product range. It began with the release of its updated Robur S and Kold S conical burr grinders. Not long after, Mazzer followed with the flat-burr Major V and the completion of its S line of conical grinders, the Kony S. At a relatively lean 20 kilograms, the Kony S takes the new technology found in Mazzer’s larger grinders and serves it in a format more accessible for medium-tohigh-volume cafés. Marco Schnabl, Project Engineer of the Kony S, tells BeanScene the grinder was designed to enhance the aromatic notes of a coffee.

“We’ve been told it achieves this by many roasters and baristas who had the chance to test the grinder,” Marco says.

Aroma is preserved due to the Kony S’s many features that maintain the temperature of the grinder. The burrs’ low revolutions per minute (RPM) – 420 RPM at 50 hertz and 500 RPM at 60 hertz – stop the blades from heating up while still allowing a grinding speed of three to 3.6 grams per second.

Its head and body are two separate pieces, guaranteeing a better dispersion of heat from the motor. A double fan cooling system, also used in the Kold S and Robur S, expels hot air from the grinder.

But perhaps the most impressive feature of the Mazzer S line present in the Kony S is the Grind Flow Control (GFC) system.

“Designing the new models, we were faced with a number of challenges, beginning with the consistency of the grind. Then, we had to reduce the amount of coffee wastage and make it easier to clean the parts of the machine that are usually difficult to access. This is all in order to simplify the barista’s daily work and improve the quality in the cup,” Marco says.

“Our grinders are sold worldwide in more than 90 countries, with different weather conditions, climates, coffees, and baristas. Where you use the grinder and if the coffee is a light or dark roast completely changes the result. The answer from our laboratory was grind flow control, which is installed in Kold S, Robur S, Major V and now Kony S.”

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The GFC is a removable aluminium outlet insert, equipped with a wire damper, that sits in the chute below the burrs.

This system prevents clumping without the need for crushing, and at the same time, reduces the electrostatic charge of coffee grounds, which means less coffee grounds are dispersed across the counter.

GFC is a dynamic system that responds reactively to the coffee, without obstructing the flow, but with enhanced control throughout the chute.

“When there is a strong charge built up, the coffee grounds go everywhere. With this system, you can customise the GFC to

The Mazzer Kony S was designed to enhance the aromatic notes of a coffee.

your needs with two different wire dampers to regulate the flow [the Hybrid and AntiClumping dampers],” Marco says.

“This is possible because our highly specialised team of technicians and workshop full of the latest machinery allow us to produce complex components. We don’t just assemble the grinders, we design and make each of its pieces inhouse.”

The grinder leaves the factory with a built-in Hybrid damper, which Marco says provides the best results in a majority of situations. But for very light roasts or challenging weather conditions, the AntiClumping damper is also available in the GFC box.

The ability to easily remove and replace the GFC also keeps it simple to clean. Making the Kony S straightforward to operate and maintain was a key consideration of Mazzer during its development.

“It is very easy to use thanks to ergonomic solutions that help baristas to save time and coffee,” Marco says.

“You can remove the top part of the grinder in one piece – without losing track of grind settings – to access the grinding chamber for cleaning or changing burrs.”

These grind settings are manually established with Mazzer’s Memory Track ring. Sitting below the hopper, the bottom part of Memory Track adjusts grind size, while the top part displays numbers and markings for the barista to track.

The user can either find the point where the blades are touching, set the upper ring to zero, and go from there, or, they can find a grind size they are happy with and mark it with a certain number on the top ring to return to later.

“Memory Track is basically a barista custom index of grind settings that gives users a reference number when grinding,” Marco says.

Once the grind size is taken care of, baristas can turn to dosage where there is a number of options available. Ondemand grinding can be activated with the portafilter, or using the buttons on the control panel.

“The Kony S features a new electronic control panel with programmable settings for single, double, and triple dose,” Marco says.

“It also tracks statistics and gives maintenance alerts, like when the burrs should be changed.”

This control panel is Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled, meaning this information can be collated and shared online. Mazzer will release an app to provide café owners and technicians with full access to this data and technology.

“With IoT you are able to keep an eye on your grinder remotely. If you are a technician with several grinders spread across Australia to take care of and organise maintenance for, you can view what, when, and where changes need to be made on your device,” Marco says.

“But servicing is not the only use. You can also gather statistics, control grinder settings, and realise coffee volume data, all without being near the grinder.”

Mazzer temporarily halted production from March to April due to the restrictions surrounding COVID-19. However, its research and development, sales, and other departments continued to work remotely.

Marco says the company is operating at full speed again, with its focus on maintaining both a modern approach to mechanical engineering and an artisan approach to manufacturing, as it has done since 1948.

“We didn’t suffer with big delays from external suppliers as we produce all of our main components inhouse,” Marco says.

“We have a very modern workshop with machinery that produces what we need to build the grinder. They are then assembled by hand, and every person is responsible for building an entire grinder from beginning to end, the best way to grow skills and feel rewarded by your job.”

The Mazzer Kony S made its grand debut last year at Host Milano in Italy where it left an impression on the many local and international visitors.

The Australian industry will see the grinder up close at the 2020 Melbourne International Coffee Expo in November, thanks to Australian distributor Coffee Works Express.

In a market as competitive and demanding as Australia, Marco says the many medium-to-high volume cafés will benefit from Kony S’s focus on quality, stability, and ergonomics.

“The Kony S is a big step ahead from the previous model. It enhances the aromas of your coffee, has an excellent dose consistency, low retention, and produces uniform coffee grounds in the portafilter,” Marco says.

“And, like all Mazzer grinders, it’s made to last.”

For more information, visit www.cwe.com.au and www.mazzer.com

The electronic control panel features programmable dosing in three sizes.

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FEATURE NEWS

The coffee formula Lower pressure, reduced dosage, and coarser grinds could be the key to espresso reproducibility, faster shot times, and saving thousands of dollars per year.

T

oo many times, a barista will brew an excellent espresso and repeat the recipe to the exact same specifications only to end up with a different result. This drove Michael Cameron mad.

During an online conversation in 2016 with Prof. Christopher Hendon of the University of Oregon, author of Water for Coffee and various coffee-related works, Michael – at the time a Café Manager at Frisky Goat Espresso in Queensland – expressed his frustration and asked how he could make better espresso more consistently. Christopher said he could start by reducing his line pressure from nine bar to six bar.

“I dropped the pressure and it was amazing coffee. I talked to Chris about it a few days later, and he suggested we write a paper,” Michael says.

“It started with the idea of testing if you can make high extraction coffee on a consistent basis by dropping your

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line pressure. We thought the finer you grind, the more surface area you expose to water, so the higher your extraction yield would go, and that it would be a higher extraction yield at six bar than nine bar.”

Michael started going in on weekends to produce espresso in a controlled setting and identified a “tasty point” at 22 per cent extraction yield. Meanwhile, Chris developed a mathematical model which predicted how grind size, coffee mass, and water volume would affect the extraction yield. The model matched Michael’s experiments up to a certain point when extraction yields started to decline.

“We were expecting this to be a quick and easy study, because we assumed that you could just grind finer and get more out the coffee,” Christopher says.

“But we couldn’t pump water through at nine bar through a fine grind setting.

It choked the machine. And then after we went to six bar, the extraction yield

from the ground coffee bed was actually lower than we expected. That’s when we knew we were onto something unusual and unfortunately, we had a lot more work to do.”

Four years later, their work was published in ‘Systematically Improving Espresso: Insights from Mathematical Modeling and Experiment’ by scientific journal Matter.

Christopher identified clumping as the issue, causing certain areas to be over extracted, others under extracted, and some untouched by water. With Michael’s tasty point on the uneven side of the peak extraction yield, Christopher realised the same yield could be achieved more consistently in less time with a coarser grind size.

He says while the percentage of compounds extracted by the two shots is the same, the flavour may not be.

“They’re going to taste different because they’re different types of extractions. One of them is even

throughout the bed – or as even as possible – and the other one is 22 per cent made up of some components extracted to 25 per cent, 24 per cent, all the way down to zero per cent,” Hendon says.

“If you’re happy with the flavour of these unevenly contacted coffee grounds, then you have to accept that you’re going to have shot-to-shot variation because of the mechanics of water passing through a bed made of those particle sizes.”

Using this knowledge, they identified two other methods of consistently reaching the same extraction yield.

One means identifying the maximum extraction yield and using less water to reach the tasty point.

The other involves reducing dry coffee mass volume and grinding even coarser. In the study’s case, Michael was able to reach the tasty point by reducing coffee mass from 20 to 15 grams and increasing grind size from 1.7 to 2.3 on a Mahlkönig EK 43.

“We’re talking coarser than you would for an espresso grind. We’re not suggesting a grind as coarse as you’d use for a French press,” Michael says.

“What that means for a café is, if they have a recipe that uses 20 grams of coffee, they can hit an approximate recipe or flavour profile using up to five grams less coffee. If you serve 400 coffees per day, using five grams less coffee, you save two and a half kilograms daily. Multiplied over a week, month, or year, that’s a lot of money you’re saving without seeing a reduction in coffee quality.”

Christopher trialled this method over 12 months at a café in Eugene, Oregon in the United States. From September 2018 to September 2019, the café served 27,850 espresso drinks. By reducing dosage from 20 to 15 grams, Christopher says this café reduced shot times to 14 seconds and saved 13 US cents (about 20 cents) per shot. This totalled US$3620 (about $5470) additional revenue over the year.

Though the experiment and café began with a 20 gram dosage and reduced it to 15, Christopher says this is only one possible recipe and their findings can be translated to other brew ratios.

Michael – who now writes for St Ali – says while the idea of cafés using less coffee may be unattractive to some roasters, reduced wastage and higher evenue is better for the sustainability of the industry.

“From a café owner perspective, coffee is a very hard industry to be

in,” he says. “There’s a co-dependent relationship between the roaster and the café. Roasters need cafés to be sustainable so they are around for a long time to keep buying coffee.

Otherwise they have to find another café to supply coffee too.

“There is a middle ground that needs to be discussed about how roasters can allow their customers to be more sustainable. This is one way to do it, but it’s going to put questions to the roaster about how they’re going to efficiently use their coffee. As a forward-thinking industry, we can come up with a solution that benefits everyone.”

Alongside the obvious financial ramifications of the study, Michael suggests that the coffee industry not forget their original hypothesis, that lowering pump pressure will result in higher extraction yields that are more reproducible.

“That was something statistically significant from the very first data set that I gave to Chris. It’s almost so obvious and certain from the data now that it gets overlooked,” Michael says.

“If you want reproducibility and higher

extractions, and if you believe that those higher extractions also equal tasty coffee, then lower your pump pressure.”

He encourages baristas who question the study to carry out their own experiments with their own tasty points.

“The ideas of grinding coarser, lowering pressure, and reducing coffee mass are strategies. They don’t have be used in combination. The questions is ‘does it still taste good?’ That’s where individual preference comes in,” Michael says.

“When people dial in, they grind as fine as they can until the machine starts choking up and then dial back a little bit. They do that because it’s the status quo. We need to move forward as an industry and see what we can do to push those boundaries.

“We’re showing them how to reproducibly create that coffee every single time. That makes the barista’s life easier and encourages them to question things. I think it’s a win-win.”

Systematically Improving Espresso: Insights from Mathematical Modeling and Experiment can be found online at www.cell.com

Prof. Christopher Hendon of the University of Oregon has published several coffee-related works.

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OPEN FOR BUSINESS Coronavirus has thrown the Australian coffee industry one of the biggest curveballs it has ever dealt with. BeanScene celebrates the businesses that adapted to the new environment and shares their messages, products, and ways to support them.

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BARISTA TECHNOLOGY AUSTRALIA Barista Technology Australia is still dedicated to providing the local market with access to the best and most innovative equipment from around the world.

The Puqpress automatic tamper is beloved for the consistency it brings to busy coffee shops. Four new models of the Puqpress are expected to hit our shores this winter. This includes three under-the-grinder tampers to suit the Mahlkönig E65S and E65GBW, E80, and Fiorenzato F64 and F83 models.

Barista Technology will also be introducing a new, entry-level Puqpress model in multiple colours for low volume cafés, and even home use.

But consistency doesn’t end at the tamp. The Perfect Moose milk steamer is seeing solid interest in the market, with McCafé trialling them in more than 50 stores. It provides improvements in workflow efficiency, more consistent milk texture, and reduces wait times in drive-through restaurants. Many other large coffee chains are now also trialling the Perfect Moose to assist in maintaining profitability.

Large chain cafés will also benefit from Barista Technology’s new water filtration monitoring systems to maintain total dissolved solid levels of their water, which assists in reducing overall filter replacement and maintenance costs.

Barista Technology will also launch a specialty coffee grinder, the Bentwood Vertical 63, as a new alternative to popular models on the market.

Keep up to date with Barista Technology for more exciting developments in the coffee telemetry space and how it can assist large chains in monitoring the process of their baristas within a given brew profile.

The Barista Technology team is working hard on a number of other coffee technology products that it can’t wait to share with the industry soon.

For more information, visit www.baristatechnology.com.au

CAFETTO During this time, the hospitality industry has been hit hard with most businesses forced to remodel and focus on their takeaway options.

If customers aren’t getting a takeaway coffee, they’re having coffee at home on a domestic coffee machine. Cafetto has adapted to the changing needs of consumers by introducing a range of products in sachet format. It has re-packaged its customers’ most-loved products into smaller, domestic, consumer sizes for the retail market.

Sachets provide customers with a simple, easy-to-use solution for cleaning their coffee machines. A measured dose eliminates wastage and overdosing of product as there is no need to calculate dilution rates. Single use sachets are convenient and offer easy product handling with no risk of contamination. The home customer will be able to easily and confidently ensure that their domestic machine is clean, and that they are getting the best at-home coffee possible.

Cafetto products Evo, Espresso Clean, Grinder Clean, MFC Powder Blue, MFC Powder Red, Spectra, and Inverso are available in retail boxes.

Also available are Eco Capsule Clean and Tevo Mini cleaning tablets. This range gives customers a variety of choices for their different machines whether they would like to clean a traditional or automatic machine, grinder, capsule pod machine, or crockery and milk jugs.

To learn more about Cafetto products visit www.cafetto.com or contact enquiry@cafetto.com to become a distributor.

CALIFIA FARMS In light of recent global events, cafés and coffee shops are now selling Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend to consumers so they can enjoy the delicious and creamy plant-based milk at home, as well as in their takeaway latte.

Crafted by baristas for baristas, the Oat Barista Blend has been a favourite in Australian cafés since launching last year due to its ability to foam beautifully and not split when heated. It also has a neutral taste, which complements coffee perfectly and offers a similar dairy mouthfeel.

Oat milk is one of the most sustainable plant milks on the market, requiring little water to produce. It is also nutritious and cruelty free, which has contributed greatly to its popularity with consumers. Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend is also sold in one-litre cartons that don’t require refrigeration until opened, making it ideal as a shelf stable item in the pantry and cafés.

To enquire about stocking Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend, please contact australia@califiafarms.com or visit www.califiafarms.com

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CAMPOS COFFEE When Will Young, Campos Coffee’s Founder learned of Zeta Grealy and the coffee she was growing in the Northern Rivers region, he knew he had to visit.

“Everyone always asks me what Australian-grown coffee tastes like.

Zeta gives us a great answer,” he says. “Australia produces 200 containers of coffee a year, but we rarely consume it ourselves. It’s remarkable how much Australian coffee is shipped overseas, mainly to Japan. We have been waiting for a long-term local partner and we have definitely found one in Zeta. This is the best Australiangrown coffee we’ve been able to roast in decades.”

Will made the visit and was so impressed by what he saw and tasted that, on Anzac Day 2020, Campos Coffee released a small lot of Zeta’s coffee. The $25 per bag offering sold out almost overnight.

“It’s really syrupy with hints of toffee and caramel, almost a lamington flavour with florals as well,” Will notes, saying that the coffee scores higher than many micro-lots they’ve reviewed from overseas.

According to Will, Zeta’s coffee stands out for the care with which it is cultivated. “This is Australian coffee with fidelity, with identity, and one we can be proud of,” he says.

Picking coffee in Australia is expensive and no one wants to invest in hand-picking.

Zeta and her husband Marc know the difference this makes in the cup. It is that care, Zeta’s knowledge of coffee, and her experience as a former roaster that translates into the superb quality of her beans.

“Zeta works really hard on her crop,” he says. “It’s a great story that shows what can be achieved with knowledge, commitment, and a love of coffee: 1300 trees and picked by local mums and dads. We will do this every year if we can.”

For more information, visit www.camposcoffee.com

CLUB HOUSE’S WAVE COLLECTION Producing matte finishing on high fired porcelain has long been a major challenge for the porcelain industry. With great satisfaction, and after years of research, Club House has succeeded in the development of a special type of porcelain, fired at a temperature of more than 1300°C. The porcelain is resistant to shocks and bumps. It has perfect permeability, a high degree of flexibility, and is available in a range of colours and finishings.

Club House is pleased to present the new Wave collection, a line where the originality of the interplay between glossy white and matte coloured glazes. To make the matte finishing even more special, the Wave collection features a special wave-shaped decoration, entirely handmade by master craftsmen for a unique and stylish effect.

The porcelain material ensures the cups withstand intensive use and the endurance Club House products are distinguished for.

The Wave collection is available in the Viola line in three sizes: 70, 180, and 300 cubic centimeters, and in six colours including red, yellow, brown, light blue, grey, and green.

The collection is available in small quantities, with lots of combinations available to satisfy a range of tastes and needs. Customers can even have their own logo featured in the cup design, starting from 250 pieces only.

Matte colours are available for production on any of Club House’s standard 100 items, starting from 3000 pieces per order.

Club House: designed in Italy, made in China.

For more information, visit www.clubhouse.ch

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COFFEE MACHINE TECHNOLOGIES Coffee Machine Technologies (CMT) Founder and Managing Director John Colangeli says the coronavirus crisis is no doubt a world life changing event.

“This crisis has unleashed and impacted its biggest shock to not only our lives and livelihoods but to every aspect of our much-loved hospitality industry,” he says.

“This interruption due to COVID-19 has left many Australian businesses in a catastrophic state of limbo, an industry that employs close to one million people. We will return to our businesses and workplaces at some stage, some may not, which is heartbreaking. We will all work together to get back on our feet, which is what we do in our industry.”

CMT has always been at the forefront of innovation in coffee equipment and technical service to the coffee industry.

CMT has secured exclusive international agreements for the world’s leading brands in coffee equipment, including brands such as Fiorenzato, Elektra, La Marzocco, Tech Bar, Viper, Brugnetti, and Orchestrale, to name a few.

CMT also stores a large inventory of equipment and parts.

CMT will a play role in the recovery to those impacted by the crisis.

The closure of venues has left coffee equipment sitting idle for some time now.

CMT plans to re-build its business for the next normal, and would like to inform its partners – coffee roasters, cafés, restaurants, tea and coffee houses, franchises, coffee chains, re-sellers, distributors, offices, casinos, hotels, pubs, bars, baristas, and more – it is still here and in a position to support them with what they do best. This includes sales, coffee equipment service, repairs refurbishments of new and old machines, and customisations.

CMT products and services are distributed through a national support infrastructure, allowing it to offer its services nationwide.

Coffee Machines Technologies, servicing Australia nationally.

For more information, visit www.cofeemachinetechnologies.com.au

COFFEE WORKS EXPRESS For the past 22 years, Coffee Works Express (CWE) has been serving and listening to the needs of the Australian coffee industry, and it continues to do so at this unprecedented time.

CWE is an independent importer and distributor of premium coffee systems, supplying equipment solutions and technical service to the hospitality industry, coffee roasters, and domestic markets.

The CWE equipment offering includes the latest in professional coffee machines, fully automatic systems, and domestic models for those trying to perfect their skills at home. It also has a range of trusted and reliable grinders.

CWE is the Australian authorised importer of well known and loved brands including Wega, Astoria, Mazzer, Slayer, Franke Coffee Systems, BNZ, Isomac, and Motta.

To ensure coffee equipment is well looked after, CWE also carries an extensive range of genuine spare parts and offers Sydney-wide coffee machine and grinder repairs, carried out by its knowledgable and fullylicensed team.

Australia-wide service support through a network of trusted and licensed repairers is also available, as is expert after-hours technical service and professional advice. CWE have you and your equipment covered.

As the industry faces unfortunate tough times, CWE is open and ready to take your call. The team is keen and excited to help Australian cafés and the coffee industry get back on its feet – together.

For coffee equipment, spare parts or servicing, please contact CWE on (02) 9533 2693 for the nearest technical support representative, or for more information, visit www.cwe.com.au

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ESPRESSO MECHANICS Victoria Arduino’s Eagle One is born in response to the new generation of coffee shops where design, performance, and sustainability are determining factors to create a pleasant and memorable experience.

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study on the Eagle One revealed it had 23 per cent less environmental impact concerning the same category machine.

It reduces Co2 emissions and drastically minimises energy waste, also helping to lower energy bills – a good consideration in these trying times when every saving matters.

Sustainability has inspired the whole project of Eagle One. This is reflected in its ergonomic design, aluminium and stainless-steel materials, and innovative technology.

The constructive design of the Eagle One with less internal systems can maintain high-performance level while reducing the environmental repercussions.

The Thermal Energy Recovery System uses discharged water to pre-heat incoming water through a recycling method. The result is an 8 per cent saving on total machine consumption.

A New Engine Optimisation 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 instantaneously allowing only the necessary amount of water for the extraction to be heated, thus reducing energy-related costs.

For more information, visit www.espressomechanics.com.au

ESPRESSOLOGY Espressology has always held the vision of wanting to help free the coffee entrepreneur.

Based in Sydney, Espressology is a bespoke coffee roastery that works closely with industry professionals to help identify their coffee goals, and how to best deliver them to market.

Espressology ensures consistency of flavour and quality with pinpoint accuracy.

It helps customers every step of the way in establishing their very own blend to reflect their taste. It even designs bespoke specialty single origin estate coffees and blends for expert baristas, including World and National Barista Champions.

With Espressology’s unique in-house coffee packaging service, customers can have their own personalised printed packs with a minimum of only 100 bags. So even the smallest customer can be proud of their very own logo printed on their coffee packaging.

Now is the time to get behind your local, so grow your business with Espressology and chase your coffee dream. It has all the equipment and experience to enable your coffee business to flourish.

So, what are you waiting for, free your inner coffee entrepreneur with Espressology and let them do all the heavy lifting for you.

For more information, visit www.espressology.com

FAIRTRADE The coronavirus has created unprecedented change for most of us. Farmers and workers in the developing world are already among the world’s poorest people, living in communities with weak or non-existent safety nets. This means that any loss of livelihood will be felt all the more keenly and be a risk to their very survival.

This crisis is showing the critical role of businesses and retailers in supporting food security and ensuring the long-term resilience of our supply chains. The current impact on the coffee sector varies depending on the origin country’s harvest season. If movement restrictions continue and farmers and workers are unable to reach coffee farms, coffee production and shipping could be challenging.

There is also a perceived high health risk of COVID-19 in coffee-growing communities, as the majority of coffee farmers live in remote areas, with limited access to health care facilities.

Fairtrade is advocating for a comprehensive and coordinated response to the crisis, including urgent action in the areas of: • Protection of jobs and livelihoods • Provision of personal protective equipment • Strengthening support for urgent healthcare • Ensuring that the response helps global food supply chains become more sustainable and climate resilient.

Fairtrade has urgently adapted Premium investment guidelines to help producers adapt to the challenges and restrictions of coronavirus so they can continue to farm coffee now and into the future.

What can you do? As a roaster, the best way to support these farmers and the longerterm viability of the coffee industry is to keep asking your traders for Fairtrade coffee, to keep your Fairtrade supply chains open and active.

For more information, contact info@fairtrade.com.au or visit www.fairtrade.com.au

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GRINDERS COFFEE These last few months, and those still coming, will remain challenging times for all Australians, but by working together, we can come out stronger on the other side.

We are all passionate about coffee. High quality coffee and service is at the heart of everything we do.

Grinders wants to deliver a better coffee experience to all its partners to help them continue to operate.

Its success lies in sharing great coffee with the community, which needs to continue to support and care for each other.

Grinders wants to provide its partners with all the support it can to get through the coronavirus pandemic.

As such, it has developed the first version of the Grinders Care Pack, which provides simple tools and tips to its wholesale partners to help their businesses continue to operate in these uncertain times.

Free coffee packs were also sent out to its customers who are doing it tough.

This is just the beginning. Grinders will continue to adapt and support its partners as they evolve. We will, together, find ways to get through this time of uncertainty by providing guidance and support, where possible.

The health and wellbeing of Grinders’ people, its teams, customers and consumers is a priority. It is also doing what it can for the wider community, starting with those keeping us safe. Grinders has pledged to show its thanks to thousands of essential healthcare workers by shouting them free coffees, including 1000 cups given to the staff of Toowoomba Hospital in Queensland.

Grinders says this is the absolute least it can do to support its frontline health workers.

Stay safe and stay caffeinated.

Reach out and let Grinders know how it can help, either through contacting local territory managers or emailing directly to Melbourne@grinderscoffee.com.au For more information, visit www.grinderscoffee.com.au

LA CIMBALI These days, the role of the barista has become more prominent in coffee making, and LaCimbali has started adapting its machines to ease the daily movements that enforce the bond between the barista and their machines.

While the art of espresso tasting has developed into a real science, the same may be said of espresso preparation.

For this reason, LaCimbali has decided to introduce a new iconic model of its history: the M100 Attiva, a machine that combines elegance and high performance.

The M100 Attiva features improvements to its design, thermal system, ergonomics, and interface, while offering different customisation possibilities. Everything has been done in effort to improve the barista’s experience with the new M100 Attiva, and to allow them to always offer an excellent drink.

The thermal system is at the centre of everything. LaCimbali wanted a machine that could offer different solutions that could meet every barista’s needs while always offering top performance, cup after cup.

Its GTA system allows a change in water temperature and infusion time, which creates a perfect profile, regardless of the coffee order.

Ergonomics play a fundamental role in the relationship between the barista and their machine. With a few tricks, LaCimbali has managed to perfect the experience of using the new M100 Attiva and improve its efficiency. The Cold Touch steam wand is one example. The new design allows the barista to froth the milk in jugs of any size. It avoids burns and facilitates cleaning.

The new M100 Attiva range also offers baristas customisation options, including colours, and three- to six-button interface system, including touchscreens. Additional accessories are also available, including stainless-steel filter holders, filters, and special showers for coffee specialists.

For more information, visit cimbali.com or follow Cimbali_official on Facebook and CimbaliOfficial on Instagram

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KEEPCUP COVID-19 has asked us all to refresh our understanding of food health and safety regulations created by government to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Following the direction of large chains, some cafés and roasters have temporarily banned reusables. COVID-19 puts us all on alert and we will all react differently. However, it’s important that the measures taken are grounded in science.

We know from the World Health Organisation, hand washing is one of the best ways to combat viral spread. The same approach applies to reusables. Clean hands. Clean KeepCup. Vineet Menachery, Assistant Professor of Microbiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, says “if you’re regularly cleaning stuff, you should be fine. I wouldn’t expect any virus to survive a dishwasher”.

Single-use does not equal sterile. Pathogens like viruses and bacteria don’t distinguish between reusable and single-use when attaching to surfaces. Disposable items can collect airborne pathogens sitting atop a coffee machine, during transport, storage or manufacture. When compared to properly washed reusables, single-use items are a poor substitute.

The Break Free From Plastic movement and Upstream reports, “single-use disposables can harbour viruses and pathogenic bacteria… According to a recently-released peer-reviewed scientific consensus statement, over 12,000 chemicals are used in food packaging, and many of them are hazardous to human health”.

As cafés begin to re-open, many are choosing to go completely free from single-use. Follow local food safety directives, wash your hands regularly with soap and water, and regularly clean surfaces. Accept only clean and dry KeepCups from customers and refuse any that are visibly dirty. Ask your customers to keep hold of their lid. Dosing from a reusable café cup to KeepCup or washing reusables prior to filling are examples of other short term measures some cafes have chosen to implement.

We’re all in this together. Here’s to the power of community, supporting each other, and listening to the science.

For more information, visit au.keepcup.com – A message from KeepCup

LOCALE COFFEE ROASTERS

LA MARZOCCO Have you ever been travelling interstate or even in an unfamiliar suburb and been unsure on where to find a good brew? Yes? Us too.

La Marzocco Australia is thrilled to introduce La Marzocco’s Café Finder, a comprehensive map of Australian roasteries and cafés that use La Marzocco machines. Thanks to filtering options and geographic location, coffee fans will be able to find their closest café through a downloadable web app, which can be stored on their phone and used whenever they’re in need of a decent brew, no matter where they are.

In the lifting of some of the lockdown restrictions, La Marzocco sees this app as an incredible way to support local cafés, give them some love, and show your community how much you care for it.

La Marzocco says it has been so buoyed by the resilience, ingenuity, and sheer determination shown by the Australian coffee community throughout this unprecedented situation. This is just a small way it hopes to encourage the vibrancy, passion, and love to return to the café culture we hold so near and dear to our hearts, and our Aussie way of life.

If you’re a café owner, and not simply a coffee drinker, La Marzocco would love to feature your café in the La Marzocco Café Finder. If you are interested in being part of this community of Australian coffee champions, register at au.lamarzocco.com/about/la-marzocco-cafe-finder The registration is very easy.

For more information, visit au.lamarzocco.com

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Locale Coffee Roasters is still roasting great coffees and doing everything it can to support its café partners through COVID-19. Locale has taken every precaution to ensure it can keep customers caffeinated as long as possible.

As always, the health and safety of its staff and customers is its number one priority. Locale has ramped up the recommended hygiene practices and is obsessively washing hands and sanitising every surface. Locale has put distancing measures in place for its roasting and production crew and altered its cupping protocols as advised by the Specialty Coffee Association. Those that can work remotely have been doing so since the end of March. Locale will keep monitoring the situation closely and adjust its practices as required.

Other than that, it’s business as usual for Locale, unless instructed otherwise. It is also shipping online orders daily to keep customers caffeinated from home. And to say, “thanks for your support”, Locale is offering a 20 per cent discount on all retail orders over $60, plus free shipping. Simply use the code #localefamily at the checkout and it will restock your home supply in a jiffy. Or better yet, buy Locale beans direct from your local café to help give them a boost in these tricky times.

The best advice it can offer is be kind and have empathy for fellow humans.

Reach out to those in need and support local cafés and restaurants where you can. The next few months will be especially tough on small businesses, but Locale is proud of the way our industry has continuously adapted. We’ll get through this with the ongoing support of our communities – buying that daily takeaway coffee from your local café can make all the difference. Remember, we’re all in this together.

For more information, visit www.localeespresso.com.au

MALTRA FOODS Maltra Foods is one of the largest food grade powder and liquid manufacturers in Australia, supplying the foodservice and retail markets with high quality café style products. It is 100 per cent Australian, family owned and operated.

The business was established in Melbourne more than 20 years ago. Born in Melbourne cafés, the Arkadia brand has grown to be a leader in drinking chocolate and chai in the foodservice market.

In recent years, the range has expanded to complementary café products including syrups, frappes, smoothie mixes, milkshake toppings, and dessert sauces.

Arkadia aims to bring consumers the best tasting café style products. Its greatest achievement has been driving innovation and creating flavour profiles for the quality café products that Australian consumers have come to expect. Arkadia’s reputation is now spreading further afield, being exported to more than 20 counties.

Urban Barista is the latest brand in Maltra’s stable. Inspired by an ever growing sofistication in consumers’ tastes, this all natural premium offering takes drinking chocolate, chai and coffee syrups to a new level.

To round out the offering, Maltra’s other brands include Jack Frost soft serve ice cream mixes, and its natural sweetener range, Greenspoon.

In order to service the growing private label market, Maltra has also established itself as a major contract manufacturer, including sports nutrition and wellbeing products. It offers end-to-end solutions from research and development to procurement, manufacturing, packing and logistics.

Maltra Foods encourages consumers to purchase Australian made products to help support the economy and drive more jobs. Through this tough time, Maltra is committed to doing everything it can to support customers, employees, suppliers, and the local community.

For more information, visit www.maltrafoods.com

ONA COFFEE Through the recent crisis and the restrictions that have been imposed as a result of it, Ona Coffee has been working closely with its customers and partners around the country to ensure their health, safety, and prosperity,.

“As we move towards easing restrictions and the possibility of increased trade, we will be working with them to ensure that they feel supported, guided and valued as members of our community,” says Ona Coffee Founder Sasa Sestic. “We’re all in this together, and together we’ll emerge on the other side stronger and better than ever.”

For more information, visit www.onacoffee.com

MILKLAB We are seeing phenomenal strength and diversification of our industry, and Milklab is proud to be a part of such a strong and passionate community.

We know you are going through challenging times right now, and Milklab stands with you. We are in this together.

Rest assured that during this time, Milklab is in full operation and will continue to fulfil demand for its products. It is also supporting the move of many of its distributors now selling direct to consumers.

If you’re a distributor selling Milklab direct to consumers and would like to be added to its website, please contact enquiries@milklabco.com Milklab is here to support you in any way it can. Stay safe.

For more information, visit milklabco.com

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MINAS HILL As the only Brazil Specialty Coffee Association member in Australia, Minas Hill has been talking extensively to farmers in Brazil over the last month, especially those who are committed to the Australian market.

Its three main suppliers of specialty coffee, Ismael Andrade, Pedro Gabarra, and Gabriel Oliveira, are reducing their prices and extending their terms to Minas Hill, so it can pass the same offer on to the Australian market.

This is the time we all should stick together, from farmers to roasters.

The main concern in Brazil is a domino effect, leading roasters to opt for cheaper coffees.

As we don’t know yet the outcome of the crisis in Australia, Minas Hill says it’s too early to predict a recession in the upcoming months.

Marcelo Brussi of Minas Hill would like to reassure all coffee roasters to focus on quality, so we can minimise the domino effect back to the farm. Not forgetting the small farmers – they generally produce only specialty coffees in low quantities, making them more vulnerable.

The most important thing for roasters to realise is that they don’t need to change their favourite coffee, because Minas Hill farmers have agreed to give the Australian market an important hand, both in quality and financially.

Minas Hill welcome all roasters, small or big, to come forward, because it offers great coffees and great deals.

For more information, visit www.minashill.com.au

RANCILIO Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.

We are in this together and the Rancilio team is open for business to support your business. Wholesale trading has been challenging, however, it is encouraging to see how quickly local business can adapt and thrive. It is important to remember the demand for your product has not changed. It is simply the supply chain that has shifted from café to home.

Give the people what they want. Rancilio says home delivery and shipping products through a website or social pages is a great option.

Remember, your customers buy your brand based on who you are and what you stand for. This is a great time to show them that and build good will.

Just because your product is being consumed in pyjamas on a Monday morning Zoom meeting does not mean a lowered expectation on quality.

Great coffee requires great equipment and great support. You may even use that Zoom meeting to educate your customers and attract some new ones. There are some amazing consumer products available at national equipment retailers, however, for a little more, you can get the real deal.

Over the years, tens of thousands of Rancilio Silvias have been sold all over the world. Rancilio has a loyal following that relies on Silvia to deliver perfect coffee every day. It features a simple design that has stood the test of time due to its reliability.

The Silvia features Rancilio technology in just 23 centimetres. It comes with a stainless-steel body, drip tray, cup tray, user friendly switch buttons, 14-gram and 18-gram filter baskets, in-built two-litre water reservoir, and energy saving insulated boiler.

The Rancilio Rocky is also impressive, with a steel body, doser or doserless option, up to 50 grind settings with control, 50-millimetre flat grinding burrs, an average output of one gram per second, 300-gram hopper capacity, and removeable grounds tray.

For more information, contact Paul O’Brien pobrien@ranciliogroup.com or visit www.ranciliogroup.com

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RIVERINA FRESH The changes in the café landscape in recent months have been unlike anything our industry has experienced previously, and it continues to have a huge impact.

Many of Riverina Fresh’s café partners’ trade fell off a cliff in the space of a couple of days towards the end of March. It was a challenging time. But to the industry’s credit, there was an immediate response where many quickly looked at ways they could respond.

Riverina Fresh sought to collaborate with its specialty coffee and café partners.

Many were forced to make fast changes to adapt to a new style of service and to survive the significant reduction in trade. These changes included expanding their takeaway options and pivoting from an eatery to local food pantry.

Riverina Fresh was proud to be able to provide milk and dairy products for café sale, point of sale material, social media support, and front-of-house refrigerators.

While sales of milk and other products alone are not going to offset normal café trade, it was a way of generating additional business. It also gave consumers an option to avoid crowds, pick up some essentials, and ideally grab a coffee or beans and some premium milk for their home coffee setup.

“We’re a 98-year-old, 100 per cent Australian owned dairy company that has had to navigate tough times, like supporting our farmers through extreme drought in the Riverina for the past three years,” says Riverina Fresh CEO Rob Collier. “Having been part of the specialty coffee industry for almost a decade, this challenge is like nothing else we have faced before. And while the challenge is far from over, it has been uplifting to see how the industry has come together to rally for their staff, their producers, their partners, and their customers.”

For more information, visit www.riverinafresh.com.au

SOUTHLAND MERCHANTS

SERVICE SPHERE Has your café been closed due to COVID-19? If so, that means your espresso machine needs some love and attention on its way back to full operational capacity. To assist, the team at Service Sphere have put together a Reopening Procedure document to prevent your coffee machine from breaking down.

If you’d rather a health check be conducted on your machine to ensure it’s in tip top working order, Service Sphere can also provide health visits to your venue. Alternatively, have your machine fully serviced and conduct your regular preventative maintenance check.

The care of your customers is important at this time, but so is the care of your equipment.

For those perfecting their barista skills at home, Service Sphere is also offering essential products delivered straight to your door, including beans, cleaning products, and accessories.

Experience Service Sphere’s newly launched Bean Barn for a comprehensive collection of Australian and imported coffees, offering consumers everything from commercial beans to specialty and batchbrewed blends.

This one-stop-shop is Australia’s answer to the Dan Murphy’sequivalent of coffee.

For more information, visit www.servicesphere.com.au and to get involved and have your coffee registered, visit www.servicesphere.com.au/collaborate

The coffee harvest in Brazil kicked off in May for most of producing regions, and in general, things are looking really good. Unlike last years’ harvest, Southland Merchants says this year’s climate hasn’t played up, cherries are maturing quite evenly, and crops are looking really healthy.

Its friends, farmers, and partners are very confident despite the COVID-19 outbreak, and the expectations are of an excellent harvest volume and quality wise. In saying that, there are still some concerns related to labour availability, with intensive labour demanded in fields, particularly at mountainous regions such as Matas de Minas, South of Minas, and Mountains of Espirito Santos, where mechanised picking is not viable.

The large-scale producers Southland Merchants source its coffees from mostly depend on labour from the local community, neighbouring cities, and even nearby states to get harvest done. These producers are more likely to be affected at some level by restrictions in place to promote social distancing.

Southland Merchants is in regular contact with its producers, who are implementing changes in their harvesting processes. This includes increasing the number of picking machines and hiring local labour that have been stood down from other industries. Southland Merchants is really excited and optimistic about this year’s harvest and trusts the industry will bounce back stronger.

It has been running a series of Instagram talks to keep the coffee industry up to date with what is going on in Brazil, as well as bringing relevant knowledge to the community. Southland Merchants has been supportive of roasters during these unprecedented times, working together to provide financial and product solutions.

It looks forward to seeing and, as Brazilians themselves, hugging all of its coffee friends soon.

For more information, visit www.southlandmerchants.com.au

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ST REMIO St Remio is excited to have just launched its 100 per cent Compostable Nespresso compatible range. With three blends – Supreme, Intense, and Strong – the capsules, including the lid, are made from all-natural materials and feature no genetically modified organisms. The capsules have been independently certified to breakdown completely within 90 days in an industrial composting facility.

The St Remio Nespresso Compostable range features leading-edge technology, ensuring the capsules are hermitically sealed for optimal freshness and taste.

The range features UTZ certified coffee, confirming St Remio’s commitment to sustainability, while the brand continues to fund initiatives that empower female coffee farmers at origin. With each sip you take, you are not only having a positive impact on mother nature, but on coffee growing communities.

It’s more than great coffee, it is coffee with a conscience.

For more information, visit www.stremio.com.au

THE ALTERNATIVE DAIRY CO There’s no denying that 2020 has, to date, been filled with many unforeseen challenges within the coffee industry. But, beyond doubt, the best part about our industry is the people. The Alternative Dairy Co has been buoyed by the drive, determination, and resilience of everybody involved as it forges ahead through this COVID-19 crisis.

The dairy alternative provider says it’s been heartening to see everyone band together to support each other, and come up with many new and creative ideas to survive this difficult period.

The Alternative Dairy Co has also had to adapt and change its approach. One thing is certain, though, The Alternative Dairy Co will continue to help support and grow this industry in whatever way it can.

The Alternative Dairy Co is more determined than ever to provide the highest quality, Australian-owned-and-made plant-based milks designed for coffee to help businesses thrive.

We are all in this together, and together we can come back stronger than ever.

The Alternative Dairy Co would love to hear from you at this time, whether it be for a crazy idea you may have, a collaboration, or just to say hi.

For more information, contact The Alternative Dairy Co at enquiries@altdairyco.com, 1800 673 392, or visit its Instagram page @altdcbarista.

TOBY’S ESTATE COFFEE ROASTERS In late March, cafés and the coffee industry were turned upside down. Within a few days, the industry had to adjust the way it operated in order to keep running. Many cafés had to close their doors while others had to change overnight. Toby’s Estate’s focus was to support its café partners in whatever way possible.

“With a lot of uncertainty on how much coffee they would sell, we worked with our cafés to ensure continuous supply of coffee. We had our sales team out doing extra deliveries, which allowed them to order less or more depending on the demand,” Toby’s Estate General Manager Jody Leslie says.

“We offered retail support to our café partners and guidance on how to best display their products. This provided cafés with an alternative way to generate additional revenue, while also meeting a customer need: allowing them to shop and stay local.”

Toby’s Estate also offered its support to healthcare workers around Australia, asking them to get in touch so it could send a box of coffee goodies for them and their team.

“We wanted to support the people working tirelessly during this crisis in any way we could. This meant ensuring those working on the healthcare frontline were getting their hands on their daily coffee fix,” Jody says. “It was just a small gesture but something we hoped would help brighten up people’s days.”

For consumers looking to brighten the day of their local café, Toby’s Estate has also introduced the Support My Local initiative, allowing them to give back when purchasing coffee for home online.

“For us as a business, we are proud of how quickly everyone adapted to the new normal, by becoming more flexible and creative in how we operated. It really was a team effort to ensure the coffee was roasted, bags were packed, coffee was delivered, and phones were answered,” Jody says.

“As an industry, we should be proud of our resilience and our ability to adapt so quickly in times of such uncertainty.”

For more information, visit www.tobysestate.com.au/supportmylocal

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VENEZIANO COFFEE ROASTERS COVID-19 has tested Veneziano Coffee Roasters’ ability to innovate, pivot, and act fast to meet the needs of the market, and ensure it has a successful business in the long term. Its number one priority is to protect the wellbeing of its people, ensure it can continue to serve its customers, and have a sustainable business on the other side of this pandemic.

Veneziano has responded by enabling digital platforms and touchpoints across its network to connect with customers and ensure it continues to bring them meaningful experiences into the future.

Veneziano’s cafés have been open with the mission of getting coffee to its valued customers. It has established online ordering through HungryHungry, turning its cafés into drive-through venues, and delivering same-day service to local customers.

Veneziano’s corner store within selected cafés offers a wide range of premium pantry goods and essentials to save customers the extra trip to the supermarket.

Its pay-it-forward program is Veneziano’s small way of giving back to healthcare and essential services workers. For a small donation of $2.50, customers can fund a 240-millimetre coffee as a gesture of thanks to our unsung heroes.

Like many roasters, Veneziano is seeing an increase in demand for coffee and brewing equipment for home. To help customers discover the world of specialty coffee and finesse their skills, Veneziano has a series of virtual training resources available. These include weekly videos from Jade Jennings on brewing device demonstrations and tips to get the best out of your beans. In weekly Instagram Live sessions, customers can chat directly with former World Barista Champion Pete Licata and his special guests.

Education is critical to bringing the café experience home and Veneziano is lucky to have so much talent under one roof to share with its customers and the industry.

For a limited time, Veneziano is extending a 20 per cent discount when customers buy one kilogram or more of coffee from its online shop and cafés.

Simply use the code MATESRATES at the online checkout.

Veneziano’s goal through this crisis is to make a difference in everyone’s day – its employees, its customers, its communities – and to ensure it emerges a united and stronger business that continues to roast coffee for the people who love it.

For more information, visit www.venezianocoffee.com.au

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eveloped in conjuction with the BeanScene magazine website, The Long & Short of It news EDM is dedicated to keeping the coffee industry abreast of the latest relevant news as it breaks, in addition to providing an electronic interface for the viewing of BeanScene magazine content. To keep up to date with fresh, informative and relevant content, register your details at www.beanscenemag.com.au

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Hobby Lane’s La Marzocco Linea PB faces the street, drawing in wandering coffee drinkers.

HOBBY LANE 4/43 Blackwood Street, Mitchelton, Queensland, 4053 Open seven days 6:30am to 12pm (07) 3355 7990 When chef Peter Shaw took over a delicatessen in Michelton, Queensland in 2010, he envisioned turning it into a destination where he and others can practise their passion for food and hospitality. Thus, Hobby Lane was born.

“I always wanted the café to be a success for all. Our goal isn’t just money, it’s the popularity of the café, enjoyment of our customers, and happiness of our staff,” Peter says.

“It’s a really nice place to work, with a good dose of humour and people have stayed a long time with me due to that. I’m proud that it’s a place where people want to work and customers want to come.”

Over time, Peter shifted the venue’s focus from being a dedicated deli to a full café.

Two years ago, he remodelled the store so its coffee machine – a white three-group La Marzocco Linea PB – was up front and in full view from the street.

“The coffee machine was deep within the store. Our food was doing really well, but I really wanted the quality coffee we were doing to be reflected in the numbers,” Peter says.

“We focus on keeping it simple, with really nice shots and milk, combined with speed and lovely customer service.”

The renovation led to a boom in sales.

Hobby Lane serves the Woolloomooloo blend from Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters, a “blend that suits the customer”.

“We tried a few of their other blends and are really happy with Woolloomooloo.

It’s a big mouthful of body and flavour with distinct flavours of spice, cocoa, and caramel,” Peter says.

“We do a strong number of kilos per week and there’s not really room for a second person, so it requires a genuine gun of a barista.”

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While coronavirus-related restrictions have hit the food part of the business, the coffee section is carrying the weight. Peter estimates that Hobby Lane’s coffee usage is up by almost 50 per cent.

“Our streetscape is very attractive for coffee. It’s open and airy, so people have the correct perception they can get a coffee without entering a closed environment and keep social distance,” Peter says.

“Our overall business is down, but the model is smaller, so it’s still effective.

I’m also working less myself, so I can keep giving people shifts. Investing in the takeaway side of things is also quite exciting.”

Hobby Lane has filled its front cabinet with handmade quiches, chicken pies,

The light and refined spelt crepe dish is a favourite among Hobby Lane’s busy regulars.

pastries, salads, and granola cups – something new to the café. A takeaway menu of breakfast favourites, like Breaky To-Go Rolls and Smoked Salmon, is also on offer.

Peter looks forward to sit-down service returning to Hobby Lane, so he and his kitchen team can put their creativity back on display. One of Hobby Lane’s standout dishes is a spelt crepe served with coconut, ricotta, a yuzu curd, toasted almonds, lemon balm, basil sugar, and ruby grapefruit.

“It’s a play on lemon crepes if you like, but with healthier flour,” Peter says. “It’s a bit feminine, very visual, and doesn’t fill you up too much. You walk away going ‘that was delicious and a little bit of fun.’”

VENEZIANO COFFEE CANBERRA 2/131 Lysaght Street, Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory, 2911 Open Monday to Friday 8:30am to 2pm 0400 843 579 After a decade of operating in Australia’s capital, Veneziano Coffee Roasters finally opened the doors to its Canberra headquarters in April.

The space features a “pseudo training studio cellar door” and offers beans and equipment for home use. With initial plans to launch a full suite of barista training classes, the Veneziano team had to rethink its offering to comply with social distancing rules amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Opening our doors now was important to us to show the Canberra market and our wholesale family that we’re still here and give them the confidence that we will be on the other side of COVID-19 too,” says Craig Dickson, Managing Director of Veneziano.

“We also know people are now, more than ever, making coffee at home, and we have the beans, equipment, and advice to help them get their home coffee set-up established.”

The venue’s retail wall contains a full range of coffee beans and micro lots, plus

ROWENA CORNER STORE 44 Rowena Parade, Richmond, Victoria, 3121 Open seven days 8am to 2pm (03) 9421 3262 Food and culture have always been at the core of Rowena Corner Store. Owner Con Coustas says the ‘recipe’ of the café is a “hefty serving of traditional Mediterranean

Rowena Corner Store celebrates the multicultural community of Richmond.

all the home brewing equipment Veneziano recommends for customers to make a barista quality cup.

Veneziano has implemented pick up, drive by, and same-day delivery for the Australian Capital Territory and surrounding suburbs to get supplies to the people who need them during lockdown.

Once social distancing restrictions are lifted, Veneziano Trainer TJ Phillipson will lead a range of classes at the studio. The roaster’s wholesale network will receive ongoing training and coaching, and Barista at Home courses will be available for home brewers.

Modelled after Veneziano’s training room in Richmond, Victoria, the studio is decked out with La Marzocco Linea PBs espresso machines, Victoria Arduino Mythos One and Mythos 2 Gravimetric grinders, Mahlkönig EK43, and Mazzer Robur S grinders, and other new tools and gadgets for students to perfect their skills.

“Our courses are led by some of the best in the business, overseen by former World Barista Champion Pete Licata and well-known barista finalist Jade Jennings,” Craig says.

“Our training studios and courses are a core part of the Veneziano offering and what we believe sets us apart from the rest.”

provincial cooking, add a splash of international goodness, a pinch of modern innovation, and simmer slowly over a warm Richmond flame”.

When stage three lockdowns required Rowena Corner Store to shift its business model, the café found new ways to serve the Richmond community. It has expanded its Mama’s Meals take-home menu, which features a variety of ready-to-go meals, and

Veneziano Coffee Canberra stocks and delivers a wide range of coffees to the ACT.

offers this alongside coffee and pastries from a walk-through window.

“While our 100-seater café is gone, we have changed our focus into grocery and our takeaway business,” Con says. “For us, our kitchen pantry has now been turned into a source of income.”

With the good food comes great coffee.

Rowena Corner Store has that covered with the Grinders Coffee Source blend. The Fairtrade and Organic certified blend has a fruity taste when black and cuts through milk with sweet caramel and malt notes.

Like the rest of the Grinders community, Rowena Corner Store has been offered the Grinders Care Kit, which provides customers with tools and tips to help them operate in these uncertain times.

This includes marketing support, social media tips and tricks, the latest information on government stimulus packages, and mental health support. The kit aims to provide cafés with the know-how to start a conversation and keep people connected.

Rowena Corner Store’s motto during the pandemic has been όλοι μαζί, Greek for ‘all together’. Con says this has and will continue to guide the business.

“Our managers are meeting every day to discuss any new government measures, speak with our staff, look at our numbers from the previous day, but also challenging our creativity and innovation,” Con says.

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focus,” Jay says.

“My business partner [Kimberly Bridgefoot] has been a big part of the community for a long time, so people want to come in to support her and support us.”

Waves has changed hands and names several times over its decade in business, with locals Jay and Kimberly partnering to take the reins in February. Using their years of experience in hospitality and with the town, Jay says they quickly figured out how to make the café appeal to a wide clientele.

“It’s clean, fresh, somewhat contemporary, and has a good vibe. That’s what people want in a beachside café,” Jay says. “They want to walk into a bright and nice venue

with fresh food and good service. It’s inviting, so they want to come in and want to come back.”

The coffee is another big drawcard.

Waves serves the Caramba blend from Danes Specialty Coffee. Jay says the blend is a good match for the various tastes of Avoca Beach.

“People love the blend, so we don’t feel the need to change that,” he says. “They know they can come in and that it’s top notch and consistent.”

Waves’ offering has cast a wide net, with its customers ranging from young families to tradies and the older residents of Avoca Beach. Lately, Waves has highlighted the healthier options on its menu to keep foot traffic moving.

“All people can do to leave the house and be outdoors is exercise. So they’re trying to be healthy, and we’ve got pre-made salads and that kind of thing ready to go,” Jay says.

“There’s not a long of wait time either.

Instead, customers can walk in, grab something from the fridge and go.”

Jay says he’s thankful to the citizens of Avoca Beach for their continued support during tough times.

“Being community operated makes all the difference,” he says. “The people of Avoca are there for each other.”

the business, Bear With Me highlights the fresh produce grown in Tasmania.

“We are lucky to be living on this island with all of this produce available to us to showcase to locals as well as visitors and tourists,” Alicia says.

Popular dishes include the vegan peanut butter tofu bao, a dish Alicia says “if [she] took off the menu, customers would come for [her]”, and an eggs Benedict served with master stock braised ham hock and cider hollandaise on crispy layered potato instead of toast.

While the coronavirus lockdown was a financial hit to Bear With Me, the café was able to translate its seasonally

changing menu to takeaway. Its winter menu was planned considering the time it would take customers to bring their food home.

“The first couple of weeks were really hard. It was more mentally draining and challenging than anything else, but we’re in a better position now. We’re still financially impacted, but the team is feeling positive, we’re having fun at work, and we’ve built new relationships with our customers,” Alicia says.

“At the end of the day, it’s about fresh produce, amazing coffee, and customer service. It’s just being presented in a different way.”

Waves in Avoca Beach has improved its performance during the pandemic.

WAVES 181 Avoca Drive, Avoca Beach, New South Wales Open Monday to Friday 6am to 5pm, Saturday and Sunday 6am until close (02) 4382 1882 Waves café in Avoca Beach has not only kept afloat but thrived during lockdown.

Co-owner Jay Gilchrist attributes this to an ability to adapt, as well as support from the local community.

“We’ve stayed on top of offering great and consistent coffee and food, and changed the menu to better suit a takeaway theme, with less of a sit-down

BEAR WITH ME 399 Macquarie Street, South Hobart, Tasmania, 7004 Open seven days 8am to 3pm (03) 6223 6665 “Bear with me” is a phrase that comes up often is hospitality, and Alicia Liu and Viv Xiao felt it was the right tongue-in-cheek message to send when they opened their second café.

“We were known for creating Vilicia Coffee [our first café], but going into a residential area and opening up a whole kitchen with food service was relatively new to us,” Alicia says.

“Vilicia is very coffee focused. For our next project, we wanted to offer coffee and food at the same quality. It’s hard to find the perfect balance and it always seems to lean one way or the other.”

For its coffee, Bear With Me features a range of specialty roasters not seen frequently around the island, with Ona Coffee’s The Founder as its house blend.

“Ona is our core offering, but we like to showcase a few other roasters as well – like Marvell Street and Market Lane – for filter and to widen our range,” Alicia says.

“We’re very proud of the coffee we’re presenting to Hobart.”

To match this quality on the food side of

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Bear With Me brings Ona Coffee and a rotating list of roasters to Tasmania.

SOS CAFÉ soscafe.nz Cafés across New Zealand were forced to temporarily close their doors in late March when the government announced four-week Stage 4 lockdown restrictions.

For most of these businesses, this meant mean zero income over April, with many already suffering from reduced business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Having owned and operated a bar in NZ several decades ago, David Downs says he has an empathy for these business owners, and wanted to find a way to help his local cafés.

“I remember well how difficult it is living in that world, how cash strapped you can be at times, and how difficult it is with staff and other overhead costs,” David says.

“Right before the lockdown, I was sitting in a café in my neighbourhood, thinking about what would happen to these places.”

David approached the owner and asked if he could buy a voucher or pre-pay for future coffee and food, giving them more cash in hand.

“What I quickly realised was these places don’t have the ability to sell vouchers and things online. I thought ‘I could do that for them’,” David says.

After getting several more local businesses onboard, David established SOS Café, an online platform where customers can buy vouchers to their favourite venues, providing them with the funds they needed to get through the lockdown.

“I set it up initially for the cafés, bars, and restaurants around me in my neighbourhood,” David says. “Word of mouth got us through the first few days, then it got shared on social media, and a bit of press interest helped it explode from there.”

The not-for-profit service sees all money – bar credit card fees – go straight to the

David Downs is the Founder of SOS Café.

venues. Customers order a voucher for however much they chose and are given a code to reclaim once the café is back open.

At the time of speaking to BeanScene, David said SOS Café had around 2500 vendors signed up to the service, with thousands of vouchers issued and more than $1.4 million in sales.

“We shuffled out about $100,00 in the last two days to businesses that otherwise wouldn’t be having any revenue at the moment. Some of them received thousands of dollars,” David says.

“It’s getting them cash in their hands now when they need it. The government has put in place some help for small business, particularly around wages, but it doesn’t help for rent, leasing of machinery, and other overhead costs. We want to do anything we can to help them pay those costs when they open the doors and keep trading.”

David says the success of SOS Café shows how deep the connections run between NZ’s cafés and their regulars.

“These are the loyal customers from these little cafés that want to support them,” David says.

“You can tell that a café has got a loyal set of customers, because they’ll put something on their Facebook page and start seeing orders coming through. It really is amazing.”

Despite lockdowns being relaxed in NZ at the end of April, David says he’s seeing and hearing demand for the service to continue running.

“A few companies have asked us if they can keep going, so there could well be a need for SOS Café in the long term,” David says.

“We’re filling a need where businesses need to be able to trade online and get cash up front.”

SOS Café helped NZ small businesses generate revenue during forced closures.

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TECH TALK

Maurizio Marcocci is the Director of Service Sphere.

The Bean Barn

Maurizio Marcocci of Service Sphere introduces a new online platform to unify Australian roasters and create a whole new experimental world for coffee consumers.

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very time I walk into Dan Murphy’s liquor stores – for a responsible bottle of wine or two – I’m amazed by the depth and variety of alcohol on offer, from spirits to champagne, wine to pre-mixed cocktails, and then further divided into chilled and room temp, imported or Australian produced, top dollar or budget.

The range is incredible, and customers happily walk around, drawn to new labels, a discounted price tag, or simply the sheer magnitude of what’s available at their disposal, and it got me thinking.

With coffee’s characteristics so often compared to wine, and a large cohort of roasters producing some quality offerings for Australian consumers, why not band the offerings together and create our own retail coffee platform?

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If there’s ever a time to do it, this is it. When Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced mandatory restrictions on 22 March to help stop the spread of COVID-19, cafés and restaurants were forced to close in-store dinning, apart from those who are able to operate takeaway and home delivery services.

Within hours, the hospitality industry had to pivot a new normal and the idea of the Bean Barn evolved as an opportunity to bring the coffee community together via an e-commence website.

Retail coffee sales are on the rise, opening a whole new opportunity for roasters to reach consumers who still demand top-quality coffee while isolating and working from home.

The idea for the Bean Barn is to showcase the best of Australia’s coffee roasters in one platform, have the coffee

dc coffees including The Duchess, Darkside and Allcity blends are available on the Bean Barn.

Veneziano Coffee Roasters has joined the Bean Barn to share its quality specialty coffee range.

community come together and support each other to create the Dan Murphy’s equivalent of coffee. Genovese Coffee was one such brand that was quick to jump on board.

“Online trading is clearly the way of the future, that’s why I believe there’s a great spot for this platform in our industry,” says Adam Genovese of Genovese Coffee.

“At a time like this, people will love having access to a bespoke coffee offer. Coffee lovers won’t have to go to different stores or websites to try different coffee. The concept will open consumer minds to different roasting styles and flavour profiles, so the more roasters that sign up, the better it will be for consumers to experience our world of coffee.”

Trent Knox of St Remio says cafés and wholesale partners have been hit hard as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, but joining the Bean Barn is a unique way for coffee lovers to support local businesses at this challenging time.

“The way we consume coffee may have changed, but our expectations for quality coffee haven’t,” says Cofounder Trent Knox.

“St Remio was established as a proud ethical brand that cares about the quality of the product we provide, and more importantly, the people behind it. The Bean Barn is another valuable way we can share our story with coffee consumers and help give back to the origin communities that work so hard for the precious product so many of us consume each day.”

David Valmorbida of Conga Foods says the Bean Barn is a concept that celebrates the unity of Australia’s coffee and foodservice industry.

“Our family, via Conga Foods and dc Specialty Coffee Roasters, is proud to partner with our long-time friends Service Sphere, via the Bean Barn to offer our range of products to customers, providing them with products such as the latest boundary-pushing dc coffee blends,

the iconic Kimbo coffee from Naples, and the one-and-only, original Bialetti moka coffee makers,” David says.

“At such a challenging time for our industry, initiatives like this that bring Australian family businesses together are invaluable and we are excited for the launch of this new platform.”

Craig Dickson, CEO of Nomad Coffee Group is also proud to support long-term partners Service Sphere in bringing quality coffee and a home espresso solution to consumers.

“At Nomad Coffee Group, our purpose is coffee with significance and to ensure the sustainability of the specialty coffee industry for generations to come,” Craig says. “Through our brands, we are committed to giving back to the amazing people who produce our coffee, sharing our experience and knowledge and bringing a quality specialty coffee experience to people all over the country.”

Five per cent of revenue raised from sales at the Bean Barn will go towards a hospitality-based charities and My Room Children’s Cancer Charity.

It’s early days, but the Bean Barn is up and running, and we’re proud to have launched such an exciting initiative at a time when the industry needs to ban together. To make the Bean Barn the biggest and best it can be, we invite all Australian roasters to get involved and register to have their coffee featured on our website so that more people get to experience our diverse coffee culture, and the wonderful work our farmers and roasters are doing across the supply chain. With your support, the Bean Barn might just become a coffee lover’s dream shopping expedition – all from the comfort of their homes.

To connect to the Bean Barn and discover a range of coffees to enjoy at home, visit www.servicesphere. com.au/beanbarn To have your coffee registered on the Bean Barn website, visit www. servicesphere.com.au/collaborate For further information please contact our Sales Manager David Lagana at sales@servicepshere.com.au or on 0417 513 658.

The Bean Barn is a one-stop retail shop for coffee consumers.

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ESPRESSO YOURSELF

Jibbi Little of Jibbijug is the 2019 ASCA Pauls Professional Australian Latte Art Champion.

Thirsty camel Jibbi Little shares a latte art design as tricky as getting a camel through the eye of a needle.

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ike how camels keep emergency supplies in the humps on their backs, I’m glad I had this latte art pattern up my sleeve. My tenure as the current Australian Latte Art Champion has received a temporary extension, giving me the opportunity to share another fun design.

The camel is an odd-looking animal, with distinctive features like its long and skinny legs, bulbous nose, and, of course, its iconic humps.

It’s been called a horse made by committee, meaning people could not agree on anything and kept adding ideas to the animal. This makes it a prime subject for latte art.

A large part of this latte art design is just pouring and dragging, which may sound simple, but requires an eye for spacing and a lot of fine control. Pointed humps and short legs are as unappealing on a latte art design as they’d be on a real camel, but put it altogether and I think you’ll be quite impressed with the end result.

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One lone rosetta is used to add a bit of ‘texture’ to the body of the camel. A second, optional rosetta can be poured along the bottom of the design to create the ground.

The most difficult part of this design is drawing the neck, head, and ear in a single, smooth, continuous motion. This takes steady hands, strong technique, and a good awareness of space in the cup. It’s difficult to put this step into words, so try to use the images as a guide.

While it’s unfortunate the 2020 Australian Latte Art Championship had to be postponed, it has given me and my competitors more time to perfect our designs. I can’t wait to share these when the time is right and we’re gasping over latte art designs and taking endless images once again.

If you’ve been looking for a distraction, holding out for a new latte art design to work on, or utterly bored in isolation, hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

1.

Build your base with the handle at three o’clock.

3.

Pour a nine-leaf rosetta from the centre of the cup to the handle, ending just after crossing the “M”, and pull through to link up at the other end.

5.

From the same starting point, drag another line directly downwards, forming the second front leg.

7.

In the same motion, end with a second, smaller loop for the ear.

2.

Just right from the centre of the cup, pour an “M” shape and pull through at the end past the handle of the cup.

4.

At the beginning point of the first rosetta, pour a thin line curve outward, forming the first front leg.

6.

Form the neck with another line curving outwards. Once in-line with where you started, loop your pour to form the face leaving space for the eye.

8.

Drop a small amount of foam at the front of the face to form the nose.

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TRAINING TACTICS

Jared Chapman is Group Customer Manager at Suntory Coffee.

Adapting to change Jared Chapman on the importance of staying relevant and chasing new opportunities – and not just when a pandemic hits.

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ow. What a challenging and different year 2020 has been so far.

They say the only constant in life is change, and we have seen more than our fair share of change this year already.

What has been fascinating is seeing how well people and businesses can adapt when there is little choice. Innovation springs to life and many people have found ways to keep their businesses running in clever and inventive ways.

For some of these businesses, this new way of thinking is reluctant – a result of difficult circumstances forcing them to change to be able to stay open. For others though, challenging the status quo is not foreign, it’s just part of their DNA. In a lot of ways, the businesses who have always pushed the boundaries have set themselves up for greater success when things go unexpectedly pear shaped.

They often have more diverse businesses, have learnt how to successfully implement innovation, and are more likely to have staff that embrace change rather than resist it. More importantly, there’s a good chance they have already put in place many of the initiatives that other businesses have recently been scrambling to introduce.

Which brings me to my point.

Regardless of whether there’s a global pandemic or not, the most successful businesses are ever changing. For them, new ideas are seen as opportunities rather than a hassle. They do this to stay relevant, keep things fresh, and to continue to find new ways to give their customers what they want. It just so happens that as a result they are more resilient in times of crisis.

To illustrate, I’ll start by sharing some

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Consider hosting virtual coffee training or a virtual cupping for your wholesale customers.

“innovations” that many businesses have only implemented because they needed to in the age of coronavirus, while other businesses have been doing these things for a long time: 1. O nline ordering and delivery. This one is pretty obvious when everyone is forced to stay home, but it’s also a great example of how there are many cafés that were more prepared than others when the pandemic hit.

This trend isn’t new and isn’t going away any time soon, so if you haven’t already, get onto it, get a website, and get set up.

2. Social media. Socials have long been a great way to engage with customers and keep your business front of mind. But businesses who

had been procrastinating on building a social media presence were kicking themselves when all of a sudden the only way they could try to bring customers in or keep them updated was through talking to their followers on social media.

3. Retail coffee beans. Retail coffee tends to not only have a higher margin than many other products that cafés sell, but also helps to increase the value of an existing customer – which is easier than winning a new one. An added bonus is that it’s easy to sell online.

4. Giving back. A lot of businesses have taken the opportunity to help or thank others, such as providing free coffee to health care workers. But being seen to be a generous business is always

Expand the horizon of takeaway orders to include groceries or ready-made meals.

a good thing, and what’s more is it makes it more authentic in difficult times. A great example is Café Two 14 in Brisbane, who always gives back to support Australian military veterans and their families. When they started selling retail coffee and contributing $5 per bag directly to their staff during coronavirus, it was clear to their customers that it was genuine and not just marketing.

5. Merch sales. Selling coffee gear and apparel is another great way to increase customer value and also create some walking advertisements for your brand. If you’ve already got a reputation for cool merch, you won’t have any issues selling an “I only leave the house to go to Johnny’s Café” t-shirt.

6. Ready-to-eat meals. Service stations and supermarkets have been on this for a while now. Let your customers kill two birds with one stone and grab their lunch with their morning coffee.

A great recent example of this is a gym partnering with a café to offer calorie-controlled take-home meals for a one-stop health and fitness shop.

Not all of the innovations cafés have implemented recently have been old news, however. There are plenty of examples of new and clever ways I’ve seen cafés tackle the challenge of continuing to run a successful business during the pandemic. What’s interesting is that while these ideas are largely new for cafés, once again there is no reason why they couldn’t have implemented the ideas any time – and no reason why they still can’t.

• Selling groceries. Actually, let’s kill a third bird with that same stone. Pick up your morning coffee, your ready-made lunch, and a meal kit for dinner later.

Talk about convenience.

• Virtual cupping session. What a great

way to sell some retail coffee. Send out the same coffee to a bunch of people and then run an online cupping session to show them how to use it. If people can make it to the café to participate, that’s great, but now you can get anyone involved.

• Lending coffee equipment – some cafés are letting people borrow brewing equipment when they buy retail coffee (with a deposit on the equipment). This seems like a great

way to encouragecafémore people to get brewing at home, and even better, brewing with your coffee. Why not lend the cupping equipment they need to get involved with the virtual cupping session while you’re at it?

• Virtual coffee training. A great example I’ve seen from a few coffee roasters for their wholesale customers, but also a great idea for cafés to teach their customers to become home baristas and loyal retail coffee buyers. And if they don’t have an espresso machine at home, why not get some of those in to sell as well?

• Bottling hand sanitiser. Okay, so this one might not have been particularly obvious or relevant until recent times.

But still, a great example of adaptability.

Again, I think the key here is that if you’re used to trying new things, you’ll have a much better idea of how to get a project like this up and running in a short space of time.

The message is clear. Rather than waiting for something to come along and force innovation, take the time to sit down and think about how you could do things differently and improve your business. Hopefully you won’t need it to support you through a crisis, but it’s sure to help you build a better business.

Online or direct phone orders are likely to be an ongoing part of café operations.

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R&D LAB

Dr Monika Fekete is the Founder of Coffee Science Lab.

A bittersweet experiment Dr. Monika Fekete shares a home experiment to demonstrate how activated charcoal can remove the bitterness from coffee.

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’m taking these challenging times as an excuse to indulge in online shopping for locally crafted beans, and to play with home-based coffee experiments.

Rather than sacrificing homedelivered specialty goodness for these experiments, I turned to supermarket coffee. The description on the bag of beans I’d bought described the coffee as “medium roast”. I brewed the coffee with a chemex and tasted the whole bitter segment of the coffee flavour wheel: harsh caustic bitterness combined with pungent phenolic bitterness. There are some pleasant nutty and malty aromas, but the experience was dominated by those persistent bitter flavours.

So where does bitterness in coffee come from? According to a report in Science magazine, food chemists at the Technical University of Munich discovered chlorogenic acids (CGA) present in green coffee to be the main culprits behind coffee’s bitterness.

CGAs are not bitter in their natural forms. However, as the roast progresses, a chain of reactions convert CGAs to chlorogenic acid lactones (a group of about 10 chemicals) responsible for some mild, but not unpleasant, bitterness.

Roasting the beans further breaks the lactones down to a group of chemicals called phenylindanes that cause harsh bitterness, a characteristic of dark roasted coffee. In addition, according to the

Figure 1. USB microscope image comparing the grain size of “fishtank” and medical charcoal to coffee grinds.

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authors of this study, caffeine accounts for around 15 per cent of coffee’s bitter taste.

But is there a way we could remove these bitter tasting compounds from coffee at home without using laboratory chemicals and sophisticated equipment?

Activated charcoal comes to mind, as it’s commonly used for the removal of phenolic contaminants from wastewater.

This is good news as CGAs and their breakdown products are also phenolic compounds. It’s even used in the Swiss water process for removing caffeine from green coffee. But what is it exactly and how does it work?

Activated charcoal, or active carbon, is made by heating plant materials, such as coconut husks, to high temperatures in a low-oxygen environment, a process called pyrolysis. The charred material is then “activated” using oxygen or steam.

Basically, the process creates tiny cracks and pores, dramatically increasing the surface area. Just one gram of activated carbon has a surface area of 500 to 3000 square metres, comparable to the size of a football field. That’s a lot of area for molecules to attach. Activated carbon acts like a sticky sponge for gases and chemicals, and it has wide usage from water purification to medical treatment for acute poisoning. Medical or food grade activated charcoal is safe to take in small amounts. It’s also safe to drink coffee filtered through it, as we will do in this experiment. However, it’s not recommended to ingest too much as it can strip food from its nutrients.

This leads us to another important point about activated charcoal: it’s not very selective. A large range of molecules can stick to it. In the following experiment, I will show you how activated carbon can

Figure 2. The TDS percentage of filter coffee was reduced using fishtank charcoal granules. The higher charcoal to coffee ratio removed the most dissolved material.

remove bitterness from coffee. However, we need to keep in mind that it might remove other, potentially desirable flavour compounds too. Let your tastebuds decide.

TRY THIS AT HOME

Activated carbon is easy to come by. I bought Charcocaps capsules from the pharmacy and charcoal granules from the pet shop, used for purifying aquarium water. The two are very different, as Figure 1 shows. The “fishtank” carbon comes in larger beads, up to a few millimetres in size. The medical charcoal found inside the capsules is a very fine powder, finer than the smallest grains of ground coffee (shown in Figure 1 for comparison).

I brewed up a pot of coffee using my supermarket beans and a three-cup chemex, but you could use any filter preparation method. I used 20 grams of ground coffee to 320 grams of hot water with a brew time of three minutes, but feel free to use your own recipe.

First, let’s try removing bitter flavours with the fishtank carbon. Pre-soak the beads in water for a few hours so that water replaces air in the pores and any fine dust can be washed off.

Next, combine the charcoal granules with the brewed filter coffee in a plunger, changing the following variables: - Charcoal to coffee ratio. I expect that the more charcoal is used, the more bitterness will be removed. I prepared three different ratios: 1:1 (50 grams charcoal to 50 grams brewed coffee), 1:2 (25 grams charcoal to 50 grams coffee), and 1:0.5 (100 grams charcoal to 50 grams coffee).

- Soaking time. The longer the coffee and charcoal are in contact, the more material the charcoal can adsorb.

At the end of each treatment, the plunger filter can be used to easily separate the granular charcoal from the coffee. I tested the resulting total dissolved solids (TDS) percentage as an indication of how much dissolved material (therefore, flavour) was removed from the coffee.

Figure 2 shows the reduction in TDS percentage observed after each treatment.

It’s immediately clear that more carbon indeed removes more dissolved material.

The lowest TDS percentage was measured with the highest (1:0.5) charcoal:coffee ratio. The charcoal works quickly.

Most of the TDS percentage reduction occurs within the first five minutes of the treatment. Unfortunately, I found that the bitter taste still lingered on. After another 24 hours, the bitterness was finally gone, together with all other flavour. Activated charcoal can’t turn water to wine, but it can turn coffee into water. (Note: “fishtank” carbon is not rated as a food grade product. Even though we only use it for filtration, if you are concerned, just Figure 3. The TDS percentage of filter coffee was efficiently reduced in just one minute using small amounts of powdered charcoal.

No 1:100 treatment

follow this part as a demonstration).

Next, lets test the medical powdered carbon. Based on the first experiment, I decided to focus on the carbon:coffee ratio and fix the treatment time to just one minute. As the powder is finer, and therefore has a much larger surface area, I expected a smaller amount of carbon would be sufficient.

The carbon:coffee ratios I chose were 1:100, 1:50 and 1:25 (the last one had the most amount of carbon). When I mixed the powder with the coffee, I got something that resembled black sludge.

Separating the carbon from the liquid was quite difficult. As the grains are smaller than the coffee grinds, the pores of even a fine filter paper are too large to retain the carbon. Instead, I had to reach for syringe filters from my lab supplies.

I first filtered out the larger grains using a 0.4 micrometer filter (the kind you might use with your TDS meter). Then, I filtered the resulting liquid again on a 0.22 micrometer syringe filter, which was fine enough to remove all the remaining carbon powder. A control experiment showed that the filters alone do not change TDS percentage.

The results are summarised in Figure 3.

As visible in the graph, powdered carbon was much more efficient at reducing TDS percentage than the larger “fishtank” granules.

As for taste, the sample with the 1:100 ratio still had some residual bitterness. The 1:25 sample tasted watery and flat. The 1:50 sample, however, finally had what I was after: pure roasty, malty, somewhat savoury flavours with no hint of bitterness.

In conclusion, activated charcoal can be used to remove bitterness from coffee. Powdered charcoal worked better than granulated charcoal due to its enormous surface area available for the rapid adsorption of bitter flavours.

Using an optimised carbon:coffee ratio, bitterness could be removed while a lot of desirable flavours remained in the resulting coffee beverage.

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ASCA

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

A united front

ASCA recognises the strength and unity of the coffee industry in the face of COVID-19.

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ike the people COVID-19 has infected, the virus is making the daily life of many cafés and industry members a challenge, and there are some hit worse than others.

March through May, many cafés closed up shop. Some saw takeaway and delivery as the lifelines they needed, while others waited until restrictions lifted to try and return to the swing of things. But there are those that won’t be coming back. Our thoughts are with the owners, baristas, and workers of those cafés and businesses who are suffering.

The Australian Specialty Coffee Association is doing its best to support and provide necessary information to its members and the wider industry.

The government has also tried to step up to the plate. Stimulus packages, JobKeeper payments, and a code of conduct and moratorium on evictions for commercial leases means many small businesses that were uncertain of the future will live to see another day.

The coffee industry is resilient, and it will pull through this pandemic. Many have revamped their menus to better suit takeaway and put more thought into their social media to remain connected to customers.

The way people have adapted during these lockdowns and restrictions is nothing short of amazing.

Thank you to the café owners for being so reactive to the environment and doing what they can to stay afloat, keep staff employed, and caffeine cravings at bay. Some even paid out of their own pockets or made sacrifices to keep their staff in work, regardless if JobKeeper would reimburse them or not. Businesses with larger teams have rostered staff into groups to prevent the virus potentially spreading across the workforce.

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The coffee industry has stood strong in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Everything from temperature checks to social distancing measurements were put in place to protect the wellbeing of workers and customers.

Thank you to the baristas and workers who put themselves at risk so our cafés can stay open and customers can keep getting their coffee. It may not feel like it sometimes, but that daily interaction and small dose of routine is essential to helping many people get through the day.

Thank you to the suppliers who keep distributing products like bread, milk, dairy alternatives, eggs, and fruit and veg. We know you too are feeling your customers’ pain. Cafés selling these items direct to consumers have not only found a new source of revenue for themselves but these partners too.

Thank you to the businesses looking at new ways of generating revenue, the manufacturers which are now producing face masks and health and safety items, the coffee traders maintaining connections with farmers, the trainers and educators moving online, and the financial experts offering free advice on social media.

Thank you to the roasters doing what they can to help cafés stay afloat.

Numerous roasters launched discounts

and assistance packages to help their customers when they need it most. Others found creative ways to lend a hand.

Single O and Marvell Street in New South Wales shared the love from their online sales with the cafés that brought those customers to its coffee. More like Ona Coffee and Locale Espresso encouraged people to buy take-home coffee from their local rather than an online shop.

But money and coffee are not the only ways roasters supported their cafés. Grinders Coffee Roasters offered its customers struggling through the pandemic with access to an over-thephone counselling service.

I wish I could shout out every business playing its part, but I simply don’t have the words, or the knowledge of everything everyone is doing to support the industry.

I and the ASCA Board are proud of the way the industry has banded together to help each other during this time of crisis, and hope that the situation improves for everyone soon.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter at www.australianspecialtycoffee. com.au

NZSCA

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

Be kind, be safe, drink coffee

The New Zealand specialty coffee industry bands together in the face of a complete café and hospitality lockdown.

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ack in mid-March, few could have predicted a complete lockdown of New Zealand for five weeks, followed by two weeks of operating a business at level three restrictions.

Overnight, the hospitality industry was halted.

The government acted quickly to ensure that employees received wage subsidies, business packages were introduced, and banks supported mortgage holidays.

But for a fractious eight days, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise deemed online coffee orders as non-essential. Households were plunged into instant withdrawal from their favourite artisan beans.

Roasters were holding tonnes of roasted coffee with no foreseeable way to sell it. Those that didn’t have contracts with supermarkets rushed to adapt, pivot, and innovate to get their product to consumers. While we have often joked that baristas would love to work from home for a day, we were suddenly

The New Zealand coffee industry has shown compassion and resilience during COVID-19.

wondering if we’d have jobs or our favourite cafés to come back too.

Within a week, essential offerings came back online for those able to work from home. Luxuries such as coffee machines and indeed beans were deemed necessities. Strict health and safety guidelines were drawn up and those roaster cooling trays were once again turning.

A number of our members implemented some great initiatives to support the hospitality industry.

NZSCA member company Prima Roastery in Christchurch decided to support its wholesale partners in this time by creating a win/win situation. They developed a system of support where 25 per cent of the sale price from a bag of coffee went towards the consumer’s favourite café. With many businesses making the anxious step to remain closed during level three’s paradigm of “click and collect”, this added support meant cafés could concentrate on reopening full service when the time and safety was right.

In Auckland, member company Kokako Organic Coffee Roasters also wanted to support its wholesale café partners with its ‘support your local’ campaign. Customers at home could enjoy the taste of their favourite café’s coffee with its own logo on the front of the retail bag, knowing that 25 per cent of the sale of each 200-gram bag was credited to the café owner’s wholesale account, allowing them to offset this against their opening coffee order.

Customers were keen to share the love with many buying up large.

Acme is one of many NZ businesses to support those forced to close over April.

For New Zealanders missing their favourite pastime of enjoying life in a café, this gave the owners a boost in an uncertain economy.

Member company Acme retails ceramics and cutlery around the world.

They launched their simple plan in New Zealand where consumers purchasing from their collection would then select a café where 50 per cent of the sale would go to. With level three rules involving takeaway only, the option to recreate the café environment at home in a ceramic is still proving popular.

Fast forward a few months, and it’s unfathomable to think about what the hospitality industry has been through or what might happen next. We have certainly all missed the joy that sitting in our favourite café brings. But by helping each other in small ways, we can continue to grow and prosper.

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

VERONICA WEST Since moving to Sydney last July, I’ve been spoilt for choice when it comes to finding my favourite coffee spot.

I grew up, lived, and worked in my own business in Coffs Harbour and good coffee there was tricky to find, until Supply Coffee opened its doors in 2015.

They were definitely my go-to coffee shop and I have ordered some of their excellent beans online since moving away.

I love a rich-aroma coffee. When the mood takes me, I love the experience of drinking a smooth espresso at the bar of a café but my heart lies with the flat white, like many Australians.

Last year, I completed my barista training and I’m studying hospitality, so coffee will continue to be a big part of my life and I can’t wait to keep making coffee at home and spending lots more time exploring Sydney’s coffee scene.

MATTHEW GRILLS

Coffee is my passion, my business, and my social vibe – in addition to my love for ultra-endurance running.

I started moonlighting in a café many years ago (terribly mind you) and quickly grew to love the atmosphere a shop can create. I started researching and learning about all things coffee, and before long my daily relationships with my customers grew and I fell into a relaxed state of preparing coffee daily.

Over time, I observed a real gap in the specialty coffee market in our coastal town of Bargara, so on Boxing Day 2016, my wife and I started The Journey – Health, Adventure, Compassion. Inspired by the Melbourne ‘alley’ café, our aim was to serve high quality, consistent coffee and ensure customers left feeling better than when they arrived. We have faced many obstacles over time and continue to learn, however, I believe we are achieving our goals.

My favourite coffee is an Ethiopian – low tide, or a Soy Boy cappuccino with maple on Kai Arrow Blend. Good vibes all round.

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DAN FINN

My love for specialty coffee started in 2000 when visiting Monmouth Coffee at London’s Borough Market. Fifteen years later, in New York, I finally entered the profession with the Brooklyn Roasting Company. I learned all about sourcing, roasting, blending, marketing, and sales of this magical bean.

My first trip to coffee origin was to Peru and Ecuador in 2018. It was like a trip to coffee Disneyland. I was able to experience the coffee harvest.

Since returning to Melbourne in March, I have been rediscovering our wonderful local coffee roasters, retailers, and baristas.

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 Follow us on @BeanSceneEd

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We believe amazing things come from an alternative attitude and there’s nothing we love more than giving dairy cows an inferiority complex by creating alternative milks that delight our taste buds and this wonderful planet we call home.