BeanScene Magazine October 2022

OCTOBER 2022

An industry united by product and passion

MICE2022 show wrap-up

Toby’s Estate 25 years young Digitalised green bean trading

Education and training in demand

A World-Class Coffee Magazine

OCTOBER 2022

31 56

contents 12 16

NEWS STUFF ON THE SCENE

TRAINING AND EDUCATION

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INDUSTRY PROFILES

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22 27 51 56 65 75 78 80 84 86

KNOWLEDGE LEADER

Why Dean Gallagher started Five Senses Coffee for purpose not profit CELEBRITY CHEF

90 92

Hugh Allen talks ambition and Australia’s coffee culture COVER STORY

The evolution of Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters

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A STEPPING STONE

Bluestone Lane’s Brian Dessaix advocates for opportunities outside of Australia’s walls A FAIRY TALE FINALE A CHOCOLATE CHANGE

ON A MISSION

Campos Coffee continues its commitment to excellence

UNITED TO DO GOOD

Highlights from CafeSmart 2022 COMMUNITY NOTES

My Coffee Counts on the modern way to reward loyal café customers

How a suite of automated products are helping train café staff

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PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

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I.ME.MINE

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TAILORED SOLUTIONS

A COMPACT SOLUTION

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Aremde opens a window of opportunity to bring design and theatre together Probat releases the new P01, the latest in the P series of shop roasters

Wolff Coffee Roasters explains the value of inactivity vs waste of activity, and why its important to remove waste from your business Eversys’ Kamal Bengougam on how the world has gone from a community-centre society to an individualistic one HOW TO BENCHMARK ESPRESSO

UCC’s Babin Gurung on how to use your senses to analyse espresso extractions and trouble shoot solutions

Nestlé Professional expands its education program to cater to market needs

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SKILL BASE

A SMARTER WAY TO TRAIN

CANVAS OF CREATIVITY

PORTABLE CHOICES

Coffee Tools Distributing on the value of portable equipment

Grinders Coffee explains its tiered training programs

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THE OAT ALTERNATIVE

Happy happy Foods reveals new plant-based oat milk

GROUNDS FOR A GOOD DAY

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS

MICE2022 show wrap-up Introducing Canopy Drinking Coffee for sustainable and ethical consumption

EDUCATION YOU CAN TASTE

Equilibrium Master Roasters releases new educational tasting packs

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102 ESPRESSO YOURSELF

ASCA Australian Latte Art Champion Amy Zhang shares her national-winning Amybear design

CAFÉ SCENE

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MISSED OPPORTUNI-TEA

BRITA on how water filtration influences the sensory perception of tea

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APPLE OF OUR EYE

THE FUTURE OF TRADE

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CAFÉ SCENE

The new green bean buying platform to streamline digitalised solutions

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A MODERN WORKHORSE

Why Slayer Espresso users have fallen in love with its simplicity and accessibility

CENTRE STAGE

How Barista Attitude gives baristas as much or as little control as they desire

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MONIN releases Fuji Red Apple into the Australian market Around Australia and New Zealand NEW CHAMPIONS

NZSCA highlights New Zealand’s new wave of coffee talent PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Celebrating industry appointments

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CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Christine Clancy christine.clancy@primecreative.com.au MANAGING EDITOR Sarah Baker sarah.baker@primecreative.com.au JOURNALIST Hayley Ralph hayley.ralph@primecreative.com.au ART DIRECTOR/DESIGN Daz Woolley Covershoot product: Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters 32-36 City Rd, Chippendale NSW 2008 www.tobysestate.com.au There are few coffee shops that can call themselves a “coffee destination” but Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters’ flagship store in Chippendale is definitely one of them.

Since its refurbishment this year, the venue has been a community hub for coffee lovers to learn, indulge, and simply look around. The beautifully crafted wooden benchtops are a dream for brewing and customer conversations, and there’s no barriers between baristas and patrons here. Customers can walk around the benches in all directions to understand the skills and workflow of a busy café operation. You only need to look up to the mirrors above the workstations to appreciate the true craft involved in coffee making.

Look to the right, and a humongous freezer hosts a curated selection of frozen coffees, some of unique and seasonal varietals, and others preserving competition coffees. It’s an expensive display to be applauded. Then look to the back of the shop and the roastery is in full view through the glass panel.

“Such a special venue needs to be celebrated for its art and worship of coffee, which is displayed in all its glory from crop to cup, so we are thrilled to honour Toby’s Estate’s new venue on the October edition of BeanScene,” says Editor Sarah Baker.

Toby’s Estate General Manager Jody Leslie helped coordinate the cover shoot and says it’s another unique way to continue the company’s 25th anniversary.

“We’re so grateful for the opportunity to be featured on the cover.

What a great way to celebrate our time in the specialty coffee market and our contribution to the industry in Australia,” Jody says.

“As an ‘OG’ in the coffee community, we’re quite proud of our history and our impact over the years. We’re proud of Australian coffee in general. Our collaborative approach to business has stood the test of time and a part of our success story.”

Photographer Jeff Mackay crafted the cover shot, taking a variety of images that highlight the detail of the filter coffee bloom, and the environment in which it’s created.

The final shot celebrates a Colombian coffee as part of Toby’s Estate’s October rotation, which is ‘Best In Show’ this month.

For more information about the coffee, visit www.tobysestate.com. au/shop/coffee OCTOBER 2022

An industry united by product and passio n

MICE2022 show wrap-up

Toby’s Estate 25 years young

Digitalised green bean trading

Education and training in demand

8 beanscenemag.com.au

A World-Class Coffee Magazine

ART DIRECTOR Blake Storey DESIGN PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle Weston BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Courtney Walker courtney.walker@primecreative.com.au CLIENT SUCCESS TEAM LEADER Janine Clements janine.clements@primecreative.com.au PHOTOGRAPHY Jeff Mackay, Andrew Turner, Josh Ball, Melbourne International Coffee Expo, ASCA, Joanna Kosinska, Yuki Zhang CONTRIBUTORS Kamal Bengougam, Birgit Kohler, Emma McDougall, Babin Gurung, Amy Zhang, Sarah Bartlett, Peter and Penny Wolff HEAD OFFICE Prime Creative Pty Ltd 379 Docklands Drive, Docklands, Victoria 3008 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.

CONTRIBUTORS Each issue of BeanScene we profile a few of our talented contributors.

Birgit Kohler is the Head of Organoleptic Department at BRITA where her focus is on understanding the sensory perception of water, tea, and coffee, and bringing this knowledge into product development. Birgit is a trained water sommelière, receiving qualifications from the renowned Doemens Genussakademie in Germany, alongside having a background of studies in nutrition science, and qualifications as a coach.

Amy Zhang is the 2022 ASCA Australian Latte Art Champion. Born in China, Amy is a Coffee Quality Institute-certified Q Grader and Barista Trainer, basing many of her latte art patterns off her favourite Disney films. Amy won the 2022 ASCA Northern Region Latte Art Championship, and the 2022 National title. She currently works at The Maillard Project in Brisbane, Queensland.

Penny Wolff of Wolff Coffee Roasters is heavily focused on leadership through coaching and mentoring. Penny enjoys collaborating on philanthropy, stakeholder engagement, branding, design, culture and marketing. She is a community focused individual who thrives working in an inclusive workplace, where relationships are valued and a genuine sense of belonging and community is promoted. Penny is passionate about fostering powerful social change by working with like-minded leaders in their respective fields.

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.

Babin Gurung is the New South Wales Barista Trainer of UCC Australia and Coffee Lead for McDonald’s. With a Masters degree in accounting from the University of Southern Queensland, the only numbers Babin crunches these days are extraction and dose times. He came to Australia from Nepal in 2008 to study, fell in love with coffee, and hasn’t looked back. Babin has worked at many different cafés in Sydney, and enjoys sharing his coffee knowledge to help build new generations of baristas.

A word from the Editor

The ultimate family reunion

M

ICE2022 was the show we all needed. In the days leading up to the event, there was a feeling I had not experienced in three years: genuine excitement. It was anticipation of the week to come, the delight of seeing old and new friends again, and readiness to put on a show that the industry was well and truly ready for.

As the week began, industry figures from around the world touched down in Melbourne, and the festivities kicked off. Day one of MICE can only be described as “one long catchup”. Every step taken through the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre revealed a new face, a new person to embrace, and a long-anticipated chat minus a screen or mute button. This is the interaction technology can’t replace no matter how much it tries. There’s body language to read, expressions to dissect, equipment to play with, and coffees to taste. In somewhat of a surprise, everything slotted back into place, like no pandemic had ever occurred.

In the operational world however, technology was embraced by all segments of the market at MICE, as was craft and customer service.

Each elaborate stand outdid the next in a kaleidoscope of colour, and in the background was the echoing sound of emcees bellowing the names of competitors taking to the stage floor in the World Barista Championship (WBC) and World Brewers Cup. It is here that coffee turns into a sport. Coaches hang nervously on railings, photographers carefully outline the restricted square barrier on stage, and baristas wheel their preparation trollies out with the tiniest of steps and precision to begin their competition setup.

When it came to the afternoon results, the grandstands were filled with anxious spectators eager, and each time, Australia’s Anthony Douglas made it through to the next round, until he remained the last barista standing. Stunned and teary-eyed, I don’t think I had allowed myself to consider that Australia could actually win the WBC on home soil. In fact, it had never been done. And with his tamper trophy held high, and the Axil Coffee team bursting with pride at the result, Anthony topped off the perfect ending to a hugely successful event.

His win is recognition of where hard work and persistence can take you. It’s a win for the Australian coffee community who has endured so much over the past three years. And it’s a win for Melbourne, our coffee capital – a city we have always been proud of, but one that sounds a lot better when we add “home to a World Barista Champion”.

SARAH BAKER

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

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NEWS

AUSTRALIA CROWNS FOUR NEW CHAMPIONS IN AUSTRALIAN COFFEE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters is the 2022 Vitasoy Australian Barista Champion.

Specialty Coffee Roasters in Pinkenba, Queensland won first place. Ming Wan of Code Black Coffee placed second, and Darcy Lillis-Jones of Axil Coffee Roasters placed third at the ASCA National Championships at the Melbourne Meat Market in North Melbourne, Victoria.

“It’s like a dream, I can’t believe it. I thought maybe I’d place second or third but not first because I knew I had made a mistake on stage,” Amy said.

Using title sponsor Riverina Fresh milk for her three patterns, Amy’s first free pour latte art design was the huggin’ bear. She created an ostrich pattern for her other free pour latte art design, based on a Disney character. Her third pattern with etching was the Pumbaa face, the popular The Lion King character.

Amy will compete in the World Latte Art Championship, taking place in Taipei, Taiwan from 17 to 20 November, 2023.

Young Baek of Ona Coffee

All images: ASCA

From 17 to 20 August, the Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) crowned Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters the Vitasoy Australian Barista Championship. Gabrel Tan of Veneziano Coffee Roasters placed runner up in his first year competing, and Angus Mackie of Ona Coffee placed third in the national championship.

Harry Ko of Bennetts won the De’Longhi Australian Brewers Cup Championship, with Sasa Sestic runner up, and Hany Ezzat, both of Ona Coffee, third in the competition.

Both Anthony and Harry went on to represent Australia at the World Coffee Championship in their respective event at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo. Harry finished in eighth position at the end of round one in the Brewers Cup. Anthony went on to win the World Barista Championship title.

In the Australian Latte Art Championship, Amy Zhang of Archer

Sydney and Leible Coffee won the 2022 ASCA Australian Cup Tasters Championship. Young correctly guessed 7/8 triangulations of coffees in a time of four minutes and 53 seconds, narrowly beating Sinwu Nam of Code Black Coffee in second place who also scored 7/8, and Karl Lee of KL Specialty Coffee Lab who scored 6/8 in third place.

“Wow. I thought I was dreaming.

After they announced my name, my friends picked me up and carried me on their shoulders. It was like I was flying on a magic carpet. It was an insane moment,” Young said.

Brazilian coffee importer Minas Hill provided the coffees for the Australian Cup Tasters Championship. Young says distinguishing the odd coffee out of each triangulation was “really hard because they tasted so good”.

Young will compete in the World Cup Tasters Championship, taking place in Athens, Greece from 22 to 24 June, 2023.

Harry Ko of Bennetts won the De’Longhi Australian Brewers Cup Championship.

Amy Zhang of Archer Specialty Coffee Roasters is the Australian Latte Art Champion.

Young Baek of Ona Coffee Sydney is the Australian Cup Tasters Champion.

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NEWS

Image: Melbourne International Coffee Expo.

PATRYK TOMASIK WINS MILKLAB BARISTA BATTLE SERIES FINAL

Patryk Tomasik is the inaugural winner of the international Milklab Barista Battle Series.

Patryk Tomasik of The Hideout Specialty Coffee in Queensland has won an allexpenses paid trip to London in the final of the Milklab Barista Battle Series at the 2022 Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) on 29 September.

“I’m excited and so stoked with the results. I didn’t think I’d actually win as I was really stressed during the competition, but overall, I’m so glad to claim the title,” says Patryk.

Joseph Heo of Coffee Supreme in New Zealand placed second and Justin Lee from PowerBrew Coffee in Taiwan placed third in the competition final.

Patryk won the Australian final at MICE on 28 September and was invited to become a Milklab Master Barista, going on to compete in the international final against Milklab Master Baristas from other countries.

Having won the international final,

Patryk scored a trip for two to London Coffee Festival 2023.

“I’m excited to head back to London. I used to live there, so it’ll be great to catch up with my friends and family again,” says Patryk.

Patryk’s winning latte art was inspired by 2022 Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) Latte Art Champion Amy Zhang’s ‘Amybear’ design, which represents the ‘Huggin Bear’ from Toy Story, her favourite Disney film.

“Both Amy and I are from Brisbane and know each other really well. I always take inspiration from Amy and the designs she creates. I wanted to give her a little shoutout, a gift from me to her, for giving me all these great tips,” says Patryk.

Patryk also attributes the win to the support from his friends and family in Brisbane.

“I want to thank everyone from Brisbane for wishing me luck and coming here to cheer me on. I especially want to thank the owner of Hideout Eddie Cho and the Milklab team, who both sponsored my trip here. I’ve been working with Eddie for the past two and half years and he’s always been there to support me,” he says.

NEW ZEALAND CROWNS 2023 COFFEE CHAMPIONS

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placed third with a score of 7/8 in a time of 1.48 minutes.

In other NZ coffee competition news, Dennis Hsueh of Grey Street Kitchen in Hamilton won the Meadow Fresh New Zealand Latte Art Championship, and will

Image: Andrew Turner @ATPhoto

Hanna Taramoto of Coffee Tech in Auckland won the 2023 New Zealand Specialty Coffee Association (NZSCA) Meadow Fresh New Zealand Barista Championship, which took place 21 to 22 August.

YJ Huang of Mojo Coffee in Auckland placed second and Luise Metelka of Flight Coffee in Wellington placed third.

Hanna also won Outstanding Milk Beverage, an award given to the barista with the highest scored milk beverage on day one, receiving NZ$500 (about AU$460) and a trophy.

YJ won the Best Newcomer award and Johnny Leung from Archie Coffee in Auckland won the People’s Choice award, placing fourth overall.

Hanna will compete at the 2023 World Barista Championship and joins the New Zealand Cup Taster Champion, Ewan Kim of Camper Coffee in Auckland, in representing New Zealand in Athens next June 2023.

Ewan won the NZ Cup Tasters Championship with a score of 8/8 in 2.09 minutes.

Han Lee of Meebz Coffee in Auckland was runner up, scoring 7/8 in a time of 1.44 minutes, and August Hislop of Atomic Coffee Roasters in Auckland

From left: Luise Metelka placed third, Hanna Taramoto placed first, and YJ Huang placed runner up in the Meadow Fresh NZ Barista Championship.

now represent New Zealand at the World Latte Art Championship in November 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Hoony Chae from EOS Coffee in Auckland was runner-up, and Honoka Kawashima of Frank’s Coffee in Wellington took third place.

“10/10 experience, everyone we gave it to loved it. Taste, texture, pouring and quality is next level!”

- Inside Café

“The best almond milk we have used!”

- Abacus

“Love the texture, body, mouthfeel that lets our coffee shine - so good!”

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Good flavour, well balanced and works perfectly with coffee."

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STUFF ON THE SCENE

Stuff on the scene LaCimbali M200 After a long-awaited launch, the LaCimbali M200 combines passion for high-quality coffee with the rationale of functional and smart ergonomics. The new M200 represents a decisive step forward in the brand’s aesthetic and ticks all boxes from technical needs to design. Each component of the machine has been designed to be in an ideal position at the perfect distance to provide all the necessary comfort and agility. It’s the professional’s choice for high volume needs. For baristas of the future, today.

For more information, visit servicesphere.com.au

Five Senses Coffee Risaralda Blend Risaralda is a Colombian coffee roasted for espresso that is now starring on the Five Senses single origin line-up. With notes of sparkling cherry cola, juicy red fruits, and sweet maple syrup, this is a rich drop with great character that can be enjoyed as black or white. The result of a collaboration between Raw Material and producer groups Asocafé Tatama Santuario, Entreverdes and Asotatama El Aguila from Risaralda Department. Risaralda stands for much more than just a good brew. In the regions where it is produced, a lack of infrastructure and unstable prices were identified by farmers as key obstacles. From this, Raw Material created Red Associations as a vehicle to achieve stable and sustainable prices, while focusing on improved quality control, shared knowledge, and connection to the specialty coffee market.

It’s here for a good time, not a long time so grab a bag soon.

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

Naked Syrups Sweet Sauces Australian-made, gluten free, vegan friendly dessert sauces, what else could you ask for?

Each of the sauces, including Chocolate, Salty Caramel and Wild Strawberry are crafted to find the balance between sweetness and natural flavour. The Chocolate and Wild Strawberry sauces are Vegan Australia Certified, and with no artificial colours or flavours, Naked Syrups sauces are the perfect final touch for any dessert dish or drink. Delicious both hot and cold, Naked Syrups sauces meet the demand of consumers. Whether the sauces are drizzled over an ice cream, a baked cake, an iced drink or a hot stack of pancakes, the sauces are available in easy-to-use bottles for simple dispensing to bring mouth-watering flavours.

The possibilities for delicious creations are limited only by imagination.

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

Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend is deliciously dairy free. It is the oat milk of choice for a range of quality roasters including Toby’s Estate, Axil Coffee Roasters, Little Marionette and Maker Coffee. This premium oat milk is easy to use and steams without splitting for delicate latte art. Crafted by baristas and now served in more than 6000 cafés across Australia, Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend is made from whole rolled oats, is fortified with calcium, and has no added sugar. It also boasts a creamy texture and similar mouthfeel to dairy, for a smooth and satisfying latte every time.

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

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Barista Technology Australia E80 GBW According to Barista Technology Australia, the E80 GBW is the most anticipated grinder for 2022 and has just arrived on Australian shores. This ultimate grinder with the M5 Puqpress combination gives consumers the best of both worlds. It offers record grinding speed along with Mahlkönig’s real-time Grind-by-Weight technology and innovative Disc Distance Detection feature, delivering unparalleled engineering. Combining the Puqpress automatic tamper ensures perfectly tamped coffee and a precisely level tamp, every time.

This package is perfect for high volume cafés where staffing issues are a concern along with speed of service delivery. For those seeking the best flavour along with speed and training, consumers can’t go past this package.

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

Wolff Coffee Roasters Finca Cruz Loma Gesha Wolff Coffee Roasters loves surprising the discerning coffee drinker with tasty new brews. This Ecuador Gesha from Finca Cruz Loma is certainly one of them. Elegant yet complex on the palate. Galo Fernando Morales Flores owns and operates Finca Cruz Loma, a 350-hectare farm located in Ecuador’s Pichincha region. Of the 350 hectares, only eight hectares are planted with about 30,000 coffee trees.

The cherries are picked at optimum ripeness, depulped and fermented in water for a period of 26 hours, washed, and placed on raised African beds to dry for a period of 20 days. Master roasted by Wolff, expect notes of star jasmine, tangerine zest, blueberry rock candy, cocoa nib, mangosteen with a sparkling acidity and a deliciously silky mouthfeel.

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

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KNOWLEDGE LEADER

Roasted with purpose While some businesses are motivated by money, Dean Gallagher explains why Five Senses Coffee is motivated to make the world a better place.

POSITIVE IMPACT

O

ne Sunday afternoon, Dean Gallagher received a call from a café he had been trying to do business with for about four months. The café owner asked Dean to bring him some samples of his roasted coffee, then asked: ‘Can you get me 30 kilos tomorrow?’

This café would become Five Senses Coffee’s first customer. Just 12 hours earlier, Dean had become disillusioned as to why his roasted coffee was yet to break through to market.

He and his wife Stacey had arrived back in Australia from Papua New Guinea at the end of 1999 and had

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agreed to put every cent into their new business. Dean had bought a onekilogram shop roaster and had started roasting a few bags of green beans in a shed. Those bags soon turned into a pallet, Dean bought a factory unit, and he went to a marketing agency and said, “make me a brand”.

“I found a packaging company, stuck the brand sticker on the bag, roasted the coffee, put it in the bag, and went around asking people to ‘taste this, taste this’.

However, it was August 2000 and we had no money left – not one cent. I still hadn’t sold one thing,” Dean says.

But somehow, he had an “unshakable, unwavering belief” that the business

would work. The day before securing their first customer, Stacey had gone to Church while Dean was looking after their sick three-year-old child. She returned convicted that the company would be successful, but they had to ensure they remained humble and never take credit for the success of the company.

The whole experience, Dean says, was a journey of faith and spirituality, but the pivotal moment was a deep sense that he had been called to do this work.

EARLY SIGNS

Dean grew up in a remote village of Africa to missionary parents. He called

grfsgds

Five Senses Coffee Founder and Owner Dean Gallagher started the business out of an intimate knowledge of the challenges at origin and a desire to impact people positively through coffee.

He is passionate about educating consumers about the value proposition of specialty coffee.

Africa “home”, and himself “Australian”, travelling back and forth between the two continents. He later studied in Perth, and quickly realised what he didn’t want to become.

“I started off wanting to do business but a Bachelor of Commerce was the most boring thing I’d ever seen in my life. So, I ended up doing a primary school teaching degree,” Dean says.

In search of a “normal life”, Dean decided not to do his first teaching post in a remote country town after spending his childhood in a rural village. He took on yearly teaching contracts until one year he didn’t receive one.

Instead, a teaching position in Pannawonica, an iron-ore mining town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, came calling. With five years teaching experience, Dean was the most experienced teacher there. He was soon pushed into the principle’s role, looking after 120 children and 13 staff.

He lasted a year and a half before his attention turned to international school principalships, suggesting to his wife that he apply to an “exotic location”.

“I hadn’t been looking at teaching roles but I found a position for Kimbe Bay in West New Britain in PNG. He pictured white beaches, coconut palms, snorkelling reefs, and I thought, ‘if I’m going to go back to being a teacher, then this is the world I want to be part of’,” he says.

Dean applied, and as luck would have it, he was instead offered a principal’s role in Kundiawa in the middle of the PNG highlands, prime coffee producing territory.

“Nearly all the cash in our society came from coffee, other than government. I could tell when my school fees were coming in by the colour of the cherries, and then I’d have half my staff go missing because it was cherry picking season. It was a school or place which just moved with the ebb and flow of coffee seasonality,” Dean says. “All of my peers were either mill owners, they ran mills, or they were government officials.”

Dean did the role for three years, all the while observing what felt like millions of non-government and mission organisations feed into the country.

“The longer these organisations are there, the more effective they become in the language and culture, and they start to really have impact and make real progress. But over time, just when they start to become really useful, their resources dwindle down and they go home. That’s where it grabbed my heart,” Dean says. “It dawned on me that as much as I could support people on a wage, there was always going to be

limited capacity. Finally, I had found my purpose in life – to support these communities.”

To do that, Dean didn’t have to look far. Without realising it, his life had become entrenched in the local coffee culture. He would roast coffee at home from local green bean suppliers and take it back to Australia to share as gifts for family and friends.

Dean decided to start selling his product, as it was the only way he knew how to support the local PNG communities. It was the start of Five Senses Coffee, and a time when the words “specialty coffee” wasn’t even part of the Australian vernacular.

“It really was just a culture that had attached itself to the idea of cappuccinos and espressos, and it was all old and over roasted. At the time I came into the market [in 2000], there was very much a mindset from roasters that their blends were ‘special’ and what’s inside was a secret,” Dean says. “The language around where things were coming from was not around specialty. It was broken down as having beans from South America or Central America, not even by country.”

While it was no marketing genius, Dean says treating coffee like fresh bread was a game changer.

“I didn’t think what I was doing was particularly unique or wild. If I’d known

how much I didn’t know I probably would never have done it. I only knew coffee because I had invested in it for three years. I knew it had an aroma and tasted better fresh, so I committed to bringing in really good quality coffee direct from PNG, roasting it fresh, and having it arrive on somebody’s doorstep the next day. It wasn’t a complex proposition,” he says.

Without realising it, Dean was already talking about the nano or micro region of where his coffee was coming from, at a time when people didn’t know the country it came from. Eventually, the market caught up.

Aside from putting an identity to each coffee, Dean says travel has been critical to developing long-term relationships with producers.

“Relationships are expensive things when you think about the investment in them over the years; spending time on the road, developing actual connections with people and understanding what their needs are, but it’s been a really big deal in terms of getting us to where we are,” he says.

Five Senses Coffee now has a dedicated coffee department, led by Matt Slater, who continues to build and maintain those relationships, and ensure that its farmer relationships are honouring their efforts.

“At the end of the day, we need to

Five Senses Coffee started in 2000 with an ethos to source direct and roast fresh.

beanscenemag.com.au

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grfsg

KNOWLEDGE LEADER know that our supply chain results in a net benefit to the grower,” Dean says.

He adds that it’s very difficult to know from the outside what the exact needs of farmers are without being on the ground and understanding those needs.

“It’s not formulaic. Every single area and need is completely different, and help can come in so many different ways,” Dean says.

For Five Senses Coffee, for example, that help has come in the form of providing the Heza washing station in Burundi, created by the Long Miles Coffee Project, access to market, and adding funds for the development of a nearby maternity hospital.

“Funding can have nothing to do with coffee. It’s about people. But the flip side, is that the exact same people that go to the hospital are producing the coffee that goes to the Heza washing station that we buy,” Dean says.

He says it’s easy to become discouraged because the job is just too big. Projects may or may not pay off in years to come, but adds that it’s important the world embraces a longterm perspective.

To ensure Five Senses Coffee continues to make the world a better place through the distribution of quality coffee, Dean shaves a fixed percentage of the company’s profits that go straight to unrelated coffee projects, such as donations to the hospital. Five Senses’ CEO Jason Gray does the same with profits that are specific to coffee projects, such as supporting CoGround and Shalom House in Perth that run a café staffed by recovering addicts. At origin, funds may be put towards buying physical infrastructure.

“The minute [producers] have access to resources they need, they can start to

Five Senses Coffee is committed to making specialty coffee more accessible.

produce and have access to market that they didn’t have before. Then suddenly they have this economic lift in the area,” Dean says.

What motivates Dean, is that there is never an end date to his work. There will always be a project to support or progress to observe, but he’s content with his vision.

“The only way I can do better, is to continue doing what I do better. I measure my success by how much of my purpose I achieve.

“Yes, we are a profit business. I have to make enough money to keep my business sustainable, but there’s a reason that we make profit. And if you do something for a reason, then you can have an impact on your staff and the supply chain,” Dean says.

That impact, Dean adds, also needs to be felt at the end of the value chain.

He says better connect with consumers is needed to explain the value proposition of specialty coffee, which is critical to the

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future of coffee and the poorer countries that produce it.

To help bridge that gap, Five Senses Coffee supplies a range of coffee to Coles supermarkets nationally to make specialty coffee more accessible.

“It’s our responsibility as part of the supply chain to keep educating people along that line. People are happy to go to a bar on a Friday night and spend $100 on cocktails, which cost nothing in comparison to the labour inputs by people who are far poorer, and the number of people’s hands that have touched that coffee along the way. Yet they struggle to pay $6 for a cup of coffee,” he says. “Specialty coffee is a different product to what people were drinking before.

“If we can all celebrate the success of specialty, the world will be such a better place.”

For more information, visit fivesenses.com.au

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CELEBRITY CHEF

BORN WITH AMBITION

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Hugh Allen was appointed Executive Chef of Vue de monde in 2019. He has spent time in modern and classic kitchens which have influenced his cooking style as refined and inventive in his use of unique, local and native Australian ingredients.

Vue de monde has been synonymous with Melbourne dining for more than 20 years.

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beanscenemag.com.au

Hugh’s Vue Vue de monde Executive Chef Hugh Allen earned his cooking stripes at a young age, but his relationship with coffee would take a little longer to mature. He speaks to BeanScene about ambition, international adventure, and Australian idols.

H

ugh Allen has experienced some of the best food destinations in the world and has visited many coffee centric locations, but when it comes to coffee quality, he says there’s no place like home.

“Melbourne has always produced the best coffees,” Hugh tells BeanScene. “[I love] the abundance of quality cafés [Melbourne has]. The competition constantly pushes cafés to get better and better – knowing that you can walk into almost any café and know you will be satisfied.

Hugh lived in Copenhagen for just over three years. He enjoyed its thriving café scene and “super high quality” coffees, noting the Coffee Collective, Democratic Coffee, and April as favourite café destinations.

He says Melbourne-style cafés have popped up around the world, taking inspiration from the city’s industrial influence, food culture, even its style of ceramic cups, yet it is Australia’s multiculturalism that is unique to the country’s coffee culture.

“Australia is such a culturally diverse country with immigrants bringing their coffee knowledge and skills to Australia over many years. As a result, Australia has become a mixing pot of great ideas and experimentation but at the same time championing old traditions. Coffee is a huge part of many cultures that are represented in Australia, and it has had a direct influence on Australia’s love and need for coffee,” Hugh says.

His fascination for coffee began at an early age when he would join his parents for breakfast each morning. Without fail, they enjoyed French press with butter on toast.

“I first tasted coffee at a café on Hardware Lane in Melbourne when mum offered me a sip. I quickly went back to my bubbacino. My love for coffee would have to wait another decade or so,” he says.

Fast forward, and Hugh has now

By Sarah Baker crossed over as a coffee drinker.

Growing up in North Melbourne, Hugh says he was spoilt for choice with “a plethora of world class cafés serving amazing coffee”.

In his childhood neighbourhood, Hugh enjoys his “go-to” oat milk latte from Japanese-inspired 279 and takeaway coffee from Small Batch roastery. Closer to where he works as Executive Chef of Vue de monde restaurant in Collins Street, Hugh gets his coffee from Brother Baba Budan on Bourke Street, or in his new neighbourhood of South Yarra, it’s a quick trek by foot to Market Lane in South Melbourne.

At home, Hugh uses his Moccamaster to make a batch of filter coffee where he experiments with different beans regularly, using beans from Melbourne roasters Market Lane, Small Batch, and Five Senses. “[I look for] ethically sourced and produced coffee with a focus on sustainability. In terms of flavour, it really depends. I like a heavy, fullbodied roast but also light and fruity filters,” he says.

Hugh has always been fascinated by cooking. Growing up, British TV cooking icon Jamie Oliver, Australian cook Maggie Beer, and the movie Ratatouille ignited his passion for flavour.

“When I was young, I watched his show The Naked Chef and thought [ Jamie] was pretty cool,” Hugh says.

“When chefs are not working, all they want to cook is a quick and easy meal and Jamie does that so well with simple ingredients that always looks delicious.

Hugh has met Jamie once and says he is one of the most genuinely loved and respected TV cooks among the chef fraternity.

In the fine-dining world, Hugh idolised Danish chef René Redzepi, British chef Heston Blumenthal, American chef Thomas Keller, and local Australian icon Shannon Bennett.

“When I was younger, Shannon was

a big, well-known chef and I looked up to him. I remember getting his first cookbook in 2004. I thought it was super classic and interesting,” Hugh says.

As a young chef working at Vue de monde, Hugh would get excited when he saw Shannon in the kitchen.

“It’s the same as if Gary Ablett came and played footy with a young footy player – it’s pretty exciting,” he says.

“It’s a different relationship now. I don’t see Shannon as one of my idols as I did 12, 13 years ago. Now I stay on his couch when I go and visit up in Byron Bay. “Shannon and I are pretty similar in a lot of ways. We call each other best friends. We’ve always gotten on well and he’s helped me a lot in progressing my career. It’s a great relationship.”

The opportunity arose for Hugh to start his apprenticeship at Rockpool in Melbourne when he was 16 years old. In Hugh’s words, he “got lucky”.

“I sent out an email to many restaurants asking to do my school work experience and Rockpool were the only ones that got back to me. They soon offered me an apprenticeship, and the rest is history. I’ll always have a soft spot for Rockpool. It’s a great restaurant,” Hugh says.

Hugh stayed there for two years, developing his fundamental skills, before joining the Vue de monde kitchen as a stagiaire. At 18, he was awarded the coveted 2015 Gault Millau Young Chef of the Year Award, which took him across the globe and the opportunity to stage at several three Michelin Star restaurants in Paris.

“The quickest way to learn is to put yourself in the thick of it. Different countries and cultures use different techniques and methods for cooking and service. The only way to properly understand them is to get that hands-on experience,” Hugh says.

In 2016, Hugh joined René Redzepi’s three-Michelin Star restaurant Noma, where he worked for almost three years,

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CELEBRITY CHEF including at the Noma pop-up in Sydney and Mexico, and was part of the opening team of Noma 2.0.

“My experience at Noma with René Redzepi was a defining moment that influenced my methods to experimenting with ingredients and creating new dishes. But for me, it’s always been about discovering new options and pushing the boundaries further on what’s possible with using the world’s best ingredients,” Hugh says.

He describes his time working at Noma as “incredibly demanding”. He could work for more than 16 hours a day, six days a week, in an extreme high intensity kitchen.

“Looking back, it was the most amazing experience as a chef,” he says. “[I] got to work alongside the most talented and creative chefs in the industry. There is no doubt without my time at Noma I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have, and my goals ahead.”

Hugh returned to Melbourne in late 2018 as Vue Group Sous Chef. In early 2019 he was promoted to Executive Chef, where Hugh and his team are passionate about championing unique, local, and native ingredients.

“Everything on the menu at Vue de monde is sourced locally in Australia.

We have worked hard to develop relationships with the best suppliers in Australia. I am proud of the way myself and the team at Vue de monde have championed native ingredients working closely with indigenous Australians to understand the story of each ingredient, which we then try and reflect in our dishes,” Hugh says noting wattle seeds, finger lime, strawberry gum, and green ants as his favourites.

Despite the accolades, and threemonth wait list, Hugh says dinning at Vue de monde “is fun”, and by no means an intimidating dining experience.

“Firstly, the location is amazing you get full panoramic views across the best city in the world. Our service team and chefs are fantastic at ensuring the best dining experience possible. Guests get taken on a journey from the moment they work through the door until we say farewell,” Hugh says.

The cult following of the restaurant means the Vue de monde team are constantly treated to proposals, weddings and last-minute requests, including the Danish team who had travelled to Melbourne for the recent World Barista Championships.

“It happens all the time and the team at Vue de monde love it,” he says.

In Hugh’s short yet accomplished

culinary career, he says his career highlight to date is getting offered a job at Noma, and reclaiming Vue de monde’s three Chef Hats as Executive Chef. “[It] would have to be up there. I certainly won’t take all the credit though, it was a reflection of the hard work the team at Vue de monde put together to over a long time,” Hugh says.

“I want to keep pushing with creativity, working on lots of new dishes and ideas, constantly trying to source new and exciting ingredients.”

To balance the work, Hugh enjoys soaking up Melbourne’s botanical gardens or visiting a local pub, noting his good mate works at the Royal Oak pub in Fitzroy where it’s doing “super delicious food”.

From pubs to food trucks, cafés, and three-hatted experiences, it’s this eclectic mix of Australian hospitality that Hugh appreciates most.

“Australia’s food culture is constantly evolving and getting better and better. There are tonnes of world-class restaurants that call Australia home that rival the best overseas. There is no reason why this trend won’t continue, and I can confidently see Australia’s food culture being recognised on par with our worldrenown wine and coffee cultures,” Hugh says.

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COVER STORY

25 years young Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters General Manager Jody Leslie and Head of Coffee Nich Rae discuss the brand’s evolution as an industry leader, and the many people who have contributed to its success.

W

hen asked what Toby’s Estate’s greatest development has been throughout its 25-year history, Head of Coffee Nich Rae believes it’s none other than its prestigious reputation.

“Toby’s has always been a reputable roaster when it comes to making blended coffee and milk-based coffee.

I think the greatest development for us has been establishing that as a narrative, but also factually backing it up with how consistent our product is,” says Nich.

“Year on year we have the best blends in market, and even through COVID-19, we were able to maintain that extremely high-quality offering to our cafés. I think that’s held us in good stead over the last 25 years.”

General Manager Jody Leslie says she wants Toby’s Estate to be known as an industry veteran that still pushes the boundaries of what constitutes a quality cup of coffee.

“While we’ve been around for some time, there’s still a young and vibrant energy here at Toby’s. As a General Manager, my problem isn’t finding new ideas, it’s just prioritising which ones to purse right now. Our history and experience only make us more excitable,” Jody says.

“As an ‘OG’ in the coffee community, we’re quite proud of our history and our impact over the years. We’re proud of Australian coffee in general. Our collaborative approach to business has stood the test of time and solidified our success in the Australian coffee industry.”

Jody was appointed Toby’s Estate General Manager in mid-January 2019, where she has harnessed her passion, drive, and industry knowledge to advance Toby’s Estate.

“A sole focus for us over the last few years has been maintaining producer relationships. While the global pandemic put a test to that, we’ve weathered the ups and downs and preserved those connections through

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COVER STORY

Toby’s Estate General Manager Jody Leslie (left) and Head of Coffee Nich Rae.

the hard times. We saw the benefits of that continued investment and buying coffee consistently to improve producers’ ability to earn more money and achieve a better way of life,” Jody says.

Nich adds that the return to origin to visit producers after two years away has really solidified how important these relationships are.

“When you visit producers and farmers overseas and see where our product comes from, you come back to work with a newly invigorated sense of passion to make each coffee the best it can be,” he says.

“Being able to travel internationally again and visit our producers shows us how much of an impact we can have on origin, but also how much of an impact they have on us. It makes the job more than a job.”

In under a decade, Nich has risen through the ranks at Toby’s Estate, from becoming Assistant Head Roaster in 2016, to Head Roaster, before earning his current title as Head of Coffee.

“Becoming Head Roaster was a huge goal for me, it was a very challenging journey, and when I finally reached that goal it was a huge moment for me. It’s one of my fondest memories at Toby’s and shows how committed the company is to helping staff progress their coffee careers,” Nich says.

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That commitment is returned from the dedicated team working behind the scenes who are passionate about keeping quality standards high.

“We’ve invested in a sizeable team internally to help our customers deliver consistency at their cafés, featuring our tech, sales, coffee, and training teams.

Even the accounts team helped our café partners make it through the tougher times of COVID-19. As a café, you need support from a roaster from all sides of the business, and Toby’s offers that in all the main areas you need to be successful,” Nich says.

Both Jody and Nich agree that Toby’s Estate’s evolution is thanks, in part, to its forward-thinking values. As coffee became more of a profession, Toby’s Estate developed its employment offerings to cater for the growing demand for specialty coffee.

“Twenty-five years ago, coffee was a passion project for many people. Now, there’s many opportunities for baristas and coffee focused people to progress within a roastery or café. That’s what I love about Toby’s because that’s what they did for me. And when I look to my left and right, I see people that not only Toby’s, but the industry, has created a career for,” Nich says.

Jody says it’s rewarding to watch staff develop their skills and get promoted.

She says the best way to grow, is when staff are offered more challenging opportunities. “The more prospects we can offer people to challenge themselves, the better,” she says.

Jody says this growth is also reflected in the quality of people the company employs.

“We’ve had different owners over the years, but our core values have never changed. Every company leader has supported our love for the product and our need for quality and consistency.

This is how we’ve continued our growth, without feeling the pressure to divert from those values,” Jody says.

“We’ve got a lot of support around us, from our owners, suppliers, and landlords to our employees, who maintain those values, because that’s how we hire from the start. The first question we ask prospective employees is ‘do you love coffee?’ If the answer is no, it’s ‘thank you for your time.’”

For those in the industry that answer ‘yes’, they have likely attended one of Toby’s Estate’s Knowledge Talks events over the years. Jody says the educational national tour of inspiring and talented coffee icons, such as 3fe’s Colin Harmon, Guatemalan producer Anabella Meneses or Has Bean Coffee’s Stephen Leighton, is a sign of the brand’s commitment to being protectors and supporters of

specialty coffee in Australia.

“We see Knowledge Talks as a valuable tool for our internal staff and customers, that also acts as a propeller for change for Toby’s Estate. We invest in the ongoing education of not just ourselves but sharing that with the rest of the industry,” she says.

With a strong reputation to uphold, Jody says Toby’s Estate plans to commemorate its 25-year anniversary on 20 October with a “killer” party, coined ‘Octobysfest’ by the team in 2021.

“How else would a 25-year-old celebrate its birthday?” Jody asks.

“Within the month of October, we have many celebrations planned, such as a wholesale party, the epic finals of the Sydney Swirl Club event series, and a retail sale of 25 per cent off on 25 October for 25 hours,” Nich says.

Throughout October, Toby’s Estate will also offer seven limited edition coffees for espresso, and single origin filter coffees.

“Each month we present interesting new flavour profiles to keep our customers on their toes. This month we offer coffees from Panama, Brazil, El Salvador, Ethiopia, and Colombia,” says Nich.

Each month Toby’s Estate celebrates new coffees and flavour profiles.

With 25 years of industry contribution, Jody and Nich now look to the future and contemplate what the next 25 years may bring. For Jody, that looks like further expansion interstate and internationally.

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“We’re not in as many coffee towns are we’d like. We’ve still got plenty of room to grow outside of Sydney, and international growth continues to be a focus. We’re also pursuing new formats of coffee. Having just launched cold brew cans last year, we’re keen to do a secondary push of this launch. Keep your eyes peeled for that cold brew in a few more Toby’s Estate locations this year,” Jody says.

For Nich, thoughts of the future will always be a reminder of just how far the brand has come, and the people that have contributed to its success.

“I think it’s super important that we look back at the people that really established Toby’s before me, before Jody, and all other roles. When you look around the industry, a lot of people have at some point either worked here or had a close connection with Toby’s, no matter who they are,” Nich says.

“If you’ve ever worked at Toby’s Estate and are reading this article, you’ve contributed to our success, and its appreciated.”

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

TECH PROFILE

Aremde’s Stylus One features customised front and outside panels.

A canvas of creativity Australian manufacturer Aremde is breaking down walls and opening a window of opportunity to bring design and theatre back to the coffee making experience.

A

remde Technical Director Geoff Michelmore is in a fortunate position. When he presents Aremde’s flagship product, Nexus One, to new audiences around the world, he gets a front row seat to the most entertaining reactions. People look, do a double take, forget what they were doing or where they were going, and come closer to further inspect where the body of the coffee machine has gone.

“I get the same ‘wow’ reaction at trade shows and from technicians and new customers when they unbox a machine. They just want to touch it, walk around it, and take pictures of it.

The satisfaction of that experience all over the world is incredible,” Geoff says.

“We designed a beautiful machine so that customers can be part of the coffeemaking experience.”

Aremde launched to market in 2019.

It was a time when the undercounter movement was picking up speed, and Aremde’s breakthrough coffee machine, Nexus One, was turning heads.

While the Brisbane-based manufacturer and design company wanted to play in its own backyard, it was the international market that first opened its arms to the Nexus One.

Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Vietnam, and Europe all took interest in the wallless machine.

“These places just loved what we were doing so we spent our energy reaching out to those markets. They really embraced our research and design, and the overall experience we were trying to create. In our first year, we travelled around the world, trained our distributors, and ended up in 23 countries,” Geoff says.

The United States was next on the hit-list, but with COVID-19 pausing overseas travel, the company used the time to consolidate and pull back on its expansion efforts. Market feedback told the team that while the Nexus One was beautiful, its price point was putting it in a bracket that wasn’t meeting its potential.

“When we built our machines, everything was customised from Brisbane and shipped to the customer, which would take up to six weeks, meaning that we had to sell individual units. Customers kept asking how they could customise the machine in their own backyard,” Geoff says.

Aremde took the feedback on board, looked at how it could improve its manufacturing techniques, and

redeveloped its top unit to allow for greater customisation. The result, is the Stylus One espresso machine, physically launched to the Australian market at the 2022 Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE).

Rather than using a single frame, the Stylus is built with a hanging frame on an internal chassis that allows the front and outside panels to be fully customised to reflect a business’s own colour theme or design aesthetic, from graphics to different textured materials, such as wood, recyclable standard plastics, even glass.

Geoff says this design change means that distributors can stock many Stylus machines in their warehouse, make the customisation, and reduce lead time to customers to as little as two weeks.

By improving how the machine is assembled, the price per machine has also been reduced by 30 per cent.

“Changing the panels is really, really quick, to the point that you could change the panels of the machine in the morning versus the afternoon. It takes just five minutes on a benchtop,” Geoff says.

With the quality and technology of espresso machines already at a high capacity across the market, Geoff says he’s not trying to compete on that

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TECH PROFILE level, but rather focus on appealing to buyers who have a strong appreciation for coffee quality, and design. As such, Aremde’s products have already caught the attention of six-star hotels in Korea, five-star hotels in Japan, specialty cafés in Saudi Arabia, as well as venues in Canada and the United States.

To help take the brand further into the US market, is Aremde’s Raymond Kelland, who will be connecting with key distributors in Boston, Texas, California, and New York.

“Working with Aremde has been an amazing experience so far. I’ll be working with the distribution network throughout the world, showing the support our customers need, and sharing the love for our products. It’s a pretty exciting time,” he says.

Ray will also focus on developing Aremde’s presence in the Australian market, and convincing users that it’s more than just a machine, but about the experience it creates.

“One of the hardest things to convey in Australia is the importance of design because our industry is so tech driven.

Someone has to dip their toe in the water first before it takes off, but now that we have over 250 machines worldwide, we’re out there, the machine is doing its job, and hopefully that will get us more credibility in the Australian market,” Geoff says.

Aremde designed the Nexus and Stylus One espresso machines so that customers could be part of the coffee-making experience.

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Aremde Technical Director Geoff Michelmore believes Aremde espresso machines add value to a café experience.

With Australia already pushing the envelope on coffee quality, Geoff hopes Australian cafés will start to embrace the espresso machine as one of the first considerations when planning the design of a venue, rather than one of the last.

“People need to think early on about how the coffee machine fits into the café and how it changes the experience at the café. Business owners are starting to think about the interactions they

have with patrons and how the role of a machine fits in. It’s not just about making coffee now, it’s about the value it brings to the café,” Geoff says.

“What you get when you put our machine on the bench, is an experience.

Our machines change the way your café looks and feels. Everybody appreciates it and the patronage as they come in the door just want to be a part of that. That’s why design is key to what we do.”

Also key to Aremde’s success is its commitment to adapting to the needs of the market and barista community.

When the Nexus One was in prototype phase, Aremde invited baristas to share their user experience. On the back of that interaction, Geoff re-engineered parts of the machine to be more visual.

He changed the buttons, steam arm design, drip tray, rotated the group heads 180-degrees, and moulded the external of the machine to fit around the group valve so that the barista could see the group head crown.

“That was really important to the usability of the machine. It made the functionality better,” Geoff says. “There’s lots of cool little things we’ve tweaked that you wouldn’t know that we did, but it’s this attention to detail from a design aspect that flows through to functionality and flow of the barista’s usage.”

It also includes re-directing the direction of steam through the machine’s steam arm.

“Our steam capability was already high, but it’s gone up again,” Geoff says.

“We’ve used bigger, medical grade tubbing to give us steam without any drop in flow or heat loss. We’ve gone from 10-millimetre diameter of the tube to 12 millimetres, which is pretty critical when you’re feeding steam arms that have a seven-millimetre diameter and have only four steam holes. You’ve got to make sure you have heaps of flow at that point, and our thermal cycle helps to keep the steam dry and hot.”

While high-end technology and design are important to the brand, Geoff says Aremde’s strength is in its research and development, which in time, will support the creation of new products that are not only coffee machines, but devices that will change the way cafés operate.

“We’re a different kind of company.

We’ve got many tricks up our sleeve and many other toys coming soon,” Geoff says. “We’re not just an espresso machine company. We’re about efficiency, flow, and design in your café, and making the most of the space, which is why the business exists.”

For more information, visit aremde.com.au

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TECH PROFILE

A compact solution Probat discusses the advanced technical features of the newly released P01, the latest and smallest member of its P series of shop roasters.

R

oasting machine manufacturer Probat is heralding a new era of test roasting and recipe development with its P01 shop roaster, successor of the Probatino and youngest member of the P series.

According to Probat Head of Shop Roaster Sales Jens Roelofs, the P01 was the missing machine in the series.

“While we had introduced the P05, P12 and P25 shop roasters in late 2020 and have been selling new machines since then, the Probatino had not been upgraded for 10 years, so there was a certain need to update this line of machines. Equipped with the same inspiring technical features, the new electrically powered P01 is in almost every aspect a miniature version of the larger members of the P series roasters,” says Jens.

With a recommended batch size of one kilogram, its roasting capacity is four kilograms per hour, requiring eight to 20 minutes per roast. Jens says the P01 is the ideal choice for trying out roasting profiles and perfecting small roast batches, thus offering indispensable support in quality control and product development processes.

“The P01 was specially designed for smaller operations as well as for test roasting and profile development. The P01 is perfect for producing, tasting, and optimising smaller quantities of roast coffee. Despite its compact dimensions, it benefits from the advanced control systems of the P series,” he says.

The web-based control system of the new shop roaster enables the safe and automatic reproduction of stored settings via recipe management. The roaster’s unique electric hot-air blower also allows for the same flexibility as a gas burner.

“Compared to other electrical heating devices that have a lack of performance and flexibility, this new device can achieve the same roasting results as a gas heated machine,” says Jens.

“As with all our roasters, the P01 comes with a separate cyclone that separates the chaff from the airflow, ensuring fast and safe intermediate cleaning.”

To help master roasters get the

Probat’s P01 shop roaster is the smallest machine in the P series.

most out of their beans, the P01 comes standard with various thermocouples and variable drum speed control.

“Thermocouples for measuring supply air, product, and exhaust air temperature enable optimum control over the roasting process for constant and reproducible roasting results. This makes the P01 intuitive, user-friendly, and ready to go,” says Jens.

“Not to mention the iconic look can

be individually designed according to personal preference by adapting the colour of the roasting machine body, the hood, as well as different front design parts, guaranteeing uniqueness for every roastery.”

When unmistakable design meets high-end technology, Senior Marketing Manager Madlon Peter says it needs to be celebrated with a special highlight.

The limited First Edition features

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TECH PROFILE nine machines from three different series each containing a unique design

by David Salinas from coffee design company Department of Brewology, making every roaster in the First Edition truly one-of-a-kind.

“The P01 First Edition was introduced in collaboration with David Salinas, alongside the market launch.

David created nine exclusive one-off pieces, hand-painted machines that build a bridge from the origin of coffee to the smallest roaster in the P series in three different themed worlds,” says Madlon.

All themes revolve around vital steps along the coffee value chain, named Harvest, Geometric, and Tropical.

David dedicates the three exclusive designs of the Harvest series to the elementary process of picking coffee.

The artworks of the Geometric series illustrate the life cycle of coffee in a creative way, considering the seasonality of coffee cultivation. From seed to cup, the Tropical series skilfully combines tropical floral elements with graphics depicting typical preparation steps.

“David had told me ‘the people on the other side of the coffee chain often go unrecognised’, so the Harvest series was very important to him. He wanted to bring inspiration to the coffee industry and represent all elements of the coffee world,” says Madlon.

“As these are the first P01 machines ever built, David’s work is very special to us. We loved the designs and wanted them right away.”

Jens adds that the P01 fills a market gap for modest-sized roasters or cafés seeking a small-scale roaster.

“We know the hospitality industry has taken quite a hit over the last few years, and many may not be roasting at the capacity they once were. The P01 is a great solution for companies who only roast small amounts each day. Being able to roast and sell their own coffee can make them unique compared to other cafés,” says Jens.

“We also have bigger roasters who are looking for a smaller machine to develop profiles to create special blends and roast small capacities of very expensive or rare coffees. The machine is quite flexible in that it can be set up anywhere.”

Having been in the market for more than 150 years, Jens says Probat’s customers understand that the Germanbased roaster is committed to crafting exceptional roasting machines.

“Probat’s state-of-the-art machines are well known for consistency and reliability. Our customers trust that we can supply them with machines which can be used on a daily basis, and can produce the same profiles every day, day

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David Salinas from the Department of Brewology designed nine unique machines for the P01 First Edition.

“DAVID’S WORK IS VERY SPECIAL TO US. WE LOVED THE DESIGNS AND WANTED THEM RIGHT AWAY.” in day out, which in turn helps them sell a constant quality to end consumers,” he says.

Probat’s mission, Jens says, is to ensure its customers always achieve the best possible coffee quality.

“We always listen to customer feedback and are in close contact with our consumers to ensure we’re meeting market demand. We visit our worldwide partners on a regular basis to keep our ears and eyes open to understand what’s going on in the market,” he says.

“Within the last few years, the requirements have increased significantly when it comes to software and controls. Having additional sensors and temperature controls to monitor more information during the roasting process means the P01 provides unlimited creative potential.”

Guests were able to learn more about Probat’s creative potential at its Connecting Markets Symposium 2022.

This took place from 21 to 22 September in Emmerich, Germany, at the company’s headquarters on the occasion of the opening of the new factory. Leaders and executives of the international coffee industry came together to share their knowledge and discuss the main topics of the event, digitalisation, and sustainability.

“We really loved planning the symposium, which was framed by a supporting program, what we call Experience Sessions. These are a set of presentations of our latest technological innovations where attendees can get actively involved. The highlight for sure was the roasting demonstration on our first hydrogen powered P05 shop roaster,” Senior Marketing Manager Madlon says.

In this session, people cupped coffees roasted on natural gas, electrically and hydrogen-operated roasting machines to directly compare roasting results, which Probat claims are exactly the same in terms of taste.

“We were really excited about this innovation, to host the coffee family at our headquarters in Emmerich and to literally connect markets,” says Madlon.

For more information, visit www.probat.com

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TECH PROFILE

A modern workhorse BeanScene speaks to Slayer Espresso machine users about the features they have fallen in love with and the values of simplicity, design, and accessibility.

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anya Howarth, Padre Coffee Victorian Sales Manager and former Brunswick East Retail Manager, has in-built muscle memory for one brand of espresso machine and one machine only: Slayer Espresso.

As somebody who joined Padre Coffee three years ago with no coffee experience, Tanya has learned to make coffee from scratch using Slayer machines. From the beginning, she says the machine’s simplicity is what she appreciates most.

“I can speak from first-hand experience and say it is really easy to learn on, especially with its paddles and three-position steam actuator. It’s all those little details and ergonomics that help and make workflow easier,” Tanya says.

At Padre Coffee’s South Melbourne and Brunswick East sites, four different espressos are dialled in each morning within a 30-minute window. PreCOVID, its South Melbourne store using a two-group and three-group Slayer Espresso V3, would pump out 38 kilograms of coffee in 10 hours.

The same combination of machines is used at Padre Coffee’s Brunswick East site, with the three-group predominately used for espresso, and the two-group for milk-based coffees.

“In peak periods, one person does shots on the three-group, the milk coffees are done on the two-group using the right-hand steam wand, and the space between the machines is the pass,” Tanya says.

“I find it extremely easy to texture milk on the V3. I’m an oat milk drinker and can say that it really does stand up to all milks.”

Padre Coffee first became aware of Slayer Espresso machines around 2010 after the release of its V1. The team immediately fell in love with its design and ordered their first model. Slayer Founder Jason Prefontaine worked closely with the team to improve the mechanics to best suit their high-volume needs. The result of such feedback also culminated in the development of the Slayer Steam Line.

This consists of two models: the

Café operators appreciate Slayer Espresso’s simplicity and standout design.

Steam EP and the Steam LP. Named after records, the EP is the ‘extended play’, distilling the features required of specialty coffee into one neat volumetric package. The LP, or ‘long play’, builds on the EP’s feature set, adding pressure profiling and a host of other features for discerning coffee pros.

From her experience of managing stores, Tanya says she can confidently recommend Slayer Espresso machines to her customers in regards to its reliability and how they handle substantial volume.

“Our use of Slayer over the past 12 years means that we know they stand up to the test. They have time and time again, so using them is a no brainer,” Tanya says.

Tanya says being so client facing and observing the enjoyment of café customers using Slayer Espresso is really rewarding. Even more so, is the interest of baristas who want to understand “the nitty gritty side of coffee”.

“I love seeking that beautiful spark of curiosity. I know when we work with

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TECH PROFILE those sorts of customers, the Slayer is going to be really great for them. I think anyone who tries out Slayer Espresso says ‘this is a fantastic piece of machinery’ or ‘I just enjoy working on it’. Easy workflow, beautiful design, it just makes sense,” Tanya says.

Now in a training and teaching capacity, Tanya has her eyes on a Slayer LP for Padre’s Brunswick East training room to aid the increased demand for training.

“The LP brings the best features of the EP and V3 together, with a greater freedom around experimenting. It embodies a lot of the original ideas from the V3 and has adapted to trends from the past 10 years such as dialling in coffees to taste through a more descriptive weight-in weight-out process,” Tanya says.

Beyond the technicalities, Tanya says the Padre Coffee team values the transparency between the roaster and the manufacturer to talk about improvements, or even new designs.

“Anyone in our industry knows how important accessibility and access to customer service is, and that’s why we’re really happy to stick with Slayer,” Tanya says.

“Hugh [McDonnell from Slayer Espresso] is our rep and his approachability and openness to assist in learning has been amazing – he can get as technical or complicated as you want or pull it back and make it palatable for everyday café owners. I think that approachability is a really beautiful part of the brand.”

For Pablo & Rusty’s Senior Coffee Specialist Paul Thompson, his first real interaction with the Slayer Espresso brand came about on his visit to the 2018 Melbourne International Coffee Expo.

To be completely honest, he says Slayer Espresso wasn’t on his radar until it became available in volumetric mode.

“I was impressed. It certainly looked beautiful on the bench. It has no bad angle. It’s simple but elegant at the same time,” Paul says. “We decided to get a bunch of different branded machines in over a couple of months at a time and did our own R&D testing, looking at design, coffee taste, maintenance, and service, which was a big deal for us as a company to keep servicing costs down. Reliability was also important to consider, and it lived up to everything.”

From an advanced barista perspective, Paul, who is marking his 10year anniversary with Pablo & Rusty’s in November, says his favourite feature on the Steam LP is going into manual mode, and at any time being able to brew, taste, assess, and make a quick change to one

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Café manager Annie Wu and Pablo & Rusty’s Senior Coffee Specialist Paul Thompson use the Slayer Steam LP.

group while the machine is in use.

Another feature Paul appreciates is the generous brewing space, the ease of cleaning the machine, having a weight comparison without scales, pre-infusion without multiple gear pumps, and just how simplistic the functions are to use.

“There are some machines on the market where you almost need a degree to use and understand, but Slayer has really thought about things from a simple perspective,” Paul says.

Of all Pablo & Rusty’s customers, Paul says there is a 50/50 split between those using Slayer EP and LP models.

“The choice comes down to personal opinion and functionality of the machine. I think the EP is brilliant for its ability to handle high volume and its simplicity. But for those that really want to step up their game, who are super passionate and want to run single origins, we suggest the LP,” Paul says.

“That machine is super consistent.

You can make quick changes, and do pre- and post-infusion on that machine.

Whereas it’s a pre-wet on the EP, still a nine bar – four seconds on, four seconds off – and you can still do a bit of manipulation as well.”

Annie Wu has owned and managed the original site of Pablo & Rusty’s in Sydney where company Founder Saxon Wright first started the business 18 years ago. She is also a 10-year coffee professional and Pablo & Rusty’s contract trainer who helps prepare

baristas with basic through to advanced skills.

At time of print, Annie had only been using the Slayer Steam LP for the past four weeks, but her initial impression of the machine was already positive.

“I’m enjoying just how easy it is to use. It’s very stable and I really can say the coffee tastes better, especially our milk-based coffees which have hugely improved,” she says.

“We push the actuator to the right for programmed milk-based blends, and to the middle for programmed for single origins. For additional special coffees we choose to run them manually.”

Also of benefit is the adjustable height of the machine to accommodate different cup sizes, and just how large the space is from the group head to the tray, meaning Annie can eliminate transferring her shots to cups, which was a time-consuming process on previous machines.

Her other favourite consideration is just how much the machine encourages customer engagement thanks to the LP’s low profile.

“I really like the fact that I can answer customer questions easily while looking at them over the top of the machine as I prepare their coffee,” Annie says. “That’s an interaction we want to encourage.”

For more information, visit www.slayerespresso.com

BARISTA�ATTITUDE

TECH PROFILE

Greensquare is a platform that allows roasters to source, sample and manage green coffee in one place.

The future of coffee trade Greensquare Co-Founder Caleb Holstein explains how the green bean buying platform offers a streamlined digitalised solution to elevate roasting businesses.

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hen greensquare Co-Founders Caleb Holstein, Chris Meier, Marius Naumann and Jan-Hendrik Thieme first suggested creating a platform to source, sample and manage green coffee all in one place, no one thought it was possible in a “highly fragmented industry”.

Undeterred by the size of the task at hand, the team set out to make a pipe dream a reality.

Scheduled to go live in midNovember, greensquare is a digital foundation for roasters and coffee traders to source, manage and track every stage of the green coffee procurement process.

“Greensquare is a green coffee trading platform that assists roasters in managing their green bean procurement, everything from sourcing and sampling

to managing the drawdown of products,” says Caleb.

“The platform allows coffee traders to list coffees that are available for both spot and forward contracts, while roasters can connect with traders with ease and browse all coffees specific to their needs.”

Roasters can shortlist products for future review or request samples or quotes before accepting and digitally signing contracts to order and track drawdowns, all within the greensquare platform.

“We provide roasters with the visibility and notifications for them to have a richer understanding of a coffee in a pre-purchase state along with insight into the status, health of their contracts, and coffee costings,” Caleb says.

In 2021, Caleb and the greensquare

Co-Founders conducted a survey with more than 60 Australian roasters. They found that on average, roasters are dealing with anywhere between six to eight different coffee traders, in multiple different formats.

Instead, to streamline the process and connect with all traders in the one place, greensquare invites roasters to undertake a simple online registration process. Once logged on, they can see all the traders on the platform and listed products. To access specific information of each product, such as green coffee pricing and volume, roasters must connect with the trader on greensquare.

According to Caleb, greensquare reduces the resources needed to buy green coffee and allows roaster to make purchases in their own timeframe.

“Roasters have very busy schedules,

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TECH PROFILE

Roasters can shortlist products for future review or request samples within the greensquare platform.

whether it’s a big scale roaster, or an individual small business who is buying coffee in their spare time or after hours.

By streamlining the communication between roaster and trader, we’re freeing up a roaster’s time,” Caleb says.

“We also provide insights about consumption, so roasters are aware of how much coffee they purchased the year before and can adjust the amount accordingly. This gives roasters visibility around their positions, which is going to enhance their autonomy when purchasing green coffee.”

Once purchased, roasters have access to key details about the coffee, whether it’s a special limited release or part of a project the trader is working on within the community. Roasters can use that information to help sell the product.

From owning cafés to roasting and consulting for industry veterans, Caleb has been involved in many aspects of the coffee industry. A common issue he would encounter was the lack of traceability and transparency in the supply chain.

“Through a process of working with the co-founders and our development team, we realised how digitisation can elevate the entire industry. Greensquare enhances the flow of information through the entire supply chain. We see greensquare as the first step in many

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to create a sustainable and transparent future for coffee trade,” Caleb says.

To create a platform that truly enhances the green sourcing process, Caleb knew they would need to partner with equally forward-thinking and progressive companies.

“We selected and approached three trading partners known for their progressive mindset and outstanding work to take part in our early stages Cornerstone Traders Program: Sucafina Specialty Australia, InterAmerican Coffee, and Project Origin, and have been working closely with them to develop greensquare,” he says.

Greensquare also founded a Strategy Advisory Board (SAB) in mid-2021, with the goal to form a network of highly qualified and experienced coffee professionals to work alongside and be in constant communication with about greensquare’s features and logistics.

One such professional is Saxon Wright, Founder of Pablo & Rusty’s Coffee Roasters and Co-Founder of Huskee. Saxon has worked in the coffee industry for more than 20 years and has assisted greensquare with product validation, strategy, and connections to the broader industry.

“Roasters have only in the last few years seen new technology really come into the picture that is specific to the industry and this part of their operations.

This software really streamlines a major part of the equation for running a roasting operation. It will reduce labour, errors, handling, as well as improve visibility, planning, reporting and [provide] incredible insights into one of the biggest cost centres for the business,” Saxon says.

Renowned coffee roaster and educator Anne Cooper of Equilibrium Master Roasters is another member of the SAB and has provided greensquare with insights from roasters of all different scales.

Anne says she recognised that greensquare is and will be a valuable tool for roasters and traders to use in their business.

“Greensquare allows roasters to be more consistent and connected to their green bean purchases in all aspects of their business, from sample selection through to purchasing and their ongoing relationship with the trader,” she says.

“With more sustainable purchasing practices in place it will also better serve producers. They can then better support roasters with the coffees they want, and then everyone gets to stay in business from crop to cup.”

At the time of print, over 100 roasters had pre-registered to access the greensquare platform.

Greensquare is actively seeking expressions of interest from roasters and coffee traders looking to take part in its initial beta launch.

“We strongly encourage anyone interested to reach out, as we will be providing participants with early access to the platform along with exclusive benefits and features moving forward,” says Caleb.

“We are currently running a promotion campaign for the duration of our Beta program, that any roaster who registers for the platform goes in the running to win $10,000 to spend on the platform.”

Caleb says the most rewarding part of starting the business has been seeing the number of roasters and traders who have come onboard to support the project and are willing to take part in a more traceable & transparent industry.

“THE PLATFORM ALLOWS COFFEE TRADERS TO LIST COFFEES THAT ARE AVAILABLE FOR BOTH SPOT AND FORWARD CONTRACTS, WHILE ROASTERS CAN CONNECT WITH TRADERS WITH EASE AND BROWSE ALL COFFEES SPECIFIC TO THEIR NEEDS.” “Once we have established a digital foundation for the procurement and management of green coffee we see vast opportunities for digital advancement and integrations,” he says.

“We look forward to greensquare playing a role in improving visibility, trust and value for all stakeholders along the coffee supply chain.”

For more information, visit www.greensquare.co

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the past, the present and the mighty future. www.lamarzocco.com.au

TECH PROFILE

Centre stage Why Barista Attitude’s Tempesta is designed to be used by all levels of ability, with features and functionalities that aid the barista with as much or as little control as they desire.

Tempesta users can customise pre-infusion to help personalise the brewing profile.

W

hen it was time for each national barista representative to compete on the World Barista Championship stage at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo, each displayed their own unique presentation. Each was different in approach, message, and theme, but the one consistent on stage, was use of the Tempesta espresso machine.

The Tempesta, the latest chapter of the Barista Attitude Project, turned heads from baristas and coffee professionals alike in its competition debut and first official display in the Southern Hemisphere.

Unique in design and style, the machine was photographed as much as the baristas on stage using it.

Underneath the simplistic façade, however, is a wealth of technology and ergonomic consideration thanks to the experience of CMA in Italy, which has been manufacturing espresso machines since 1969.

“The technology in Tempesta is at the highest level. It includes technology that has been available to market for a while, but it is unique in its approach to

targeting the barista with features that ensure ease of operation, maximum control, and the ability to customise to the barista’s needs,” says Paolo Girardi, Head of CMA and Barista Attitude Service Department.

Paolo has worked with CMA since 1994. He has seen the evolution of the Storm and Tempesta Project, and has been responsible for implementing changes to the Tempesta based on customer feedback.

“It’s important to have a beautifullydesigned machine, but the operation of it has to be as simple as possible – and not just from the barista’s perspective, but from that of the service technician,” Paolo says.

What is now available to market, is an espresso machine Paolo, the CMA engineers, and Barista Attitude ambassadors, are proud of.

The Tempesta features a multi boiler system that allows for individual temperature settings on each group to be changed, with a precision of +/- 0.5.

Via the touchscreen interface, Paolo says it is quick and easy to set, adjust and control the water temperature, in addition to the temperature and pressure

of steam, and the temperature of each group, a featured requirement of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) in order for Tempesta to be certified as the Qualified Espresso Machine of the WBC. Rigorous SCA tests for stability were also performed, including on quality, pressure, and temperature when using one or more groups, or when the machine was sitting idle for various times. It passed with flying colours.

“Such control is important to guarantee thermal stability of temperature, extraction and performance when adapting the machine to changing variables, such as temperature and humidity. It is also key when cafés are operating at peak times with high volumes, but also during quiet periods,” Paolo says.

Users can also customise pre-infusion to help personalise and adjust the brewing profile for different coffees.

“When using a blend or single origin, the pre-infusion time can be adjusted – not just the quantity of water, but the precise time the coffee cake is wet without pressure,” he says.

The actively temperature-controlled

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TECH PROFILE group heads combine maximum precision in water delivery with high responsiveness to temperature adjustments. It takes less than five minutes to navigate up and down the full temperature spectrum allowed by WBC rules, all while complying with WBC’s strict temperature and pressure requirements.

In the Flow Rate Control (FRC) version of Tempesta, users can not only control the flow of extraction in each group but adjust pressure profiles in different stages of the brewing time to further customise the brewing process and control the intended flavour profile.

What’s unique in the design of the machine, Paolo says, is the brewing activation button above the portafilter holder on the front of the machine.

Pushing this button activates purging and brewing to minimise insert-to-brew time.

“We pushed our designers to create this feature that is unique to the machine. Baristas can use just one hand to insert the portafilter, lock it in and start the extraction at the push of the button. Baristas can then easily talk and interact with customers in front of them,” Paolo says.

While the quality of the extraction and the machine’s performance is paramount, Paolo says it’s also important that baristas of all levels of ability can use Tempesta with ease.

“It can be used as a plug-and-play model or at expert level – it suits both

The cool-touch, cantilevered steam wand features a rotating steam valve.

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ends of the market,” he says. “If you press that button for automatic mode, you can brew coffee immediately.

Or, you can activate a number of features that give you deeper control of everything.”

For those interested in a deep dive of data, outside of WBC parameters, the Tempesta interface can display a live graph showing extraction details such as pressure and flow profile, details of brewing temperature, extraction time, and the profile for each group. This gives the barista full control of data to read, analyse and adjust.

On the other hand, Paolo notes there is a growing polarisation between boutique operators and coffee chains that are starting to operate with staff that are not specialised.

As such, features like Tempesta’s interface are about making life easier for the barista, as well as arming them with knowledge.

“It’s not just a pro-level machine,” Paolo says.

“The launch of Storm for the specialty sector was a breakthrough in innovation because for the first time, a manufacturer had really introduced an interface to give the barista insight and knowledge to aid their craftmanship, at a time when the industry was deeply considering a future of push-button machines.”

As well as providing information to customise and control extractions, the display interface can feature cleaning instructions and videos to help simplify the process. Technicians can also use it to locate possible problems during maintenance work.

“All the machines on the market have similar technology in terms of the result.

But they have a different mix in now they blend these technologies together.

My take on Tempesta from a design and conception point of view is that it’s the most modern of all special machines on the market right now. Modern in the sense that it allows expansion. You have the hardware but then you can expand the experience both for the user and the consumer through use of telemetry, for instance. You can use the machine simply, but there’s also a lot of layers of additional information that allows the barista to expand the experience if they want. You can do a lot if you know what you want,” Paolo says.

One feature that baristas of all levels will utilise is the cool-touch, cantilevered steam wand, for texturing milk-based beverages. It offers safety and ease of control thanks to the rotating steam valve, which is simple to open and close, and use at different angles.

“You can also easily control the speed

The brewing activation button above the portafilter activates purging and brewing.

and power of the steam to suit differentsized jugs or milk types, and thanks to the Super Dry system, steam is kept dry with very low water precipitation at the beginning of steaming. This is important to preserve the milk quality in the cup,” Paolo says.

Thanks to Super Dry and the capacity of the steam and service boiler, continuous use of steam is guaranteed with no drop in power, pressure, or performance during peak periods, or when using two wands at once. An auto-steam wand is an optional feature for venues that want further control and consistency of milk texturing.

“It uses the same steam design and technology with Dry Steam but there’s also intake for air so you can basically get the volume of froth you desire,” Paolo says.

The Tempesta may have every feature a skilled or entry level barista would need, but it is designed to be used and celebrate brewing excellence across the board. When that is achieved, then it’s served its purpose.

“The future will be making specialty coffee accessible. That comes from the final product, but it also means delivery of specialty coffee and passing it through grinders and machines that are smart and help the barista in their job rather than getting in the way. The Tempesta is the evolution of that,” Paolo says.

For more information, visit www.barista-attitude.com

Melbourne Flagship Opening Soon 572 Chapel Street, South Yarra Follow our story @camposcoffee

INDUSTRY PROFILE

A stepping Stone Bluestone Lane’s Brian Dessaix is a proud advocate for the opportunities available outside Australia’s coffee walls. He speaks to BeanScene about America’s growing specialty scene and what underpins Bluestone’s award-winning coffee.

S

ome people know what they want to be when they grow up, or what college they’ll strive to attend, but for Brian Dessaix, Bluestone Lane’s Vice President of West Coast Operations and Coffee, he always knew his destiny was to work overseas.

“My mum was a travel agent and would take us around the world from a pretty young age. I’ve always been fascinated by other countries and cultures,” Brian says.

That curiosity followed Brian into his professional coffee career, where he was adamant it would one day take him beyond the shores of Manly, Sydney.

“I wanted to experience new things, influence drinking culture in some respects, and push the envelope. I’m a risk taker when moving around, and I think that’s paid off,” Brian says. “I knew how important coffee culture was to Australians, and I wanted to see where in the world others got great coffee, and how they created a great café experience.”

His first taste of that came in 1998/98 when Brian used a J-1 Visa to explore the United States while studying hospitality management in San Francisco.

“Everyone was going to Lake Tahoe or snowboarding for the winter, and I went to San Francisco and worked in a café for six months. I enjoyed the differences in how they did things.

From there, I always wanted to do more with global companies, and I’ve had the opportunity to do that with Krispy Crème, McDonalds, and Campos [where Brian worked for seven years]. It’s just something that’s always been on my radar,” Brian says.

“But the first real opportunity I got, where I wouldn’t have to take a leap of faith and could actually turn up in a new country with a job, was with Bluestone Lane. I felt very fortunate to get that opportunity. It was the job of a lifetime.

But it didn’t come easy. I got it after 20 years of grinding. There was plenty of

Bluestone Lane’s Brian Dessaix always knew his destiny was to work overseas.

blood, sweat, and tears, and making of cappuccinos and flat whites before this.”

Brian now runs Bluestone Lane’s coffee program. He also embraces procurement, sourcing, operations, logistics, education, retail execution, and equipment, which feeds into Bluestone’s wholesale and licensing business. He is also helping setup Bluestone Lane’s West Coast expansion.

“I’m an ambassador for the coffee program,” he says. “It needs someone

who can build it, strengthen it, represent it, and help deliver it in a consistent, measured way.”

Of all the countries Brian could have chosen to pursue his international coffee career, he says the sheer size of the United States and its potential for growth was the most appealing.

“The specialty coffee scene in the US is incredible. In Australia, we have this stereotypical view that the US coffee scene is just Starbucks and Dunkin, but

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INDUSTRY PROFILE the specialty scene is very strong. There is, however, a gap between specialty coffee and average coffee,” he says.

And that gap is what Bluestone Lane is passionate about closing. With a minimum 25 stores opening in 2023, and a chance to exceed 100 stores by end of next year, Bluestone Lane is passionate about delivering a quality coffee experience at high volume and pace, and it needs Aussies to join its vision.

The Australian-inspired roaster and café brand is inviting Australians to spend one year working for the company through the Exchange Visitor ( J-1) nonimmigrant visa category.

“You don’t have to be a highly skilled barista to come. Australians have this inherent hospitality orientated culture where we’re naturally good at service.

It’s embedded in our culture and upbringing. We may not have a tipinfluenced work environment like the US, but we work very much as a team, and have strong camaraderie, which we welcome. We want our entire teams to be influenced and have the support of Australians,” Brian says. “Here at Bluestone, we absolutely believe that as a team you achieve more, you’ll have a better time, and you get better results.”

Brian is living proof of the opportunity and career projection that is possible with a J-1 experience.

He guarantees the trip of a lifetime but says those who apply must be hungry for the experience.

“It is a career-minded decision, not just for those wanting to work in coffee or hospitality. This is a chance for those interested in business internationally,” Brian says.

For some, a J-1 can also be an opportunity to get off the tools and step into a management position.

“The hardest step in building a coffee career is taking that next step and getting out from behind the coffee machine.

That’s something we’re certainly aware of in trying to inspire and motivate people. A career in coffee doesn’t have to mean making coffee. It doesn’t even have to necessarily mean teaching coffee. It can mean supply chain, marketing, the opportunities are endless, and we can help facilitate that pathway.”

Part of Brian’s role within Bluestone Lane is to provide employees with the skills to steer that pathway as the company scales in size.

“Our accreditation process is robust and sets us up for success. Once you’re in the business for about 30 days, you do our booster training modules, then do your barista accreditation. None of it is overly complicated. It’s structured and really broken down. And then, that’s

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Working with Bluestone Lane via a J-1 in the US can be a “career-minded decision”.

where the doors really open up and you become more valuable to other stores in other regions, or even move into a headquarter role, which gives you exposure to leadership opportunities in-store,” Brian says.

Testament to the company’s coffee training program is a collection of newly awarded Golden Bean awards, recognising coffee excellence. Bluestone Lane won seven medals including Gold for its Maverick espresso blend, silver for its new Riptide dark espresso blend, and a bronze for its Kenya Kiawamururu Filter coffee.

“It’s a massive achievement and absolutely gives credibility to our project. It’s so easy to talk the talk but this is proof of walking the walk.

It’s very much a team effort of those involved in our resources, procurement, education and roasting. It all contributes to our coffee program and coffee quality results, which is second to none,” Brian says.

He adds that the vertical integration of the company and decision to roast its own coffee and deliver it fresh to retail and wholesale partners makes a big difference.

“I’m forever impressed when I go into our stores, whether I’m in San Francisco, Houston, or New York, and get a really consistent flat white, when nine years ago, five years ago, one year ago, or even two months ago in Houston, they didn’t even know what it was. I think that quality across the board comes down to our really robust

training program. But there’s always room for improvement, and that’s my role – to push the limits and raise the bar, and that’s something I’m committed to doing,” Brian says.

While teaching Americans how to perfect the flat white remains a constant task, Brian says he’s learned to embrace America’s efficiency for producing cold brew coffee, of which orders overtake the company’s volume of hot beverages sold.

“It’s actually something we’ve had to consider in our shop layout, design and workflow so that we’re not only relying on the espresso machine for cold coffee orders. You have to consider ice machines and how we prepare cold coffee in very tiny spaces at speed – and I think we’re as fast as anyone,” he says.

Brian is confident the work Bluestone Lane is doing will set the company up for future growth. Already, he says opening the first Bluestone Lane shop in Texas was a career highlight, and there’s more to come, with plans to expand the Bluestone name in Southern California, Orange County, Florida, and Colorado.

“We’re so committed to delivering the best version of ourselves at scale.

We want to get back to that idea of the neighbourhood café and creating consistency of product, so that each time you go back to your local neighbourhood café, the experience is the same,” Brian says.

For more information and to apply for the J-1 application, visit bluestonelane.com/j1-visa/

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MICE2022

A fairy tale finale

he Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) means something different to everyone.

For many, it’s a business retreat.

It’s a chance to connect with buyers and sellers, and form client relationships. For others, it’s a place of inspiration that starts a dream business or career opportunity. While each purpose was undoubtedly achieved again at MICE2022, it was first and foremost the biggest coffee family union the industry has seen since the global pandemic.

A record 15,056 attendees visited the expo over four days from 27 to 30 September at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), with 15 per cent international attendees from 71 countries, indicating a strong return of overseas participation.

The attendance figure is the highest of any MICE expo since the event’s inception in 2012, with an increase of 25 per cent of visitor numbers since the 2019 event.

“MICE was already the largest

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Images: Melbourne International Coffee Expo.

T

After three long years, MICE2022 returned and united the international coffee community once again.

dedicated coffee expo in the Southern Hemisphere, and we are proud to reinstate that title once again, in addition to being our highest attended edition of the expo,” says MICE Show Director Lauren Winterbottom.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp attended MICE and says its return was “absolutely vital for Melbourne”.

“We are the events capital, but really the business events capital as well.

Events like [MICE] incorporate a trade show, bring the industry together, and then welcomes members of the public.

We’ve got delegates here from around the world, so it means a lot for us as an event city,” Sally says. “But more than that, this is about coffee. [Melbourne is] obsessed with coffee. Our number one export to the world is coffee culture, and MICE embodies Melbourne’s renowned coffee quality and café experience.”

WARM UP To set the scene, national barista champions from across the globe descended on Melbourne the week leading into MICE, with many congregating at the Cafetto Barista Base camp to train ahead of the World Barista Championship (WBC).

On Monday 26 September, the inaugural CafeSmart Charity Golf Day took place at Latrobe Golf Course, uniting industry figures for a networking golf day.

The sold-out event saw participants

tee off for 18 holes, engage in an industry talk, then concluded with a live auction. In total $30,836 was raised for CafeSmart training and employment programs for migrants and youth in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.

That evening, a De’Longhi Melbourne Coffee Week (MCW) launch event began evening festivities before excitement set in and the countdown clock to MICE indicated just a few hours to go.

MICE2022

SHOW TIME Before the doors opened to Day One of MICE, the mainstream media was a buzz with anticipation of this global coffee event that had descended on Melbourne, with heavy coverage across the week from ABC News Breakfast , The Today Show, Channel Nine News, SBS News, SBS Mandarin, SBS Italian, Channel Seven News, The Age, GoodFood, and more.

Then, all of a sudden, it was show time, and the ninth edition of MICE was underway with support from sponsors St. Ali, Espresso Mechanics, MILKLAB, Global Coffee Report , Cafetto, and made

by Fressko.

As guests walked through the doors, they were met with a host of brands ready to share the latest in machine innovation, experimental coffees and product tastings.

At Roasters Marketplace, brews were running hot from Commonfolk Coffee Roasters, Black Vice Café & Roastery, Just Planet Coffee, Coffee Me Up, Merlo Coffee and Adore Estate.

Dairy alternatives also had a huge representation of the show. For Happy happy Foods, it was an opportunity to extend its thanks to loyal supporters of its first product, Happy happy Soy Boy soy milk.

“We also offered the latest additions to our range at the expo, including our new almond and oat milks, hot chocolate, and matcha. We’re especially proud of our Mumma Matcha, grown on Australian soil from a single estate in Mangrove Mountain, New South Wales” says Happy happy Foods Founder Lloyd Smith. Over on the Bonsoy stand, its new all-natural

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almond milk, Bonsoy Almond Milk, was available to try, using roasted almond paste with a light flavour profile. It also featured a range of sparkling coconut water in three flavours. “With organic coconut water and the refreshment of sparkling bubbles, Bonsoy coconut water is a revelation,” says Spiral Foods Marketing Manager Raphaelle Wilson.

Califia Farms were proud to have Caleb “Tiger” Cha, the 2015 World Latte Art Champion, at its stand teaching attendees how to pour the perfect latte art. “And what better way to showcase our new Oat Barista Blend milk then at one of the biggest coffee expos in the world?” says Category Marketing Manager Gemma Goorjian.

Official World Barista Championship milk supplier Riverina Fresh celebrated its centenary at the show, and drew crowds with latte art masterclasses from the in-demand Caleb Cha, Amy Zhang and Victor Vu. It also hosted some of its farmers who gave MICE visitors a deeper perspective of the level and quality and commitment it takes to be a Riverina Fresh dairy farmer.

At 3.30pm, the grandstands filled on the WBC stage as Australian contender, Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters, completed his round one performance, running slightly overtime but strong enough to make it through to the Semi Finals in the announcements that evening.

Before we knew it, day one had ended, and it was time to celebrate with La Marzocco at Starward Whisky distillery.

DAY TWO Wednesday started off with a sold-out city gathering of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance Australian ‘stronger together’ breakfast event, celebrating women who had forged successful careers in coffee from coffee producing to green bean buying.

Back at the MCEC, the reunions continued but it was time to talk tech and explore the new innovations. Coffee Tools Distributing had its full product catalogue on display including an axlefree coffee grinder. Barista Group had an array of gadgets to look at, including the new Marki Bar IZAGA W grindby-weight and Quin Spin portafilter cleaner. Aremde’s celebrated style and functionality with the Stylus One espresso machine, and Coffee Machine Technology had heads turning with its Elektra coffee machine.

For Espresso Mechanics, it was a chance to display Nuova Simonelli’s newrelease Oscar Mood and Aurelia Wave UX. “These machines allow for fluid and harmonious work-flow and consistent widespread quality at any time of the day,” says Espresso Mechanics Customer Service Team Leader Carly D’Agostino.

On the adjoining stand, Victoria Arduino displayed its new Black Eagle Maverick espresso machine, E1 Prima and Mythos grinder. Espresso Company Australia celebrated craft and technology with new Tone Swiss compact espresso machines and Drink Morning specialty coffee capsule machine.

Barista Technology Australia had its full suite of automated products on display in a shipping container,

showcasing the possibilities of workflow efficiency with the Puqpress, Flow telemetry and Perfect Moose milk foamer.

La Marzocco celebrated ‘the past, the present and the mighty future’ with the new Linea classic S, Linea Pb, Wally and Linea Mini and a nod to the past with its new Officine Fratelli Bambi machine.

Barista Attitude used the opportunity to educate consumers on the ethos and vision behind the brand and its Qualified Espresso Machine of the WBC, Tempesta, in addition to the Storm and Profilo machines that intrigued visitors for its DJ looking concept.

Coffee Works Express’ stand also celebrated Tempesta, in addition to models from Wega, Mazzer, Astoria and Slayer.

Rancilio continued the celebration of Italian manufacturing, presenting the RS1 espresso machine to the MICE masses.

“It provides cutting-edge brewing technology combined with Rancilio expertise and a unique workflow design.

As a Specialty Coffee Association certified espresso machine, this validates its position in the market as an industry leader,” says Rancilio Australasia

General Manager Paul O’Brien.

For many brands, it was the first opportunity such products had been physically presented to market, and for others, it was a chance to present the innovation that had been developed over the past few years.

On the Brewers Cup competition stage today was Australian representative Harry Ko of Bennetts.

When it was his turn to get the Australia crowd behind him, Harry put on an incredible display. Despite his best efforts to move into the Semi Finals, Harry finished an incredible eight position after his first round performance.

That evening, UCC coffee invited customers to its new Albert Street roastery opening in Preston, where guests marvelled at the giant display and capacity of the new facility.

De’Longhi MCW events also continued this evening, with the Single O World(ish) Parachute Championship and Cafe Imports ‘Where are we now’ events taking place. All registration fees for De’Longhi MCW were donated to MICE official Charity Partner StreetSmart and the CafeSmart program, working to fight homelessness.

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MICE2022

THE HALF WAY POINT Day three of MICE was an opportunity to refuel with plenty of coffee options at Roaster’s Alley.

Toby’s Estate had guests creating their own coffee blends to be as traditional, whacky, or experimental as their heart desired. Their tunes and team energy brought the vibe.

Nearby, the St Ali House slowed things down a touch, with the aim to engage with customers on a deeper level through the lens of a luxury hotel bar. Guests were invited to sit down and go through a 10-minute tasting experience featuring a different selection of coffees, grouped by producer, region, and/or variety.

At the other end of the expo, Mocopan share its new-look packaging and rebranded coffee titles, using the occasion to connect with visitors about its 68 years of history.

“It’s been great getting our new brand packaging out there and showing off our updated look. We’re still using the same quality blend and profile, but just want to share happiness with our use of colour, stand out from the crowd, and give people an impression that we are a quality brand they can emotionally connect to,” says Mocopan Coffee National Sales Manager Hannah Fielding.

Veneziano Coffee Roasters continued its 20th anniversary celebrations with a stand that had coffee preparation at each side. Guests could book a spot on the bar, try the next pinnacle release or preview a tasty coffee frappe.

Over in Origin Alley, it was a chance to celebrate the producers and traders who had travelled from across the globe to present their very coffees, from South America and Africa, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Panama, it really was a smorgasbord of coffees and star producer talent. Cuppings were a plenty on the Minas Hill stand, in addition to InterAmerican, and FTA, with guests lucky enough to meet some of the producers that produced the very coffee they were tasting.

The afternoon was all about competitions. The Milklab Barista Battle Series International Finals kicked off, with a crowd gathering to see the barista battle. Patryk Tomasik of The Hideout Specialty Coffee in Queensland won the inaugural title and an all-expenses paid trip to London.

On the world stage just nearby,

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Anthony Douglas competed in the WBC Semi Finals. The first-round nerves had vanished and a clean run-through had the crowd hopeful of a Finals position, and they weren’t disappointed.

That evening, more social events continued, and the Victoria Arduino Lab in Brunswick got bustling with a Pure Brew party with the 2017 World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Martin Hudak.

THE FINALE Day four arrived almost as quickly as the show started, but with tiring feet and weary eyes, one last energy injection was needed to conclude MICE in the best way possible. Last laps around the show floor continued to reveal new and unexplored products, and the afternoon celebrated the best of them in the MICE2022 Product Innovation Awards.

The LaCimbali M200 won the award for Coffee Preparation Equipment.

“It is with great happiness that the Service Sphere team celebrate the Product Innovation Award for The La Cimbali M200. The winning of this award is recognition of the evolution of high-quality coffee output, blended with well-considered design and barista ergonomics,” says Service Sphere Director Maurizio Marcocci.

The Compass from Nucleus Coffee Tools was awarded the Product Innovation Award for Coffee Accessories.

Compass creator Angus Mackie was inspired to manufacturer the product by wanting to connect everyday people with complex coffees.

“The more time I spent with coffees, the more I realised they do have moments where the taste best, and often those moments are lost by drinking the coffee too slow or too fast. Once I realised how much hard work goes into the cup, I realised I wanted to create a tool that makes it easier to savour those moments,” says Angus.

Eureka Grinders’ Prometheus grinder won the Ancillary Electrical Equipment award for its advanced technology

features, and Weber Workshops Unifilter portafilter won the People’s Choice award.

“We’ve tried to make a thoughtful product that hadn’t yet been released in the industry. The Unifilter is a critical part of making espresso and many big industry players use and love it,” says Weber Workshops CEO and Founder Douglas Weber.

Attention then turned to the World Brewers Cup competition stage. With all final run-throughs complete, the winning announcement was dramatic and nail biting, with Shih Yuan Hsu (Sherry) of Taiwan crowned the 2022 World Brewers Cup Champion.

Then it was the WBC’s turn. With the grandstands full, and the home crowd anxiously waiting, the top six finalists were presented and called out by ranking one by one, until Australia’s own Anthony Douglas stood side-byside with the United States’ Morgan Eckroth. It was a moment resembling the same situation in 2013, the last time Melbourne hosted the WBC – when Australia’s Matthew Perger placed runner-up to America’s Pete Licata.

This time, the placings reversed and Anthony was crowned the 2022 World Barista Champion. Tears, screams and ecstatic smiles topped off what can only be described as a fairy-tale ending to MICE2022 – a Melbourne world champion, at a Melbourne-hosted event, in what was the biggest MICE the city, and world, has ever seen.

The celebrations continued long into the night, thanks to St Ali who hosted the official After Party, where a new champion was toasted, and a successful MICE officially came to an end.

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MICE2022

2022 World Brewers Cup Champion Shih Yuan Hsu Shih Yuan Hsu (Sherry) took on 30 other national Brewers Cup representatives from 28 to 30 September at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo and was the last woman standing when emcee Hide Izaki called her name in front of a packed crowd and global livestream audience.

“I’m still feeling nervous, the reality hasn’t set in yet. But I really enjoyed the stage and had a lot of fun. I’m still in shock,” Sherry tells BeanScene magazine.

Elika Liftee from United States placed runner up, and Elysia Tan from Singapore placed third in the competition. Tomas Taussig

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from Czech Republic placed fourth, Jhon Christhoper from Indonesia placed fifth, and Simen Andersen from Norway placed sixth.

Sherry has worked in the coffee industry for six years and currently works as a barista at Coffee Lover’s Planet in Hsinchu, Taiwan. She arrived in Melbourne two weeks prior to the competition to prepare for her performance.

“I trained eight to 12 hours per day to practice for the competition, which hasn’t given me a lot of time to explore Melbourne. Now that the competition is over, I’m excited to try many coffee shops,” Sherry says.

Sherry competed in the 2019 and 2020 Taiwan Brewers Cup, placing fifth overall in the 2019 World Brewers Cup. “Last time I wasn’t sure how to prepare for the competition. This year, I felt much more relaxed and confident in my knowledge of specialty coffee. In the 2019 World Brewers Cup, my compulsory service wasn’t very good, so this time I used a syphon brewing method, which is more efficient and consistent. This time, for my open service I used an OREA Brewer V3, a flat bottom brewing dripper made of polycarbonate, which preserves the core temperature inside, to ensure I received a higher score” she says.

Sherry used a natural Geisha from Finca Mikava Coffee in Colombia, located 2000 metres above sea level.

“The coffee cherries undergo a carbonic maceration process with a special strain of yeast and are slow-dried with frequent agitation, bringing a clean cup,” says Sherry.

She used a light roasting profile to make the aroma and flavour more sophisticated and bring out a fruity sweetness, with tasting notes of “peach, orange, berries, and pineapple”.

“I used a lower temperature of 70°C to prewet the coffee to allow the dissipation of a complex aroma together with malic acid, which brought a brighter acidity,” says Sherry.

For her routine, Sherry used 14 grams of coffee, inputting 200 grams of water. Using a ratio of 1:14, 50 grams of water are added every 30 seconds, a total of four times.

“I think all my practice and personality is what stood out to the judges. I just put my passion into my craft and am always looking at how I can make my coffee better,” she says.

“I would like to thank my company UCC Coffee Taiwan, who helped me a lot, and made me feel like I’m not alone. Without all of you, I couldn’t have done so well.”

2022 World Barista Champion Anthony Douglas Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters has written the history books. When he was crowned 2022 World Barista Champion on the last day of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo, he became the first Melbourne barista to win the World Barista Championship (WBC) and the first to win the title at a home-run event.

“I feel incredibly proud to be named this year’s world champion and am honoured to represent Australia, and more specifically Melbourne, on the world stage. I couldn’t have done it without the unwavering support and commitment of the team at Axil who have been by my side inspiring me for the past nine years,” says Anthony.

This was Anthony’s first WBC experience after winning the Australian Barista Championship in August. Since then, he put 60plus hours into his competition preparation.

Anthony is the first Australian to win the title in seven years when Sasa Sestic won in 2015.

“It’s such an honour to win the World Barista Championship, something I don’t take for granted,” says Anthony. “We put a lot of work into this [routine]. I’m incredibly proud of myself and the team.

I’ve been competing in the Australian Coffee Championship for the past seven years, trying to win, which is hard enough, and we finally got there.

“To hear myself called the World Barista Champion was an incredible feeling.”

Morgan Eckroth of the United States placed runner up, Claire Wallace of the United Kingdom placed third, Takayuki Ishitani of Japan placed fourth, Benjamin Put of Canada placed fifth, and Patrick Rolf of Sweden placed sixth in the Finals round.

“It was really cool to be alongside a lot of competitors, some of whom I know and have watched for years on the Livestream at the World Championships, so to share a stage with people like that who I respect in the industry, was a real honour and a privilege,” Anthony says.

Axil Coffee Roasters’ Founder, David Makin, a two-time Australian Barista Champion, was Anthony’s mentor. Jack Simpson was his coach, and Matt Crowley, both from Axil Coffee Roasters, helped coach and roast Anthony’s coffee.

“As a team, collectively, we’ve put so much effort into this campaign. I used amazing coffee and it’s a routine that’s very close to my heart. Everything lined up for us today,” Anthony says. “I felt great after my last run-through. I was confident in the routine that I put up. I came off stage knowing I had left it all on the table. There was nothing more I could have done. Regardless of the result I was proud of my performance.”

His routine focused on the theme of ‘trust’, building layers of trust with his judges, and ultimately between the barista and consumer in an informative and fun way.

His routine addressed four key elements: the choice of coffee and processing, roast and profile, distribution methods and the milk.

Competing against 47 world-class competitors from around the globe, Anthony used an Anaerobic Natural Sidra coffee from Huila, Colombia, produced by Nestor Lasso at his farm, El Diviso.

The coffee was fermented for 80 hours anaerobically prior to drying as a natural, resulting in intense purple and red fruit characteristics such as cherry and blackberry, and an acidity and tannin quality reminiscent of red wine. The coffee was roasted with a higher airflow with a low finish temperature post-first crack, but a longer development of 24 per cent.

To streamline his technique and extraction, Anthony used the ‘Weiss distribution technique’. This uses a series of pins to evenly distribute the coffee top to bottom and achieve higher extraction yields.

The final key decision was Anthony’s choice of milk. He explored ‘cryodesiccation’, a method of turning the liquid in milk into a vapour and concentrating the milk solids including proteins, sugars and fats by 900 per cent. He then reintroduced this powder to his original Riverina Fresh milk, doubling the concentration.

For his signature drink, Anthony paired ingredients and techniques to elevate the coffee, including a Colombian honey for complex sweetness, a lacto-fermented passionfruit syrup to elevate the fruit notes, hibiscus cold brew tea to add complexity to the red wine tannins and a ‘cryodesiccated’ date syrup to increase texture and intensity in the drink.

“Working in the coffee industry for the past 12 years has taught me that making great coffee is all about consistency and pushing the boundaries of what has been done before. I’m ecstatic that I could show that to the judges and that I got to be surrounded by others as passionate about coffee as I am,” Anthony says.

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HAS A FRESH NEW LOOK!

NEW BLEND

INDUSTRY PROFILE

Canopy Cocoa is available in 250-gram retail pouches and one-kilogram wholesale bags.

A sustainable drinking chocolate experience Minas Hill founder Marcelo Brussi launches Canopy Drinking Chocolate and explains why it’s one of the most health-conscious and ethical drinking chocolates on the market.

C

anopy Cocoa Founder Marcelo Brussi says it’s time for drinking chocolate to follow the same sustainable path as coffee and incorporate ethical practices into its production.

“I aim to raise awareness for the Australian coffee industry and wider community. If sustainable coffee is becoming more and more prevalent, why

not sustainable drinking chocolate too?”

Marcelo asks.

Made with pure Amazonian cocoa and unrefined organic rapadura sugar, Marcelo says Canopy Cocoa benefits its farmers, the planet, and consumers’ health thanks to its ingredients and their health-driven properties.

“Our drinking chocolate is made with just two ingredients, which is what makes it so healthy and delicious. Our cocoa

from the Amazon Forest is customised to the Australian market, combining a specific cocoa butter content, which ensures a creamy mouthfeel. Our friends in Brazil also grind the cocoa in nanoparticles, creating that silk-coating typical from high-quality chocolates,” he says.

“Cocoa is also rich in antioxidants, vitamins and minerals found naturally in the cacao bean. Only Amazonian

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INDUSTRY PROFILE cocoa can claim to be free of cadmium, a harmful heavy metal found in the soil of other cocoa producing areas.”

Rainforest Alliance Certified, Canopy Cocoa made its debut at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) and is available in 250-gram retail pouches and one-kilogram wholesale bags.

“We have wholesale bags available for coffee roasters to distribute Canopy Cocoa to their café customers, giving them the option to sell something healthier and more sustainable. Our onekilogram bags are suited for barista use and the 250-gram pouches will give cafés a chance to display it on their shelves.

Now they can be associated with a brand that has a sustainable approach, free of unhealthy ingredients typically found in drinking chocolate, such as white or even brown sugar,” Marcelo says.

The cocoa production takes place in São Felix do Xingu, Brazil, and is one of the main economic activities of the municipality. This makes the agroforestry based on the maintenance of the forest an important activity in a region marked by deforestation and cattle. For many local communities, family agriculture is a way of reducing the negative impact of such practices.

“Campax is a cooperative we source cocoa from. Two hundred families produce cocoa among native trees, taking into consideration environmental and economic interests. The cooperative is part of conservation programs for responsible forest management through the agroforestry production methods in alignment with family farming and forest preservation,” Marcelo says.

As the cocoa is sourced from the Amazon region, the company is taking the product from its natural environment with the “perfect terroir”. “[The farmers] know when and how to pick the cocoa at its ripest. The way they ferment and roast their cocoa produces one of the highest qualities you can find,” Marcelo says.

“I believe we can create a niche in sustainable and specialty cocoa. Like coffee, cocoa is more than a commodity, and I believe people are willing to pay for something unique, specialty, quality, sustainable, and with a great cause behind it.”

The other ingredient in Canopy Cocoa, rapadura sugar, is the rawest form of sugar, sourced from a family-run organic sugarcane plantation in Brazil.

The plantation is located on Jacutinga farm, which has a large biodiversity.

Besides the sugarcane fields, there are small areas with rubber tree and Eucalyptus plantations. About 20 per

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Canopy Cocoa is sourced from the Amazon region and is suited to health-conscious, ethical consumers.

cent of the farm is covered with natural forest.

“Since 1987, Jacutinga farm CEO Emile Lutz has operated in accordance with organic principles. Integration of compost and livestock farming improves nutrient cycling, soil fertility and the health of the sugarcane plant.

Erosion of arable topsoil due to strong tropical downpours is a considerable risk in Brazil. Therefore, the sugarcane is planted with bushes and trees. These small biotopes prevent topsoil erosion,” Marcelo says.

Due to the organic nature of the sugarcane, Marcelo guarantees full traceability, from the field right up until the final product, thanks to an extensive checking system.

“Organic whole sugar is a whole food, with all minerals contained in the sugarcane plant preserved, as there isn’t any kind of refining involved. Organic whole sugar is rich in minerals, such as calcium, potassium, phosphor, and iron.

It is an energetic food appreciated by sportsmen, and is recommended during pregnancy and for children, as it releases stress, and helps prevent osteoporosis due to its high calcium content. It can be used as a substitute of any kind of sweetener for milk, coffee, juices, and other refreshing drinks,” says Marcelo.

“We ensure the rapadura sugar is only processed at low temperatures, so the natural ingredients are retained.

It also has a low glycaemic index and is high in antioxidants and essential vitamins like A, B1, B2, B6, niacin and iron.”

Workers at the plantation are employed year-round and receive

“considerably higher wages” compared to the Brazilian minimum wage.

“Workers are provided houses on the farm with running water and electricity. Additional benefits supplied

by Emile include free medical treatment for the workers and free education for the workers’ children, training courses on healthy nutrition, childcare and environmental consciousness,” Marcelo says.

He says the Jacutinga farm’s supply is the only sugarcane estate in Brazil that’s 100 per cent traceable.

“Their terroir allows them to mature the sugarcane and extract the juice when the sugarcane is fully ripe. Those small but important points ensure our drinking chocolate is the best in the market,” says Marcelo.

According to the Canopy Cocoa Founder, coffee and cocoa are interconnected, and not just because they’re used for hot drinks. The two crops face many of the same social and environmental issues, setting the stage for the coffee industry to embrace more sustainable cocoa.

“Canopy Cocoa is the perfect choice for health-conscious, ethical consumers.

No more feeling guilt about indulging in the comfort of a delicious, warming hot chocolate. Plus, you know you’re supporting indigenous farmers to protect the Amazon Forest,” Marcelo says.

“Canopy Cocoa starts with a conscious choice and finishes with a decadent, healthy hot chocolate experience.”

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

WATER WORKS

Birgit Kohler is the Head of Organoleptic Department at BRITA.

The missed opportuni-Tea Birgit Kohler, Head of Organoleptic Department at BRITA, explains how water filtration influences the sensory perception of tea.

A

ccording to water filtration systems company BRITA, 46 per cent of consumers don’t believe the quality of tea is any better in cafés than at home. Head of BRITA’s Organoleptic Department Birgit Kohler says this means there is clearly space for tea to grow in the hot beverage sector.

“Right now, many consumers will be well acclimatised to making a brew in the comfort of their home due to the COVID-19 lockdown periods,” says Birgit.

“This presents a clear opportunity for cafés to improve their offering and attract the discerning tea drinker into their establishment.”

Birgit says it’s evident that hot beverage businesses need to add the ‘wow’ factor to the beverage to make it an out-of-home occasion for consumers.

“We know that great coffee keeps patrons coming back to a café again and again, why should tea be any different?

It’s time we start delivering high-quality hot beverages to tea lovers too,” she says.

As an industry, Birgit says cafés need to evaluate how to improve offerings so that tea sales rise in the out-of-home market.

“Tea is no longer just a glass of hot water and a random teabag. Café operators and baristas have educated consumers in the last years about the differences in coffee, so let’s go about enhancing consumers’ sensory world with tea. There are a lot of sensory experiences waiting to be discovered,” she says.

To demonstrate the effects of filtered water, BRITA’s Organoleptic Department

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BRITA’s Head of Organoleptic Department Birgit Kohler says water temperature is a crucial factor that affects the taste of tea.

conducted a tea test using one cup of tea brewed with filtered water and another with unfiltered water. In the latter cup, a white film appeared on the water’s surface, and the tea became dark and turbid.

“When water and tea meet while brewing, substances are dissolved. This process is called extraction. Depending on the type and quality of tea and the composition of used water, different flavour experiences can be created. For example, the tea with unfiltered water tasted flat. Fruity and flowery aromas don’t get through,” Birgit says.

“This is because unfiltered water can contain impurities including chlorine, organic compounds and limescale, all of which can affect the flavour and dull its appearance, making the drink less appealing.”

If water contains a high level of carbonate hardness, Birgit says there is more hydrogen carbonate in the water, which reacts with the fine acids of the tea.

“When these acids are missing in the tea, fruity and flowery aromas are perceived as not very intense. This is because the corresponding sour taste via the tongue’s receptor cells to the odour component is missing. It’s not only a matter of weak aromas, but also about sourness, astringency and bitterness.

These attributes need to be in a balance for perfect tea,” she says.

“The so-called total hardness is responsible for the turbidity of tea with unfiltered water. Cross-linking reactions with the polyphenols of the tea occurs, which can be observed particularly well when the tea is left to stand overnight. In

Image: Joanna Kosinska of Unsplash

the next morning there is a coherent film on the tea: the tea scum.”

Birgit says filtered water is the best way to address concerns of water taste to ensure the best tasting tea for a café and its patrons. Water filtration removes a lot of unpleasant water ingredients like chlorine and organic compounds from regular tap water that oral and nasal receptor cells pick up.

“Some of these organic compounds have very low threshold values, meaning they can be noticeable even in very small quantities,” Birgit says.

“All BRITA water filtration systems reduce chlorine and organic water compounds and almost all also adjust the mineral level. BRITA filters can save your café equipment from limescale build-up and the like, as they catch lime before it makes its way to your kettle or espresso machine,” says Birgit.

“Tea is a water-based beverage. It consists of more than 98 per cent of water. To serve a good tasting cup of tea, you should ensure you use the right one.”

She adds that water temperature is another crucial factor that affects extraction (see breakout box).

“Some bitter flavours are better soluble in warmer water. Particular teas require these ingredients for a holistic, typical flavour like black tea and dark

oolongs. Other teas like white, yellow and greens do benefit from lower temperatures. The delicate, sweeter aromas would be dominated by the bitterness if the temperature of the water was too high,” says Birgit.

“The best water for tea should be soft, but not too soft. I would recommend a buffer capacity between two to five degree German water hardness and a total maximum nine degree German water hardness. And it should be free of any odours.”

Birgit says by educating consumers on the importance of water filtration for tea in a café, coffee shop or other business environment, the hot beverage industry has the potential to flourish in a whole new sector.

“Most consumers already experience that tea with filtered water

is more appealing and tastier. We at the Organoleptic Department take care of the science behind your cup. The preference for tea is influenced by various factors and will ultimately vary from person to person. We connect chemical facts and research with taste and consumers experience.

Based on different standards for organoleptic testing, for every question we choose a suitable methodology.

Sometimes several methods are necessary to answer a rather simple question,” she says.

“In a nutshell, water sensory is a young fascinating science and we ensure that the customer enjoys the BRITA water filtration experience.”

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

Tea

Brewing temperature

Recommended steep times

White tea

80°C

Five minutes plus

Yellow tea

80°C

Two to three minutes

Green tea

75 to 80°C

Chinese two to three minutes, Japanese 0.5 to one minute

Oolong tea

90°C

Three minutes

Black tea

95 to 98°C

Small particles 1.5 to two minutes, medium leaf two to three minutes, large leaf three to five minutes

Dark tea (e.g., Pureah)

95 to 98°C

Two to three minutes

BRITA says there is a clear opportunity for cafés to improve their tea offering and attract discerning tea drinkers into their establishment.

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PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Peter and Penny Wolff are the Founders of Wolff Coffee Roasters.

Value of inactivity vs waste of activity

Each morning Wolf Coffee Roasters’ team members gather for a 15-minute meeting.

Wolff Coffee Roasters discuss why it’s important to eliminate things that don’t bring value to your business, and why every staff member can play a crucial role in improving practices.

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uring the past few COVID years, we have had to be agile and respond to changes in the markets we operate in. While grappling with supply chain challenges and managing operational restrictions, the quiet time allowed us to explore and apply a method to our workforce that has undoubtedly become the greatest tool we have ever used.

One day, Peter was watching a YouTube video by entrepreneur and FastCap business owner Paul

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Akers, who was talking about the transformation of his business culture through the adoption of a concept called “lean manufacturing”.

At its core, lean manufacturing is defined as the production strategy to reduce times for delivery and response to customers’ inquiries. It does that by eliminating all processes which don’t bring value, whether it be human work, wasted time, unnecessary motion, or excess inventory.

At Wolff Coffee Roasters, we decide to take the idea on board and

turned our attention to our espresso bar, questioning the position of items and if things could be removed from the process to be done faster. Grind by weight grinders, Puqpresses, and automated milk steamers have certainly changed workflow for the better.

Repeatability and standardisation doesn’t just mean every action needs to be exactly the same, but simply that the best, most efficient practices are introduced to give customers a great experience every time.

We then applied the waste reduction

theory to our roastery, and as a result, inventory has reduced dramatically because we’re only ordering what we need when we need it, rather than roasting and letting the stock sit there.

In the Paul Akers video, he also talked about asking his staff to make an improvement in their work life by just two seconds each day. It was a lightbulb moment for Peter. He instantly knew it was something we needed to learn more about and adopt into our own business.

It wasn’t about productivity gains, but the value of employee investment – not only in themselves, but how they thought about coming to work each day, and how they could contribute to the business.

At 8.45am, our team members are required to attend a 15-minute staff meeting, lead each day by a different team member to develop leadership skills. It’s here that we discuss our daily revenue, number of wholesale and online orders, production numbers, what’s working, what needs tweaking, mistakes made, and improvements. We conclude it by celebrating birthdays and milestones, sharing a song (try bronski beat), what we’re grateful for, or a piece of knowledge such as a harvest report or “word of the day”. It’s about growing a culture of knowledge sharing, and a barometer to see how people are thinking and feeling.

Each team member is then given time to “sweep, sort and standardise” their workspace, and an additional 30 minutes to invest in making an improvement to their work by two seconds a day.

For 20 team members, that’s about 50 hours a week. The traditional business owner in us would have once looked at someone not doing anything at their desk and considered them “unproductive”. Now, we encourage people to “go offline” from their daily tasks, look outside the box, and be inspired about an idea in order to make an improvement. It’s just as valuable as the work they do day in day out. It also means you need to trust, listen, be open to ideas, and not be afraid to implement them. You may try 10 things, seven will fail, and three may get up, but the reality is, you’re trying.

One of our staff members suggested a workflow improvement. Rather than travelling a particular path to a packaging machine he turns on and off 30 times a day, we decided to change its position. It took us 10 minutes to move, and that now saves him 15 minutes a day from wasted motion.

The process is not without its

Our valued learnings on the lean thinking model Break the cycle, deliberately teach people how to improve so they feel the benefits of the improvements. If you work on the process, you feel the benefit: 1. Ensure your staff know that they are not employed to roast/brew coffee, rather to improve the way you roast/brew coffee.

2. Find things that bug you and fix it immediately.

3. Make it mandatory to teach what your Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is, and then show what its looks like.

4. Great days are every day because the process is being improved daily.

5. YOU become a more dependable supplier.

6. It is an ongoing journey. challenges. There can be push back and fatigue. After all, it’s about challenging the way you do things. Breaking the cycle and being honest about change is the hardest part. Even for Peter, in his 38th year in coffee, he remains open to change. He’s seen businesses shift, the way coffee is roasted has changed, and he acknowledges how technology now plays a large part in our work.

At Wolff Coffee Roasters, we have computer software and inventory and stock management systems, but Kanban cards have been such a total time saver for us, a true forwardthinking tool. If you’ve ever been asked a question a thousand times, such as what the company Wi-fi password is, then this one’s for you. Our Kanban cards feature a barcode that any staff member can scan for more information on a product or a basic video on how to do something. Even when stationary is running low, scanning the Kanban card of a particular item takes staff to an exact link to re-order the item from the supplier. As a result, we’re never over or under stocked.

We talked earlier about removing waste from your business, but the greatest waste of all in any company, is people’s potential. That’s why this method of lean thinking and encouraging team participation truly helps get the best out of people. Rather than staff shying away from ideas that can help improve our business, now they come forward eagerly.

Creating and retaining culture in the workplace is so important. Some businesses do that by setting up communal lunch tables, ping pong tables or basketball hoops. But for us, it’s about values, and how they align to your behaviour. One of the key things people forget with culture, is that the energy you put into it, is what you get

out of it. As a business, we can’t control the behaviour of our team, we can only control our own behaviour and how we are perceived in the business.

That’s why Peter decided to set the standard and clean the staff toilet for a week. Rather than get a cleaner in twice a week to do it, he decided to demonstrate our standard of cleanliness.

He filmed it, photographed it, and made it a standard operating procedure for others to follow.

We now have a whiteboard with each staff member’s photo and a daily allocation of assigned tasks, such as bathroom duties, cleaning duties, car park cleaning, and bin duty. By doing this, it makes one person accountable.

Before COVID, around 2018, we had three team members resign on one particular day. As a result, we found ourselves questioning if we needed to look at things differently. Penny has a thirst for knowledge and went back to university to do postgraduate study in executive business, which was a leadership course in coaching and mentoring. What she learned, was the importance of conversation and how we talk to team members through a coaching framework, and it’s constantly evolving. Culture is not set in state, you ebb, and flow based on the personalities and value set that you’re employing in your business.

What’s important to acknowledge with the lean thinking model, however, is that it can be built into the fabric of the company at all levels, from your baristas, roasting teams, finance and administration, marketing, and sales division. Each member of your team is vital to the continuous improvement of your business.

For more information, visit wolffcoffeeroasters.com.au

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KAMAL’S CORNER

Kamal Bengougam is Director of Business Development & Marketing at Eversys.

I. Me. Mine

COVID forced society to retreat from each other and drink coffee on our own, but at what cost?

Eversys’ Kamal Bengougam on how our world has gone from being a community-centric society to an individualistic one. The question is, will people find a greater sense of identity, purpose and joy by replacing society with the sole spirit of self?

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ecently, my wife Tracy broke her ankle quite badly and I had to become her carer. I did things I had never had to do before, to have another human being solely dependent on me. I must admit, it was not easy. I had no ‘duck to water’ moment. I stopped looking at the world through my own lenses and took up hers.

I wonder how my mother was able to juggle her job plus the running of a home with four demanding children and a husband that never helped at home. My belated appreciation and respect for her has grown exponentially over the past few weeks. To my mother, empathy, and giving, was a way of life, not just a word that sounded good in political speeches.

In the beginning, man and woman were created to form the first community, a platform upon which

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a just, moral, harmonious and loving society could be built.

Then, in a quest for knowledge, eyes were opened and the ‘original sin’, the desire for individualism, led to betrayal, isolation and a loss of identity. Morality became an option as the rules guiding society became fluid, a choice rather than a duty.

“ART IS THE MOST INTENSE MODE OF INDIVIDUALISM THAT THE WORLD HAS KNOWN,” – OSCAR WILDE.

This was followed by several millennia, periods of history spent between seeking the common good while at the same time trying to be seen, remembered, accepted, and even liked, perhaps. This quest for purpose and meaning has been forever slighted by a conscious, learnt mantra to help our fellow men.

It is often said that individualism began with the invention of the mirror.

And yet, the mirror has been in existence since time began, if not in its current metallic state, but as long as humankind.

By legend, the first mirror was formed in the ancient Himalayas, when a little river decided to rest itself and form a little pool. In time, a young woman walked by and looking down, was surprised by another girl, which she slowly came to realise was only a reflection of herself.

The mirror gave people a sense of

physical identity, which gave rise to comparisons and ushered the birth of the spirit of competition, individualism.

Then the chair replaced the bench, followed by individual plates as opposed to communal food platters, fashion, wealth, power, influence...creating differentiation and a pecking order demonstrating that individuality is core to a person’s identity, alike to a flower revealing its full beauty, a chrysalis becoming a butterfly, an inherent and intuitive part of our make-up, a DNA thing.

Differences led to wars and, in tragedy, people tended to unite, gathered and developed a sense of higher purpose, a common good, that in unity strength could be found. Prejudices are cast aside and societies gel against a ‘common’ enemy, as individuality is relegated to, placed in abeyance until the good times roll once more, and the spirit of self rises again, like an unquenchable thirst.

Politicians and philosophers have tried their hands at several manifestations of their thoughts: communism, socialism, capitalism, and various states in between, with no clear winner as every set of beliefs had a downside. And, as Martin Luther King Jr stated: “a good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.”

Communities used to be united by a sense of common values, tribalism.

It used to be religion that either united or divided tribes into wars. Then came the 18th century enlightenment when religion ceased to be the source of identity, to be replaced by secular notions of nation, race and class.

Then came the ‘60s where utopian views were centred around individuals, spearheaded by John Lennon’s Imagine – “a world without countries, religions, heaven or hell; a world with nothing to kill or die for”. This liberalism was built around individuals being the ‘bearer of rights’ at the expense of the ‘common good’.

However, humans are social animals and must belong to a tribe, live for a higher cause, a purpose greater than themself. We can see it in sports when supporters celebrate/clash based on their allegiances to specific colours. The ‘I’ has no identity. We are who we are because of the groups to which we belong.

What does that mean to our coffee community? Cafés have often been the place to meet, the environment where everyone knew your name. Then COVID came and we were told to stay away from each other, revert back to

becoming individuals, drink our coffee on our own, no more stories to share.

This gave rise to new and more sophisticated robotic solutions, some even with two arms that can replicate complex latte art creations, clean and perform if not with warmth and grace, with absolute efficiency and consistency, limited downtime.

We can also witness the growing number of drive-thru cafés worldwide, even in countries that never had drivethru before. In Asia, there are lanes for people who gaze at their phones at all times, and many people walk around with things covering their heads, eyes and contraptions stuck to their ears. Is that how we seek to evolve, shut down the outside world and hide within the imaginary comfort of our inner world.

Sociology books tell us that ‘no man is an island’ so how does that story end? If we stopped doing community does that mean that we will live in absolute silence or will strange voices begin to permeate, invade that void?

Individuality was there from the start so it must be a good thing, part of the intelligent plan. But individualism can only lead to isolation, loneliness and fear.

And fear often leads to aggression and aggression soon becomes pain. And pain is never a good thing, it was used as a prevention, a warning of what not to do.

Look at the fate of Narcissus in Greek

mythology, who so fell in love with his own reflection, beauty that he eventually died a broken man.

“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books.

I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn’t pleasant. It’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” – Hermann Hesse We must embrace individuality while still seeking the warmth of community.

What would be the joy of life if we were to live it on our own? We were designed to do life with others, if not all of them, then some. A healthy identity can only emerge from a sense of individuality defined and developed within the context of a healthy society, not a state. I like my morning coffee on my own, but what would be my afternoon espresso without the chatter of good friends.

And, I am pleased to report that, after a few trying weeks, looking after my injured wife has become more than a mere duty, it has become a privilege. But, as she will be reading this, one should know that all good things must, in due course, come to an end.

For more information, visit www.eversys.com/en/

Cafés have long been the place to meet, the environment where everyone knew your name.

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

On a mission Campos Coffee continues its commitment to coffee excellence and explains why it’s passionate about giving consumers a front row seat to the best and most exotic coffees in the world.

Adam Matheson is leading Campos Coffee’s commitment at origin and dedicated coffee program.

T

wenty years ago, Campos Coffee was born with the mission to share its love for quality coffee with as many Australian consumers as possible, and its focus has never wavered.

This commitment embraces coffee excellence and longstanding partnerships, and will be on full display in the upcoming opening of Campos Coffee’s new flagship café in Melbourne, set to open in November in the highend shopping precinct of Chapel Street.

The new South Yarra flagship will serve the local community a uniquely Campos experience in a beautifully curated space.

“Cafés are often thought of as being the heart and soul of a local community – a place for locals to connect with each other over a great cup of coffee. Our vision for the Chapel Street flagship is to not only serve an exceptional coffee experience but also to connect with and support the community,” says Adam Matheson, Head of Coffee at Campos Coffee. “We want to get to know the locals and build an authentic and credible reputation as being a great Melbourne café for coffee lovers to visit.”

Many Victorians have already had a taste of Campos’ Superior Blend, served in the brand’s iconic green cup thanks to a growing Victorian network

of independent café partners who proudly serve the brand. In May 2020, Campos released its range nationally in Woolworths, making it even more convenient for consumers to access.

In September, Campos Coffee was awarded Melbourne Royal’s Australian International Coffee Awards 2022 Champion Australian Roaster for the second time. It was also awarded Best in Class for its yet-to-be-released Colombia Santa Monica coffee.

“The Campos Superior Blend is our original café blend and what we’re famous for. While we look forward to serving an iconic Campos experience to the South Yarra community, we’re also

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Campos Coffee has been named the 2022 Champion Australian Roaster for the second time.

excited to introduce customers to the full breadth of delicious coffees we have on offer,” Adam says.

This includes coffees sourced direct from origin as a result of the company’s long-term producer and cooperative relationships, which it’s maintained since 2010.

“The long-term nature of our partnerships helps us deliver consistency of quality in every cup. Our coffee producing partners know us well at Campos, and they know the high standard of coffee we’re looking for,” Adam says.

Such relationships include partnerships in Kenya, Ethiopia, and wider Central America. Thanks to the personal partnerships Campos Coffee has established, Adam says the brand is fortunate to have exclusivity of the coffee it buys.

Campos Coffee is also proud to secure exquisite coffees because of its ongoing and long-standing commitment to the Cup of Excellence (CoE) specialty coffee competition, which it has supported since 2010. In that time, Campos Coffee has purchased more than 130 CoE coffees.

“I’m proud of our history and support

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of Cup of Excellence. I think we’re the biggest supporters of the program in Australia, maybe even in the Southern Hemisphere. Campos Coffee has also been involved in more than 60 [Cup of Excellence] international juries, and since COVID, our head office has been a global cupping centre for eight Cup of Excellence competitions,” Adam says.

“The most important thing that’s evolved through our involvement in CoE is the direct relationships we have now established with farmers outside of the competition. It started with us buying their lots and now we’ve continued to support them beyond the event, buying more and trying their different coffees, even buying container loads. It’s not always about single origin, unicorn coffees. It’s about seeing what else the producer can supply and what potential there is to broaden the relationship. That’s the great thing about Cup of Excellence, it facilitates those relationships.”

A return to origin for CoE judging in 2023 will allow Campos Coffee to meet producers and support origin partner communities. It will also provide an opportunity to observe innovation initiatives taking place at farm-level.

This can be represented in the form of new coffee species, processing methods, or the exploration of a producing region customers may not be familiar with. Recently, Adam says Campos Coffee introduced a Hawaii coffee to its offering which sold out within a week of its launch. He adds that interesting coffees from India and Timor-Leste have also surprised a lot of consumers.

“Coffee producers are innovative. It blows my mind at how innovative they are. So often they are ahead of the curve and doing weird and wonderful things,” Adam says.

“The purpose of our coffee program is to educate our customers and consumers on what’s happening in the world of coffee, and share it with them.

We want them to know what’s going on, what different origins are producing, what innovative practices are taking place and what different coffees exist.

That’s one of the reasons we buy from Cup of Excellence or Best of Panama coffee – just to share these amazing coffees with our customers.”

To further drive the sensorial experience of the future of coffee, Adam is proud of the recent establishment of the Campos Coffee Laboratory where innovation and experimentation in coffee will be centre stage.

“It takes a strong team of experienced, passionate coffee experts to collaborate and discover these amazing coffees that we can’t wait to share with the coffee community in the months and years ahead,” he says.

Despite the challenges of the past 12 months with rising coffee prices and increased freight costs, Adam says Campos Coffee has made a commitment to not waver on quality.

“We haven’t let what’s happening with coffee prices changed the level of quality we buy, and we haven’t pivoted to [buying from] other regions. We will always source, roast, and serve the same high level of quality coffee we know our café partners and consumers expect from us,” he says.

Looking to the future, Campos Coffee is focused on doing what it’s done for the past 20 years – delivering quality coffee to its customers and continuing to remain a coffee pioneer.

“We’re transparent about our coffee program and our commitment at origin. We’re proud to show our coffee credentials and will continue to take our customers on a journey and share the world of coffee with them,” Adam says.

For more information, visit camposcoffee.com

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

A Happy Oat milk for happy baristas Lloyd Smith, founder of Happy happy Foods, discusses the brand’s new premium plant-based oat milk and explains how the team continues to embrace the challenge of climate responsibility.

H

appy happy Foods is proudly introducing its premium oat milk, Happy happy Oat Oat Oat. “This product has been designed to work with espresso to create a full bodied, creamy, and consistent oat latte,” says Lloyd.

Containing just six ingredients, including organic oats, Happy happy Oat Oat Oat is yet another success from the always environmentally conscious brand.

“We pride ourselves on providing nutritionally, environmentally happier products. Our aim is always to include the least amount of ingredients possible to still produce a delicious creation,” says Lloyd.

He adds that this latest milk has been formulated to bring out the best possible flavour, taste and texture when paired with espresso, the way a barista standard oat milk should be.

“As is the case with all of our milks, the team have worked tirelessly to ensure that Happy happy Oat Oat Oat lives up to the title of ‘barista standard’,” Lloyd says.

Lloyd compares the oat milk to drinking a fine wine, explaining that each mouthful is “uniquely exciting”, from first sip to last.

“In the first sip, you’ll taste how the natural oat sugars complement espresso to deliver a uniquely sweet first impression, with absolutely no added sugar,” Lloyd says.

“The second sip embodies a mellowing sweetness, highlighting coffee notes and flavours, accompanied by a smooth creamy mouthfeel.”

On the third sip, Lloyd says customers should expect a harmonious balance of espresso and oat, and on the last, just “maximum happiness”.

The milk was created with the oat latte drinker in mind, with a deliberate emphasis on elevating the natural balanced sweetness.

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Happy happy Foods ensures its oat milk lives up to the title of ‘barista standard’.

Seven Seeds Coffee Roasters in Carlton, Victoria, utilises Happy happy Foods’ entire plant based milk range, comprising Happy happy Soy Boy, Happy happy Almond Daddy and Happy happy Oat Oat Oat. “Having a quality coffee roaster like Seven Seeds champion our milks at their venue is really a testament to the calibre of our products,” Lloyd says.

Like all of Happy happy Foods’ products, Happy happy Oat Oat Oat is also 100 per cent carbon neutral.

In Australia and New Zealand, the CarbonCloud calculated climate footprint of the product is 0.73 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram.

Publishing the carbon score of its products is one facet of Happy happy Foods’ ‘Climate Happy!’ program which aims to measure, reduce, and offset its carbon emissions.

“We think it’s important to hold ourselves accountable and include our climate score on the packaging for maximum transparency,” says Lloyd.

It also allows Happy happy Foods to highlight the carbon efficiency of its products, so customers can pick up a carton and make an informed decision on their carbon emissions like they would their nutrition.

“We need to make products that are better for the environment than those of

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The oat milk has been formulated to bring out the best flavour, taste and texture when paired with espresso.

the generation before us,” Lloyd says.

He adds that climate change is the greatest challenge of our generation.

“Our products need to be better for the environment and nutritionally better than the product they are replacing. Introducing sustainable and environmentally conscious products helps others reduce their impact,” Lloyd says.

“Our team are passionate about being climate responsible on both a product and personal level. Happy happy Foods was born of a belief that we should never underestimate how we personally can contribute to making change. Individual humans, individual businesses and governments all share the responsibility to take action against global warming and climate change.”

Every member of the Happy happy Foods team is a Carbon Neutral Human.

“To achieve this, each staff member completed an independent assessment to measure their individual climate footprint. The data in each of our individual reports enables us to then make changes to our habits and lifestyles to reduce our carbon footprint,” says Lloyd.

“To ensure each of our team members then become Carbon Neutral, Happy happy Foods purchases Carbon Credit offsets using [national energy and carbon management consultancy] Pangolin Associates. Currently, our credits support the Music River Hydro Plant in Sumatra, Indonesia. This project addresses issues in rural Sumatra such as poor electricity access and the lack of quality employment opportunities – as well as fostering sustainable economic development.”

Lloyd says it is an exciting time for Happy happy Foods as it continues to expand its range to develop the perfect suite of café products.

“We’re also introducing our Happy happy Hot Chocolate and Happy happy Mumma Matcha to the market. The hot chocolate was curated with the finest drinking chocolate recipe to deliver a smoother tasting drink, using West African cocoa beans. Happy happy Mumma Matcha is ground from Australian-grown green tea leaves with no added sugar for the purest matcha latte,” Lloyd says.

“We want people to understand our brand mission, where we’ve come from and what we’re trying to achieve. Our aim is to give people plant-based choices that are delicious, nutritious, and environmentally superior.”

For more information, visit www.eatdrinkhappyhappy.com/climate-happy

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Portable choices Coffee Tools Distributing tells BeanScene about the new product offerings in its range and the value of portable equipment.

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ith the hospitality industry returning to a sense of normalcy following two years of sporadic lockdowns and density restrictions, Coffee Tools Distributing has a new variety of equipment available to help businesses thrive in the ‘new norm’ of operation.

Company Director Curtis Arnold has worked with portable espresso manufacturer Wacaco since its first product launch of the Minipresso, a convenient handheld espresso machine.

Along with its entire product range, Coffee Tools Distributing now supplies its newly released products: the Wacaco Picopresso 12-gram Basket, Picopresso Protective Sleeve, manual coffee grinder Exagrind, and Exagram compact coffee scale.

“As their Australian distributor, it would be wrong if we didn’t support all Wacaco products, but the fact of the matter is that they’re just fantastic.

The humble Minipresso was released in 2014, and its latest model, the Picopresso, is specifically designed for ground coffee, and is the most compact, true barista-style portable espresso machine,” Curtis says.

“I used it when I travelled to Canada recently for a couple of weeks. I used it every day, a couple of times a day, and it was very easy to use. The same can be said for the grinder and the scales. I had them all with me, and the workflow and quality are fantastic. It’s hard to believe something that compact and portable can produce such a nice cup of coffee.”

Along with consistent quality and portability, Curtis says the trio of products are ideal for consumers on a budget.

“If you don’t have the budget for a good espresso machine or aren’t willing to spend $1000, you can buy the Exagrind, Exagram, and Picopresso for less than half that price, and produce a quality espresso at home or take it with you camping, or to a friend’s house. That flexibility shows that Wacaco products are constantly evolving,” says Curtis.

Curtis says the light and durable Picopresso model can fit 18 grams of ground coffee, and with the basket

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Specifically designed for ground coffee, the Picopresso is a compact, baristastyle portable espresso machine.

width, the coffee bed is similar in proportion to a regular espresso machine.

“As their only distributor, we make sure to really support the brand. If there’s ever an issue with any Wacaco products, we’re right there to take care of the problem. We ensure the brand is well represented so customers can buy with confidence,” he says.

Another unique coffee maker now available from Coffee Tools Distributing as the newly announced official Australian supplier, is the VacOne Air Brewer, one of the first coffee brewers for home use that uses air to brew coffee.

“The VacOne creates a vacuum and pulls the water through the coffee grounds, applying air pressure to reach an even extraction and make a nice clean cup. It also makes a great cold brew in under five minutes. The patent-pending air brewing technology accelerates the extraction time to deliver an intense glass of cold brew in just four minutes,” Curtis says.

“Traditionally, cold brewing requires a 12 to 24-hour steeping process with a really coarse grind, but the electric air brewer can make coffee at the press of a button. You can charge it over USB in two hours to make over 100 cups of coffee on a single charge.”

For those who prefer filtered coffee, the Loca Zero-waste Ceramic Coffee Filter has also joined the Coffee Tools Distributing line-up.

“The ceramic filter is a new type of coffee filter that uses the porous function of ceramic to filter coffee naturally through miniscule holes in the ceramic, meaning you don’t need to use filter paper to make drip coffee,” says Curtis.

“Washable and usable many times over, this eco-filter helps to actually change the taste of the coffee as well, removing any harsh or odd tastes from the coffee, letting you enjoy coffee to its full potential.”

With espresso and filter coffee devices accounted for, Coffee Tools Distributing is excited to offer the second generation NanoFoamer, a battery-operated microfoam milk maker for milk-based espresso beverages.

“The NanoFoamer creates microfoamed milk that has bubbles so small, they become invisible. The milk transforms into a liquid velvety texture and blends perfectly with the espresso and crema. You can even create latte art with it, it’s that good,” Curtis says.

“While the first generation NanoFoamer required you to hold a button in and apply pressure to keep it on, the second generation NanoFoamer

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has been improved with a momentary on-and-off switch and increased durability, along with a lithium-ion, rechargeable battery version. It only takes 30 seconds to make a fantastic coffee as good as or better than what you’d have in a local café.”

Due to the rise in home-use equipment use, Curtis predicts the portable nature of the new releases will prove to be popular in the Australian market.

“During COVID-19 we actually had a spike in sales because people were working from home and didn’t have access to the nice coffeemaker they had at work. They wanted to improve the quality of their experience at home with easy-to-use equipment,” he says.

“We strive to get our products out the door as quick as we can, but with the constant additions to our range, we’re looking at new warehouse space from early next year to cater for the increase.”

Coffee Tools Distributing has been supplying the Australian hospitality industry with premium coffee equipment and support for more than 15 years. Its product list will only continue to grow with Grosche International’s coffee, tea, and hydration equipment soon to join the company’s portfolio, with profits

used to fund the Grosche Safe Water Project.

The Safe Water Project gives community members access to safe drinking water by installing Biosand water filters in remote and poor locations.

The project currently impacts impoverished communities in South Sudan, Uganda, Malawi, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

CO-Tube is a system capable of accelerating the degassing time with nitrogen injection, in a deep vacuum environment. A closed-handling system almost allows zero-oxygen process conditions, making it unique to guarantee the maximum aroma preservation with significant savings in terms of inert gas used during the process.

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“We share a similar morality of putting the environment first. We’re grateful to contribute to the Safe Water Project by distributing their products here in Australia, and we’re exploring how we can work together to have even more of a positive impact on the environment,” Curtis says.

For more information, visit www.coffeetools.supply The VacOne Air Brewer is a unique product that uses air to brew coffee.

INDUSTRY PROFILE

Apple of our eye New product launches come in all shapes and sizes, and for its first Australian release post-COVID, MONIN is embracing a fun, fruity flavour, that invites café operators to be creative with their drinks menu.

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ometimes the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and in the case of MONIN’s new product release, it only had to look to the taste preferences of Aussie consumers to know it was time to add a new fruit flavour to its product line-up.

“We are so excited to launch MONIN Fuji Red Apple into the Australian market. We love our apples and have had a red apply shaped hole in our menus for too long,” says John Davidson, Head of Advocacy and Innovation at Stuart Alexander, an exclusive distributor of MONIN in Australia.

In recent years, MONIN noticed how popular the red apple flavour has become – a classic flavour but one that had been forgotten about in past years.

To bring it back to life, MONIN embarked on a year of product development to best capture the essence of Fuji Red Apple favours into a puree format. With MONIN’s apple suppliers sourced mainly from France and Italy, samples and refinements of the puree took months between test samples set back between the European suppliers and MONIN’s R&D team based in Malaysia. Once the recipe was approved, a special machine at the MONIN lab that controls ambience, airflow and temperature was used to accelerate the product’s shelf life, with one month inside the machine the equivalent to three months in the ‘real world’. The goal is for all MONIN products is to have 18 months shelf life.

“We had to get the flavour right and even when we got it to be ‘good’, I kept pushing our team to make improvements so that it would be great. This is one of the philosophies I and our R&D team hold – the aim to get the best flavour out of every product we can,” says J’son Soon, MONIN Beverage Innovation Manager, South East Asia.

This is the first time since COVID-19 that MONIN has launched a new product flavouring in Australia. The Fuji Red Apple puree is already released in Asia, and for the first time, Australians got a first look and taste at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo.

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John Davidson prepares a Fuji Mint Frappe with MONIN’s new Fuiji Red Apple puree.

At the MONIN stand, John served Iced Orchard Lattes, an infused iced latte of Fuji Red Apple Puree with De’Longhi’s nitro cool espresso and oat milk; and Fuji Mint Frappe, a slushy of MONIN Fuji Red Apple Puree, MONIN Mojito mix, MONIN frappe mix and purified water.

“The Fuji Red Apple puree is made from 50 per cent non-artificial whole fruit by using a machine to press the apples into a puree form to retain its microfibres. It is this process that gives the puree an authentic red apple taste and texture. The remaining half is made from pure sugar cane to help retain the product’s shelf life.

“Compared to MONIN’s other apple products, the Red Apple Fuji is a more fresh, crisp, refreshing, and not so acidic product. Some have even likened it to apple jam because of its thicker consistency. I like this feature because when it’s mixed with other flavours or products, like coffee, it enhances the

body of the drink,” J’son says.

“When you first taste it, you get a hit of the apple flesh flavour, and not so much of the apple skin. It’s quite a unique profile. At the same time, there’s a hint of honey and floral aroma that balances the puree nicely.”

In the Asian market, J’son says the product is embraced by café owners wanting to use it to create apple tea, apple juice, in sparkling water, ice creams and some even mix it with beer to create a ‘slushy’. While it’s potential is limitless, in the Australian market, J’son expects the flavour to be used in coffee cocktails or mocktails – with a hint of lemon or lime juice, herbs and spices perhaps – and experimental signature beverages with the assistance of MONIN’s local representatives to help adapt the product to the local market and culture.

“The Fuji Red Apple flavour isn’t too strong, so baristas have the ability

to play around with it when pairing it with coffee. They can use an espresso base to make a coffee application with a hint of the Fuji Red Apple puree, which will give the beverage sweetness. Coffee is already complex so use of the Fuji Red Apple puree should be simple and not overly complicated,” J’son says.

He adds that it can also be used in cold beverages such as a refreshing cold brew. Just 30 millilitres is all that’s needed for a standard portion when used in coffee applications, with one bottle going a long way to help establish a café’s creative beverage menu.

With 110 years of commitment to flavour development, J’son says the French-founded company continues to evolve in order to Fuji Red Apple puree is made from 50 per cent non-artificial whole fruit.

After decades honing our craft alongside top cafes, our new Discovery Range for grocery stores is dedicated to making delicious specialty coffee even more accessible. offer consumers around the globe products that embody quality ingredients. As such, J’son says the company is in a period of transition, or as he describes it, “a switch project” where all previous flavours from previous suppliers are converting to use of only natural ingredients.

“Our R&D team are working hard to deliver this project. They always tell me, ‘Jason, to invent a new product is so easy, but to change a product is so hard because you have to redevelop its profile, its look, colour and texture’. It’s a big challenge,” he says. “Today, about 70 per cent of our products feature in one of three categories. They either contain non-artificial flavours, non-artificial colours, or non-artificial preservatives. We are passionate about making the switch to ensure our products are made of premium ingredients.”

With this assurance and commitment, J’son says all that’s left to do is for café operators to get their hands on a bottle of MONIN to experience the difference themselves, and experiment with the possibilities that Fuji Red Apple puree has to offer.

“With today’s current generation and levels of creativity and ability, anything is possible when it comes to flavour,” he says.

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

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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Darcy St. Project students offered a Five Senses limited release coffee at its Stanmore venue to raise donations.

United to do good StreetSmart Australia shares achievements and highlights from CafeSmart 2022 and discusses why charity initiatives are so important.

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n the main fundraising day of the annual CafeSmart charity event on 5 August, Cynthia Mac Caddon, Partnerships Manager of StreetSmart Australia, says she was overwhelmed with the support shown by the coffee community.

“It’s amazing how coffee can make this happen. If it wasn’t for the cafés that participated in CafeSmart, we wouldn’t be able to support our many community partners. These cafés are the ones who are raising awareness of homelessness and supporting charities in a local way,” Cynthia says.

Organised by StreetSmart, CafeSmart 2022 returned for its 12th year running from 1 to 7 August. The event focuses on raising funds for local homelessness organisations across Australia, with participating cafés putting up signs and posters with QR codes, encouraging café customers to donate the cost of a coffee.

The week-long event encourages participating café staff to don yellow outfits and celebrate community spirit with their customers. On Friday 5 August, more than 660 cafés donated $1 per coffee sold, with StreetSmart distributing funds to local charities that

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provide vital homeless services in their local area.

“These funds support grassroots charities that provide vital services like temporary accommodation, meals, personal hygiene products, and more for those at risk or experiencing homelessness,” says Cynthia.

“This also includes access to mental health programs, supplying smart clothes for job interviews, or a hearty nutritious meal for vulnerable people.”

This year, Cynthia says one stand-out partner was Five Senses Coffee, which turned its Barista Academies into pop-up cafés to raise donations. On 5 August at its Stanmore, New South Wales venue, students from local social enterprise Darcy St. Project offered customers a special Tanzania limited release coffee.

Darcy St. Project helps break the cycle of homelessness, unemployment, and social exclusion by using education, coffee, and food culture as a vehicle for social impact.

“Apart from helping us recruit [cafés to join CafeSmart], Five Senses turned their Barista Academies into pop-up cafés for the first time ever. As loyal supporters of CafeSmart, Five Senses have been roasting specialty coffee for 22 years and were one of the first supporters of CafeSmart, going on

12 years ago. This year, they stepped things up a notch, activating pop-up style cafés around the country to pour a super special, yet-to-be-released drop, the Acacia Hills Gesha, all while raising vital funds,” she says.

Cynthia says another great example of a participating café was Told You So café in North Lakes, Queensland, which used a fundraising thermometer to track its café’s donations.

“This family run café in the North Lakes does amazing every year. Their fundraising efforts to reach a goal and engage with their community is incredible. They set themselves a $1000 goal and they raised $1235,” Cynthia says.

“We are so grateful to all our roaster partners and every one of the 669 cafés that made CafeSmart 2022 possible.

CafeSmart is a celebration of the coffee industry that gives back to their local communities, and we love to see the teams getting behind our campaign.”

Each year during CafeSmart, the event recognises top industry campaigners and participants that significantly contribute to funds raised with dedicated awards and prizes.

Single O, a New South Wales coffee roastery, won CafeSmart’s Top Roaster award, singlehandedly connecting 81

cafés in its network to the campaign.

According to Cynthia, Single O was one of the first coffee roasters to get involved in CafeSmart and always looks for new ways to increase their support. This year, Single O donated $5 from every coffee bag sold, and its Botany, Carriageworks, and Surry Hills cafés donated $1 per coffee sold too.

Supporters also helped raise awareness through social media. By taking a photo using the CafeSmart logo as inspiration and hash tagging #CafeSmart, supporters were entered into a photo competition.

The major photo competition winner, receiving a $500 La Marzocco merchandise pack was The Hatter and The Hare in Victoria. Runner-up winners included Laneway Coffee in Northern Territory, POD café in Victoria, Three Blue Ducks in New South Wales, and Kwikk Coffee Banskia in Western Australia. Each received a $500 Brewtech voucher.

“A huge thanks to all the cafés that snapped some amazing photos to share the essence of CafeSmart,” says Cynthia.

Thanks to their efforts, The Bodhi Tree in Western Australia won the National Top Fundraiser award, and Brunetti Classico in Victoria won Best New Café.

“Every café who gets involved has an

impact on their community, and in some cases, cafés go beyond the call of duty, so hats off to our National Top Fundraiser Café The Bodhi Tree for raising a whopping $1850 with their coffee sales, and also to our Best New Cafe, Brunetti Classico, for championing the event and raising more than $1500 on their first year of participation,” Cynthia says.

Cynthia says Brunetti Classico’s participation was thanks to CafeSmart’s roaster partners Griffiths Bros, who encouraged them to take part.

“Coffee is synonymous with community, and we’re excited to be joining CafeSmart in the fight against homelessness in our hood,” says Peter Patisteas, Managing Director at Griffiths Bros.

Cynthia adds a further special mention to Locale Roasters for fundraising the most through its Eco Warrior Community Initiative Fund, and to Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters, for designing its own CafeSmart branded t-shirts.

Last year’s CafeSmart participating cafés helped support 96 homeless projects across all states and territories.

Bridge It, a charity in St Kilda, Victoria, providing housing solutions for women aged 25 or over, was one of the seed funding projects that CafeSmart 2021 supported. Participating cafés in

the area helped raise funds for two of its new residential programs, buying much needed items for women’s rooms.

“Chameleon Regional Community Housing in Redcliffe, Queensland, is another great example on how CafeSmart small community grants can make a huge difference. The young people they support arrived with very few possessions, and CafeSmart funds allowed them to purchase much needed items such as clothing,” says Cynthia.

In 2021, CafeSmart raised $169,000, which was split across 96 community grants. While the total number of raised funds for 2022 are still being finalised, Cynthia says the event has currently raised more than $140,000, with more donations still coming in.

“Considering how challenging this year has been, we can’t wait to start distributing these much-needed funds to our community partners across Australia,” she says.

“The rewarding part is participants can go back to their local cafés and hear where their donations have gone and know they’ve supported their local community.”

For more information, visit www.streetsmartaustralia.org/ cafesmart.

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COMMUNITY NOTES

Make it count My Coffee Counts Founders discuss the modern way cafés can reward loyal customers and support local community charities.

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offee shops are the community hubs of our time: a place to meet, engage, converse, and connect, says Derek Potts, one of three Co-Founders of My Coffee Counts.

“As a coffee shop owner, you want to build a business based on loyalty, service, and a shared goal to make a positive difference in the lives of your patrons and the wider community,” Derek says.

“My Coffee Counts is a free, easy, digital loyalty solution.”

Derek says the phenomenon of the ‘loyalty card free coffee’ often relies on

Through the My Coffee Counts app, customers have the option to take or donate their free coffee to a local charity.

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outdated punch cards, which can now be replaced by an app-driven customer experience.

“By rolling out the free My Coffee Counts app in your store, you’ll be providing customers with direct online access to your products and offers. This will enable both digital engagement and the opportunity to integrate a valuable charitable giving program directly supporting community needs,” he says.

According to Co-Founder Ken Johnstone, when it comes time to reward a loyal customer, they have the option to take or donate their free coffee in support of local community-based charities. Donations support projects

across a diverse range of services with support mechanisms and opportunities in local communities.

“My Coffee Counts is proud to partner with the Surf Life Saving Foundation to support their vital community service. With over 181,000 surf lifesaver members, they are always there for your community,” Ken says.

“With My Coffee Counts, now is your chance to give back to the selfless volunteers who save thousands of lives every year in your community.”

The company also donates to the Community Living Association (CLA) which has been operating and providing services in Australia since 1987.

“CLA manages a range of programs that provide support, create opportunities, and promote independence for people with disability or the young at risk. They work with families, people with mental health issues and with cognitive disabilities,” Ken says.

“We deliberately selected established charity partners with a network of associated, grass roots community groups to benefit from this endeavour.

These are charities focused on local people and local issues, charities who don’t have big marketing budgets and resources, often achieving significant local impact despite limited resources.”

My Coffee Counts was originally intended to launch in March 2020, before COVID-19 and lockdowns resulted in its postponement. The app has been trialled and tested locally in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast with before its official launch at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo.

Ken says the app is unique in that it empowers coffee shops with a fully functioning customer loyalty, ordering and digital payment solution. It’s built on the foundations of charitable giving and the strength of communities.

“We’re trying to help small business as much as we can, as they’ve arguably suffered the most throughout the pandemic. When you’re dealing with a very low volume of staff, the last thing you need is more expense. We’ve provided a solution to both the café industry and charities, as the app is

offered at no cost. Therefore, there is a benefit for all participants. We’re rewarding those who reward others,” Ken says.

“My Coffee Counts is all about seamlessly managing your customer experience, updating offers, and notifying customers about the things they want to see. It enables patrons to donate with just one touch from one purpose-built application for free.”

Derek says the three Co-Founders – Ken, Colin Williams, and himself – interviewed about 100 businesses and their staff who used free coffee loyalty programs prior to COVID-19. They found that 60 per cent of café customers were willing to donate a free coffee to charity instead of keeping it for themselves.

“When we trialled the solution early in 2022, 11 per cent of people were donating their free coffee to charity.

That’s grown to 25 per cent and now we’re sitting at 35 per cent on average.

We’d love for that number to grow to 60 per cent and are confident we will achieve this,” he says.

The Co-Founders say the My Coffee Counts app, which the customer downloads to use, replaces outdated loyalty cards. It provides online

ordering, a self-controlled menu, and daily special offers, all with a secure digital payment gateway.

“Café owners need to print loyalty cards three or four times a year, which can cost $1700 each time. That’s a significant saving if you use our app instead,” says Derek.

“It also facilitates convenience, as customers can pre-order their coffee so it’s ready for them when they arrive.

Instead of having a queue of 20 people that want to order, pay, and wait, now half of them are prepaid, so the café can prepare their orders quicker and cut the queue in half.

“The response we’re getting since the initial launch has been fantastic. We’re talking about removing costs, expediting service, giving cafés new facilities to build business, and tapping into new ways of servicing customers.”

The application currently operates out of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, but the Founders are in discussion with Victorian and Sydney roasters to expand its reach and look forward to creating regional hubs around Australia.

Ken says the app is changing the loyalty and rewards order-pay-go game, and that it’s time to make every coffee count.

“For companies looking to grow their business, create and develop customer loyalty, simplify operations, and embrace a more effective digital engagement, it’s called My Coffee Counts. It’s free, it’s easy, and you can get started today,” Ken says.

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

The My Coffee Counts app provides the locations of all participating cafés near the consumer.

Training Feature

Coffee roasting consultant Anne Cooper says each educational tasting pack explores a different roasting approach.

Education you can taste Anne Cooper of Equilibrium Master Roasters explains the value of her new educational tasting packs, Explorations in Roasting, for novice and expert roasters alike.

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ccording to Anne Cooper, also known as Roastress Coops, there’s a “minefield” of misinformation about how to roast coffee, most commonly that people believe the brand of roasting machine will create specific types of flavours for them.

To help remedy this misconception, Anne of Equilibrium Master Roasters in collaboration with fellow Australian roaster Ecre, has created four specially curated Educational Tasting Packs, each exploring a specific roasting approach.

“The first tasting pack is based on how to recognise and manage roast defects. Without the appropriate roasting approach, coffee can come out overdeveloped, underdeveloped,

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scorched, or baked. These can all ruin the flavour of entire batches of coffee.

Known as ‘roast defects’, these mistakes typically occur when the roasting machine is setup incorrectly or when roasters lack information on what’s going on during key points of the roast. This is a great starting point before we move onto the next tasting packs,” says Anne.

“The following two boxes focus on roast profiles. The aim is to explore, define and show how flavours are impacted, or not, by focusing on the wrong or right data points and various changes to specific phases in the roast profile. These packs will show you how to create specific flavour profile nuances in terms of making coffee taste bright or sweet, and controlling whether the coffee

has a big body or a slightly lighter body with more acidity.

“The final pack concerns roasting systems. A big myth in roasting is that a machine will give coffee a certain flavour, when in fact, it’s the profile that influences flavour, not the machine.

This pack will bust this myth and show roasters how to achieve the same flavour when matching the same profile and coffee on two different machines.”

Training is something Anne Cooper has always been passionate about throughout her 30 years of experience in the coffee industry. Initially honing her skills training baristas, for the past seven years, Anne has since coached roasters globally of all levels through her Melbourne-based business.

Training Feature Anne says it’s always been a big dream of hers to create tasting packs to encourage more consistent roasting standards in the industry, and now it’s been made a reality.

“The standards that are involved with brewing and cupping are universal and it would be great if roasting was the same where there’s a suggested baseline approach to start with. Now in the first roast profile pack, there’s a suggested approach on how to roast a light, medium and dark roast. It’s a clear guide and backbone to uplift those standards. You don’t have to like the taste, but at least you know how it was created, which is the key. And it doesn’t really matter what machine you’re on, that roast profile can be translated to any machine,” Anne says.

Roasters can scan the QR code on each pack for access to all the roasting information as well as instructions on setting up cupping, or a suggested brew recipe for the steeped bag.

“Sydney-based Ecre managed the manufacturing of the packaging. The coffee is placed in steeped bags with two samples of each profile iteration in each pack. Roasters can either brew the coffee by steeping the bag and drinking it or break open the bag and do a cupping with the grind. We understand roasters enjoy tasting the different sensations of brewed or cupped coffee, so it’s been specifically designed to make preparation and analysis easy,” says Anne.

The packs are nitrogen flushed to keep the samples fresh, and the steeped bags are 100 per cent biodegradable.

“The tangible nature of the packs is beneficial as I also have many roasters that I work with internationally. With these samples, I can send them abroad and still conduct an online session with them after they’ve had a chance to taste the samples. It also works around a roasters busy schedule and allows them to explore the packs at their leisure,” Anne says.

All samples are prepared using the same washed Colombia coffee variety from the Association of Women Agricultural Producers of Cauca (AMACA), a group of women producers located in El Tambo, Cauca, Colombia.

“It was really important for me to use a women’s coffee as I’m passionate about elevating women producers. I really like working with Colombian coffees as well because they’re great to experiment with given the great range of fruity and acidic flavours, but also great body and sweetness,” Anne says.

She says this opens the door for possible future developments of the four

The coffee in each pack can be brewed or cupped based on personal preference.

tasting packs, given her hunch that many users will question how the packs fair with natural or experimental processed coffees.

“I’m eager to see where I take these packs in the future, and whether I create iterations with different coffees, using different machines and profiles.

It’s really exciting, the possibilities are endless,” she says.

When creating the educational tasting packs, Anne drew inspiration from common queries she received throughout her consulting and training sessions.

“I started to see a common theme that people were always asking, ‘how do I know I’m doing the right thing?’ Many roasters are comparing themselves to other roasters and want their own point of difference, so hopefully this helps them be more decisive. These tasting packs allow roasters to find something that they really like, or recognise what’s happening in their roasting. It might then also give them an opportunity to fix their mistake or even pat themselves on the back,” she says.

“Sometimes all a roaster wants to know is if they’re on the right track and having someone neutral, like myself, to

give good, solid advice that is practical and industry-relevant is really helpful.”

Anne says the tasting packs are suitable for both experienced and beginner roasters.

“Now more than ever we’re seeing a lot of people approach roasting, so I think this is a great way to better support them.

My focus is to give my clients a clear idea of what’s involved in roasting and explain a lot of the ‘whys’ behind the process, from novices who have never had formal training to experienced roasters who don’t mind checking in to make sure they’re on the right track or want to try something different. It can really help satisfy all levels in the industry,” she says.

“The biggest message to take away is that with these packs and suggested baseline profiles, I’m in no way saying that I’m right. These educational tasting packs are a way to help show roasters how they can better analyse their own roast profiles and be more decisive about their own roasting, and flavours,” says Anne.

For more information and to access the Explorations in Roasting Educational Tasting Packs, visit www.eqmr.com.au.

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Training Feature

Grinders Coffee offers a threetiered training program that meets the needs of its customers.

Grounds for a good day

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Grinders Coffee explains its tiered training programs through classroom and in-café settings.

s one of the first established coffee roasters in Australia, launched in 1962, Grinders Coffee has long been involved in pioneering and shaping the Australian coffee industry, and the internationally recognised Melbourne coffee culture.

This year, Grinders celebrates its 60th anniversary. Just as it’s grown as a business, Grinders Coffee Marketing Manager Burcu De La Cruz says the company continues to grow its training offering.

“After 60 years, we have proven experience and expertise in coffee training and education. As a partner, we continue to share our knowledge and innovation learnings,” says Burcu.

Grinders offers a three-tiered training program that meets the needs of its customers. It helps build their confidence

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and knowledge with equipment and creates recipes and latte art to impress and amaze.

“We offer an extensive crop to cup coffee education, created to build knowledge and practical skills. The Fundamentals training program builds confidence in using equipment and understanding of the coffee process or can simply refresh your skill set. The Intermediate program is targeted to baristas who want to advance and take control of their coffee space,” Burcu says.

“Finally, the Advanced course provides the opportunity for baristas to build on their coffee knowledge, understanding Brew ratios, building recipes, and advanced latte art.”

The Fundamentals training program is four hours and split into three sections.

The first covers the journey from crop to cup, while the second part is designed

to cover equipment, such as espresso technique and grinder concepts. The final section details how to make coffee, from espresso recipes to temperature and wand technique.

The Intermediate program is held over two and a half hours and split into three sections. It begins by diving into a more detailed view of the workstation, such as perfecting extraction and grinder adjustment. The second section covers how to handle tickets in a busy café, before finishing on how to create latte art.

The Advanced course is conducted over two and a half hours and starts with analysing coffee flavour, understanding all variables and setting volumetrics before moving onto more complex latte art skills. The final stage involves maintaining the investment of coffee equipment through cleaning and longterm support.

Training Feature “We have long had established training classrooms in each state to support our customers, however in recent years, we’ve really diversified our offering to focus on a balanced mix of classroom, in-café, and online training,” says Burcu.

To access any Grinders training videos, whether you’re an experienced or budding home barista, Burcu says customers can visit the Grinders website and look for the Education tab.

“With the recent growth of the athome barista, we’ve also released nine incredible video animations for the home coffee aficionado. These can be found on our website or YouTube channel,” she says.

At its core, Grinders aims to uncomplicate the coffee experience for its customers and arm them with the tools to pass the experience on to their consumers.

A team of coffee specialists lead all Grinders training programs, including Grinders Coffee Brand Ambassador, Jonathan ‘Jono’ Goldthorpe, Senior Coffee Specialists Glenn Bailey, Alec Zeta, and Dale Pollard. Each bring a wealth of knowledge and industry experience to the new program.

“Training and education begins with our team. Luckily for us, we have some great people in our business. Our training team has decades of combined experience, led by Glenn Bailey, who has owned and operated multiple cafés,” says Jono.

Jono says Glenn loves working with customers and showing them how they can boost their revenue by improving workflow, reducing wastage, and improving quality and consistency.

“We also have Dale Pollard, who placed third in the 2022 ASCA Northern Region Brewers Cup competition. Dale is infectiously passionate about brewing coffee and the biggest coffee geek in the team,” he says.

“Alec Zeta is our roasting expert and would also narrowly win most of the team latte art competitions. The two newest additions to the team are Stef Lowe and Daniel Radocaj. On top of being a coffee allrounder, Stef has exceptional customer relationships and is brilliant at supporting our customers in brewing and selling our single origin range.

“Daniel is an ex-fine dining chef who made the move to coffee over a decade ago. Dan has worked as a barista, technician, and account manager before taking up the new challenge of the coffee specialist role.”

Jono says the combined experience of the Grinders training team makes them an asset to the business. But having customers across over the country makes it difficult for the specialist team to visit them all.

“Luckily, we have Territory Managers dotted throughout the entire country, even in regional locations, to service all our customers. For this reason, the Coffee Specialist team focus a large

portion of their time each week to the development of the sales team who are visiting our customers every single day,” says Jono.

“Many of our sales team are already experienced coffee professionals. But we have a full onboarding and intensive coffee training program for all employees to ensure they have the tools to support our customers, no matter where they’re located.”

To Grinders, its café partners are part of its community. Burcu says the coffee brand truly believes the best way to achieve mutual growth is to work together.

“Our Coffee Ambassador, Jono Goldthorpe is responsible for growing the coffee culture internally and externally, both through communication, education, industry, and events,” she says.

Grinders is expanding its ambassador network and will be introducing a Customer Ambassador Program in 2023.

“This program will see us building a tight knit network of customers and baristas to hold intensive training sessions and workshops throughout the year, designed to improve coffee quality, customers knowledge and the consumer’s experience,” says Burcu.

“Jono has worked hard to make all our people our ambassadors and we’re excited to extend that to our customers.”

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

Grinders is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and continues to grow its training offering.

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Training Feature

A smarter way to train Barista Technology Australia explains how its suite of automated products are being used to train café staff effectively and keep costs down.

Perfect Moose allows baristas to texture milk while keeping their hands free.

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arista Technology Australia Director Brett Bolwell keeps hearing the same thing: “everybody’s struggling to get baristas”, and says it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

As more café operators apologise to customers for the cost of coffee going up, Brett says venues that are scared to raise their price for risk of losing clientele are going to carry a heavy burden. The only area they can mitigate some of those costs, is through labour and the use of technology.

“I was watching an efficiency video we did for a client, where we split the screen in half. On one side we showed a video of a barista manually tamping and steaming milk. On the other side of the screen was the barista using two automated products: the Perfect Moose and Puqpress. They both made three coffees and the barista that used the Perfect Moose [automated milk-steaming device] and Puqpress [automated tamper] was 40 seconds quicker than the manual operation,” Brett says.

“The ability, efficiency and consistency of these products are proven, now we just have to get creative in the way we deliver the message.”

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Brett says while most people now understand that automation can have a role in the way coffee is made, they don’t understand the actual net result of using such devices.

“No-one’s actually measuring the cost of recruitment and training, but I can tell you, it’s a lot,” Brett says.

“When I spoke to Eddy Nader [Managing Director of Urbanista Coffee], he said he was spending $500 a week just on recruitment for one person.

Then there’s the cost of training staff who last just two to three months before they up-and-leave, and the café owner has to go through the whole process again.”

While some café operators think the quick fix is to change coffee machines altogether, Brett says there’s a more costeffective fix.

“The in-between solution is simply adding a few Perfect Mooses and Puqpresses and saving a third of the cost it would be to change a fleet of espresso machines, and a quarter of the cost it would take in annual maintenance fees,” he says.

“Think about the breakdown of costs.

You can spent around $20,000 on a Perfect Moose, a grind-by-weight grinder and a Puqpress – which is going to cost

you under $1000 for service annually compared to a new machine at $30,000 to $35,000 for example, and servicing fees which can total anywhere between $7000 to $11,000 or more per year.”

And it’s not just the return on investment that’s appealing. Brett says a busy café doing around 350 to 500 coffees a day typically has a second barista on hand for about three hours a day. That person is costing the business about $35 an hour, plus superannuation and more on public holidays, which quickly tallies to about $150 a day minimum.

“The [return on investment] for a Puqpress and Perfect Moose is pretty simple. The equipment pays for itself in under eight months compared to paying an extra salary,” Brett says.

“One barista could effectively operate two three-group machines with three Perfect Mooses and do the work of three baristas. I know of one Seven Miles account doing about 70 kilograms a week, mostly with one barista thanks to the Perfect Moose.”

One of the most time-critical components of coffee making, is milk texturing. If an average coffee extraction is 28 to 32 seconds, texturing a jug of milk takes on average 40 seconds.

Manually, that time adds up. But rather than doing each step sequentially, Brett says a barista could be using the Perfect Moose to texture the milk and use their hands-free time to prepare cups for the next order, add sugars, take customer payment, or even prepare the next shot of coffee.

“What it does, is give you the ability to operate more efficiently, and ultimately, it’s less stress on the barista.

At the moment, keeping them should be a priority,” he says. “Most other industries are looking to offer workers incentives to keep them happy, but in the barista world, you’ve got to incentivise them with products that makes their job less stressful.”

Brett says businesses also need to be thinking about their longevity and surviving in an inflationary economy where businesses, and small operators in particular, are at risk of shutting doors if they can’t find ways to save.

Training Feature consistency. It’s also a device that helps businesses maintain a high level of quality control, even when non-skilled baristas are employed.

“Flow is becoming the benchmark of the tests across the industry. It’s going to enable competition within the industry where we start to put out results of customer’s favourite cafés through an online portal. Customers could then see which café is hitting 89 per cent of [set recipes], which is the venue you want to get your coffee at compared to one that is only hitting 50 per cent, for example,” Brett says.

To back-up the technology with support, Barista Technology Australia has trained more than 250 technicians in the last two years, providing nationwide customer support on its complete range of products.

“Coffee making has to be simplified.

We want people to be able to make their own on-site adjustments really easily, and simply. We don’t want them to have to call a technician or ring up a helpline to ask how to change the texture of the milk, how to make their tamp harder

or softer, change their recipes, or how to add more coffee into the basket. It’s something they need to be able to do, and they can be taught in under 10 minutes with our products,” Brett says.

The future of training, Brett adds, is now, and its future, is in video format.

“My goal, to convert a three-hour face-to-face training session with a threeminute video, and democratise training across the entire industry,” he says.

“Current training is only adding more costs to the current commodity when the goal is to drive the cost down.

“The overall goal is to make the industry more sustainable. If I’m helping people who have put their livelihood and everything they own into their business, like most of us, then I want to see them succeed. I don’t want them to be a statistic, and the statistics of failure rates are there and real, so we’re hoping we can do some good and change people’s minds. Once we’ve moved forward, there’s no turning back.

For more information, visit baristatechnology.com.au

The investment in automated products, such as the Mythos grind by weight grinder, can be a cost effective decision.

“Automation is part of our society now. Humans are still there to provide a level of customer service and share their knowledge, but I think if businesses aren’t looking to include at least one automated product in their equipment line-up, then they’ve completely missed the boat. If your barista is still weighing shots manually instead of grinding by weight, or manually tamping instead of automated tamping, you’re being left behind,” Brett says.

“You need to be monitoring what’s actually going on in your business. If you want to continue to train people properly, you need to know when they’re having problems and how to address them. That’s where products like Flow telemetry are so important. The amount of conversations we’re having now about the product is just nothing short of ridiculous. I’m talking to businesses with thousands of sites, and they all want this data and insight knowledge. I think everybody’s finally realised that what’s not measured can’t be improved on.”

The Flow system is designed as a tool to help coffee businesses monitor the output and skills of baristas in a constructive way, with information and data about how they hit or miss set recipes, and maintain extraction

The Flow telemetry system is designed to help coffee businesses monitor the output and skills of baristas in a constructive way.

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Training Feature

Tailored solutions Nestlé Professional shares how its training and education programs are expanding to cater to market needs in a post-pandemic environment.

Joanna “Jo” Yuen (pictured left) is a National Barista Trainer at Nestlé Professional.

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ith more people returning to workplaces and a sense of normalcy now retained in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nestlé Professional Barista Trainer Joanna “Jo” Yuen says the total beverage solutions provider has evolved its educational focus and communication methods to accommodate for the ‘new norm’.

“We’re back to doing a lot of onsite face-to-face barista training. We now have dedicated state champions who conduct barista training, and we work with nationally accredited training centres in major cities, available to our customers free of charge,” Jo says.

“We also still offer virtual training sessions, and have a range of barista training videos, available to customers upon request. Our quality control and technical operations teams also provide training for our automated push-button machines.”

COVID-19 has taught trainers how to be more tech savvy and adaptable to

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digital teaching, however, Jo says the art of making a great cup of coffee still remains a practical skill.

“I believe our resources will continue to provide budding baristas with good foundational knowledge before practical training, however, training will always benefit from the professional in-person touch. I’m so excited to teach all our customers in a hands-on learning environment again,” she says.

Barista training services have become an even stronger company focus in light of workforce shortages, high turnover, and a gap in skilled or trained employees, says Nestlé Professional Oceania General Manager Scott Stuckmann.

“With a lack of staff being a major issue in the industry right now, many employees are having to take on extra responsibilities. The front of house manager at a hotel who usually checks people in, may now be the person who makes coffee too. Businesses are finding it really hard to get baristas and if they do find baristas, they turn over quickly, as many hospitality workers are on

temporary visas. That’s where Jo and our state champion trainers come in,” Scott says.

“Our trainers are helping bridge the gap and providing a competitive advantage for hospitality companies.

By teaching staff how to create a quality brew, we’re helping our customers to ensure consistent quality of service, which in turn leads to greater customer retention and increased profitability.”

Also helping Nestlé Professional customers with skilled staff shortages and the demand to retain high volume and quality output, is its fleet of automatic and semi-automatic bean-tocup machines. The NESCAFÉ Fusion and We Proudly Serve Starbucks machines allow operators to serve barista-quality coffee without needing to recruit experienced staff.

“Equipped with the latest brewed coffee and espresso technology, the commercial coffee machines are userfriendly and can offer a wide selection of the most popular hot and iced beverages made,” Scott says.

Training Feature “Through the We Proudly Serve Starbucks Coffee Program, our customers and operators can serve a globally recognised brand and their iconic beverages in their own business.

It’s a one-stop solution, which includes beverage ingredients, equipment, branded point-of-sale kits and menu boards. From helping customers to identify the ideal solution for their business, to driving sales growth with seasonal campaigns, there’s a commitment to true partnership.”

“This is how we’ve supported the industry, not only by offering automated solutions and maintaining a consistent income for staff but providing baristas with the opportunity to upskill.”

Even on the return to business operations after COVID-19 restrictions, Nestlé Professional helped reboot the equipment of many of its large customers that had machinery sitting idle for a long time.

Within four months, Jo trained more than 300 cruise ship staff so that tourists returning to international travel could enjoy barista-quality coffee on the extended voyage.

“They only had a small window to dock, get all equipment on board, and train their staff. Jo was training the employees day in day out, along with our technical and operations teams,” Scott says.

“We also employed virtual account

managers to ensure we reached our customers in regional areas, all across Australia. We wanted to ensure our clients, which include accommodation, travel and leisure, bakeries, cafés, pubs and clubs, as well as businesses in the education sector, were all receiving the support and training they needed. By dedicating resources that solely focuses on virtual visits, we have the ability to connect with them frequently, while still maintaining a large fleet of salespeople on the ground.”

Scott adds that Nestlé Professional’s sales team supported customers by hand delivering stock and supporting them with complimentary product to ensure they had the stock they needed when the industry began facing supply chain issues.

“Our priority is to work closely with our customers to find the best ways to regrow their volumes, whether that’s with additional point of sale materials, marketing activations or consulting on their repertoire of coffee blends,” he says.

It’s this business co-operation and customer focus that saw Nestlé Professional named the 2022 Foodservice Association Australia Beverage Supplier of the Year, further testament to Nestlé Professional’s more than 150 years of global experience.

By the end of 2022, customers will have another reason to value Nestlé

Professional whole roasted beans, which will all feature Rainforest Alliance certification.

As part of Nestlé’s Net Zero Roadmap, Nestlé has made the commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and have 100 per cent of its coffee responsibly sourced by 2025. This means that the coffee can be traced back to an identified farmer group and verified or certified by independent organisations.

“More than 80 per cent of the total energy at our Gympie factory comes from renewable sources, including used coffee grounds. This kind of circular innovation is a great example of sustainability in action,” Scott says.

Going into 2023, Nestlé Professional Barista Trainer Jo says the coffee industry is in a very different place compared to this time last year, and it will be important to keep evolving.

“We’ll continue to incorporate feedback to make our educational support and resources even better and more accessible to our customers. With Nestlé’s longstanding history, we support our customers’ success in their business by finding and partnering them up with the right solutions, backed with the support they need,” Jo says.

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

Jo’s responsibility at Nestlé Professional is to impart her knowledge and infectious enthusiasm to budding baristas.

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CAFÉ SCENE

Kirsty Marchant and Ben Ing – the former Gardener and Head Chef at Restaurant Noma in Copenhagen – have just begun a new project in the coastal Western Australian town of Busselton. Alberta’s is a small venue that rings true to the philosophies of Kirsty and Ben, led by serving seasonal produce.

“We wanted to be in the country so that we could be close to the produce but also so we can feel the seasons,” Kirsty says.

She explains Alberta’s direct link with local growers and producers, which includes the small team of four regularly picking up produce from nearby farms, and a blackboard menu which changes almost daily.

“We let the growers pretty much dictate what’s on the menu and change it when the produce calls for it,” she says.

The produce-driven menu sometimes offers just 10 serves of a particular dish.

Pending the climate and season, broths are a standout on Alberta’s menu, including chicken-bone broth simmered with charred vegetables and seaweed, and seasoned with lemongrass.

Alberta’s foundational values of

The team of Alberta’s is passionate about serving seasonal produce to the town of Busselton.

cultivating direct relationships with producers and working with seasonal produce led them to collaborate with Five Senses Coffee Roasters.

“We wanted to collaborate with Five Senses due to their shared commitment to having a relationship with and visiting their farmers,” Kirsty says.

Alberta’s prepares its single origin batch brew using a Marco Bru, and rotates the coffee seasonally, just like it does its menu

Image: Josh Ball

Local growers dictate what’s on Alberta’s menu based on seasonality and availability.

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Image: Josh Ball

ALBERTA’S 3/55 Queen Street, Busselton, Western Australia, 6280 See @allbertas_busselton on Instagram for changing days and hours of operation

around seasonality and food availability.

“Something we love about Five Senses is that they’re also seasonal,” Kirsty says.

She elaborates that it doesn’t make sense that Alberta’s coffee offerings should be the same year-round. “It’s alive,” she says.

“There is always consistency in quality, but outside of that, consistency isn’t important to us. We want the coffee to react differently to different situations, and we want to be using the coffee that is good now, not last year or last season.”

At time of print, Alberta’s espresso, prepared with a Modbar two-group machine, was a Colombian Risaralda single origin from Five Senses. Kirsty says the Risaralda works well black, and with milk. “It’s juicy,” she says. “There’s a little honey or maple syrup note, with red berries.” She adds that some customers specifically come to Alberta’s for the Risaralda single origin. “They’ve never tasted that flavour in a coffee before, where it’s so clean,” she says.

Working sustainably is core to Alberta’s food and coffee, and its design, which incorporates recycled Australian timbers, and second-hand crockery, cutlery, and furnishings.

The design intentionally dissolves traditional boundaries, allowing the small team to seamlessly cross between food and coffee preparation, and service.

“There is no front or back of house – we didn’t build it that way. Having no barriers was really important to us,” Kirsty says.

It is this unique structure that has helped Alberta’s to facilitate community-building.

“It’s been rewarding to open a little 30-seater and suddenly know so many people that are doing so many special things, that are also our guests,” she says.

Dumbo has transformed a vacant milk bar into a bustling community café.

DUMBO 11 Argyle Street, West Footscray, Victoria, 3012 Open Monday to Sunday 7:00am – 3:00pm In 2016, an old vacant milk bar in West Footscray was revived as Dumbo, a bustling brunch and specialty coffee space. Company Director and Owner Raju Ghimire and General Manager of Dumbo Darcy Thornycroft have worked hard over the past six years to bring the venue back to life, and say it’s only gotten busier over time.

“Since 2020, we’ve doubled our trade.

I think people have kept coming because

MR.H CAFÉ AND BAR 11/418 Darling Street, Balmain, New South Wales, 2041 Open Monday to Sunday 6:30 – 3:00pm 0432 937 103 Five years ago, Herry Chung saw an opportunity to bring something new to the charming shopping and dining area of Balmain, one of Sydney’s vibrant harbourside suburbs.

“Balmain is popular for its cafés, and some cafés have been here for more than 20 years,” Herry says, explaining the location choice for her venue, Mr.H Café and Bar. Compared to other traditional venues in the area, Mr.H Café and Bar does things a little differently, serving a fresh internationallyinspired menu and organic specialty coffee from Paradox Coffee Roasters. Paradox Coffee Roasters’ house blend Purple Rain Organic is one of its best-selling blends, known for its smooth flavour profile with tasting notes of almond, chocolate, brown sugar, and apricot.

Herry speaks highly of her experience with the Paradox Coffee Roasters’ team and their passion for roasting quality coffee, when explaining her decision to partner with the roaster five years ago. “I could see that they were a serious roaster with coffee that tasted great,” she says.

of the quality of the product we put to table, which is obviously the food, but also the coffee,” Darcy says.

Dumbo collaborates with Locale Coffee Roasters to provide a variety of interesting, high-grade coffee offerings.

This includes a Reserve Menu, which offers a limited range of three Locale single origin reserves, individually preserved, portioned, and served as a double espresso. Dumbo also offers Locale’s Eco Warrior as its house blend, which has notes of milk chocolate, spice, and raisins.

Darcy says Dumbo has a “ridiculously close relationship” with Locale’s Victorian Relationship Manager Julijan Markovic.

“I want to emphasise how much Jules has embraced us and looks after us,” he says. “We work with Locale because we needed a roaster that could offer us not only top-notch quality, but also someone to support us and make us better every day.”

Darcy believes a further reason for Dumbo’s success is its multicultural menu, thoughtfully designed by Executive Chef Sam Terranova.

“It’s got a lot of variety if you’re after a different kind of experience,” Darcy says.

“There’s Japanese, English, Filipino, and Egyptian dishes,” he says. His favourite dish, Ful Medames, is a braised Egyptianstyle beans dish with hummus, poached egg, onion, dukkah, and bazlama soft bread. “Sam’s food is comfortable, tasty, and often simple, but I think that gives wonderful results,” Darcy says.

Alongside considered coffee and food selections, there is also a mutually welcoming relationship between Dumbo’s team and the inner-west community it serves. “The area is so multicultural and accepting,” Darcy says. “I think why Dumbo has been accepted with open arms is because of the acceptance on our end as well,” he explains, referencing Dumbo’s warm customer interactions and diverse crew and menu. “It feels like a little family that we’ve grown in the west.”

Mr.H Café and Bar serves Paradox Coffee Roasters and an Asian and European-inspired menu.

The choice to use Paradox Coffee Roasters Purple Rain Organic blend is also aligned with Mr.H Café and Bar’s environmental values and natural stylings.

“I wanted to use an organic coffee blend because I loved the theme of sustainability,” Herry says.

Moreover, the venue’s indoor and large outdoor spaces are filled with plants and timber accents, including a living green feature wall. “I want people to feel like they are in nature,” she says.

Herry says her Korean background

and hospitality training in Spain has also contributed to the café’s menu, featuring Asian and European influences. A favourite dish is the Korean Beef Rice Bowl, served with Bulgogi beef, wild black rice, edamame, seaweed salad, and slaw.

While Herry is passionate about food and coffee, she says the best part of owning Mr.H Café and Bar is building relationships with the Balmain locals.

“I love to talk to people, and it’s great when people come in and appreciate what we do,” she says.

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CAFÉ SCENE REVIVAL CAFE 15/63 Main Terrace, Blakeview, South Australia, 5114 Open Tuesday to Friday 7:30am – 3:00pm and Saturday to Sunday 8:30am – 3:00pm Ben Hart, the face behind Revival Cafe, is a people person, a trait which is strongly reflected in the “vibrant” venue he and his team have built for the residents of Blakeview, a growing suburb with many young families located between Adelaide’s CBD and the Barossa Valley.

“I love people, and I love building a community through Revival,” he says.

“We opened Revival just over three years ago because there was a need in our local area for a brunch café. We pride ourselves on providing good vibes, good coffee, and great food.”

Central to Ben’s intention to provide for the Blakeview community is introducing many of its members to specialty coffee, a venture supported through the supply of Toby’s Estate coffee. “I love introducing people to specialty coffee who haven’t experienced it before and taking them on a bit of a journey. Once they try Toby’s Estate coffee, they notice the difference, and keep coming back,” Ben says.

Revival offers Woolloomooloo as its house blend, which has notes of intense chocolate, butterscotch, and dried fruits.

The café also offers a rotating limitededition Flavour Savour blend from Toby’s Estate, which at the time of print, was its Crème Brûlée blend. “It’s going to be amazing, with notes of custard apple, fudge and vanilla bean,” Ben says.

Ben and his staff efficiently prepare coffees with a Victoria Arduino Mythos One and Mahlkonig EK43 grinders, a PuqPress Q2, and a custom-painted white and teal VA388 Black Eagle, to match the bright palette of the venue.

Ben Hart has helped create a community through Revival Cafe in Blakeview, SA.

“The Black Eagle is super easy and quick to use, especially when we get crazy busy on the weekends,” he says.

“Toby’s Estate provides almost all of our equipment and upgrades us regularly, which keeps us fresh in the industry.”

Revival’s spirited name and design are consistent with its “good vibes”

Revival Cafe uses a Victoria Arduino espresso machine and Mythos One grinder to prepare Toby’s Estate coffee.

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philosophy, a culture which sees regular customers become friends with other regulars, and staff encouraged to build ongoing relationships with customers. This community-building approach, coupled with blue neon-light signage and bright and summery colours of teal, white, and a hint of pastel pink, means that guests come in feeling uplifted.

Revival also offers a seasonally updated menu while also keeping some regular favourites year-round. “The Fried Chicken Benny and smashed avo are really popular, and put a twist on the classics,” Ben says. To continue offering something new to the loyal regulars, Revival Cafe is starting special weekdayonly items when business is a tiny bit quieter, so it can spend time on a few more elaborate menu items.

After three years of Revival Cafe, and 15 years in hospitality, Ben says he has built many meaningful relationships.

“On top of a passion for coffee and great food, it’s definitely the people that keep you going every day. We love our regular customers, and we love meeting new people,” he says.

RUMOURS SPECIALTY COFFEE 19 O’Connell Street, Auckland CBD, Auckland, 1011 Open Monday to Friday 7:00am – 3:00pm and Saturday 8:30am – 3:30pm Rumours Specialty Coffee opened in May 2022, and has quickly established itself as one of Auckland CBD’s distinguished places to experience a variety of curated specialty coffee offerings.

Owner and Head Barista Danny Lee works closely with boutique Auckland roastery, Society Coffee, to customise and deliver a unique espresso experience to the city’s office workers and coffee-curious pedestrians.

“We wanted to provide something different. Society Coffee provides us with rotating single origin coffees, which are made especially for Rumours,” Danny says.

At time of print, Rumours was serving an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe varietal, which carries diverse fruit flavours. “When you pair the coffee with milk, we get a blueberry, cocoa, milk-tea-like finish. When you have it black, it’s like orange juice and tangerine pulp,” he says.

Rumours prepares its espresso using a Slayer EP two-group machine and

Rumours Specialty Coffee serves Society Coffee and Lowkey on its coffee menu.

Mahlkonig E65S grinder which, along with a systematic weighing and timing of shots, ensures consistency.

Rotating single origin varietals are imported from small-batch South Korean Roastery Lowkey for its pour-over filter coffee. “I was born in South Korea and came to New Zealand when I was 10,” Danny says. “I wanted to share what [the coffee] is like in Korea by serving Koreanstyle roasted coffees with filter.”

Rumours intentionally keeps its food offerings minimal, rotating a couple of “really good” pastries from Real Bread Project. Additionally, visitors on Friday and Saturday only can experience a playful offering of Espresso Tiramisu, which Danny

Paddington Social serves Campos Coffee’s Superior blend.

PADDINGTON SOCIAL 167 Given Terrace, Paddington, Queensland, 4064 Open Monday to Sunday 6:00 – 3:00pm Chefs Gibb Mookachonpan, Tyler Sargent and Alex Senee co-own Paddington Social, and the Queensland-based venue is characterised by a fusion of their culinary talents.

“Because we are all chefs, you can be sure that the food offerings are amazing.

We care a lot about how the food is served and presented,” says Gibb. She adds that this expert focus on quality food makes

Paddington Social unique. “It is not often that all the owners of a hospitality business are chefs,” she says.

Because of this shared passion, Gibb, Tyler and Alex have been meticulous in selecting “the best coffee” to complement its food offering, working closely with Campos Coffee.

“We had a close relationship with Campos from the beginning and they really looked after us. We like that they take the quality of their coffee seriously and have always been consistent,” Gibb says.

Paddington Social uses Campos Coffee’s for its espresso-based coffees, and rotating single origin coffees for filter,

says is a “deconstructed tiramisu consisting of an espresso shot, our house-made tiramisu cream, and a lady finger on top, which you dip into the espresso. It’s a fun way to enjoy tiramisu and our coffee afterwards”.

Danny says it’s rewarding watching people enjoy the experience he and his team provide. The venue is already becoming known as a specialty coffee destination, and one with a calming presence of creamy whites and stone details. “I wanted to keep the fit-out clean and minimalistic, but with warm tones,” Danny says. “It’s somewhere for you to sit down and just enjoy your moment with good coffee.”

which have been as well received as its food. “Everyone loves Campos. We are using the Superior blend as our house blend, which we like because it is not too dark or too light and appeals to a broader demographic,” Gibb says.

Many items on the brunch menu are seasonal, though Gibb says there are some popular permanent items. This includes the signature Chorizo Scotch Egg a soft-boiled egg wrapped with chorizo mince, crumbed then fried, accompanied by smashed avocado, a hash brown, and hollandaise sauce.

Paddington Social also offers a variety of house-made pastries thanks to Gibb, who is an English-trained pastry chef. She is particularly proud of her croissants made with imported French butter.

While the coffee and food are sophisticated, the culture and fit-out of Paddington Social is charmingly humble, says Gibb.

“The building is an old weatherboard Queenslander, which we repainted ourselves. We’re just three friends doing this together,” Gibb says.

They may be doing this together, but what the trio have established for Paddington the community, is a home away from home. “I feel like we’ve succeeded in creating a place where people choose to come and have a good time,” Gibb says.

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TRAINING TACTICS

Babin Gurung is the New South Wales Barista Trainer of UCC Australia.

Benchmark espresso UCC Australia’s Babin Gurung explains how to use your senses to analyse espresso extractions and troubleshoot solutions to maintain coffee quality in your café.

A

s a barista, most of your time revolves around getting your espresso to taste right. It is important to use all cues to analyse espresso quality

and create a benchmark for the espresso you’re serving. This means anything that falls outside the range needs to be addressed. But finding issues with your coffee is half the work. The other half

See

Hear

The roast profile of your coffee will dictate the colour of your espresso and crema, which means a deeper darker colour for darker roasted coffee should be expected compared to a more golden colour for medium to light roasted coffee. The espresso should pour evenly from the spouts and have thick, full, viscous consistency. Remember, fresher beans contain higher Co2 gas and therefore will produce more crema and release pockets of air as it pours from the spouts.

Smell Fragrance refers to the smell of dry coffee and aroma is the smell of brewed coffee. Freshly roasted coffee should give off pleasant fragrance and clear aroma. The smell, once again, should reflect the origin and roast profile of the coffee. Some examples of good coffee smells include, nutty, chocolatey, fruity, etc. Rancid and acrid smells include smoky, rubbery, and leathery, which could signify issues with the beans, roasting, freshness, or extraction.

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is fixing the problem before you remake that coffee. So, today let’s look at how to create a benchmark for your coffee and look to find solutions for any quality issues you may encounter.

For espresso, hearing provides very little cue to the quality, but it is important to listen for any unusual sounds coming from the machine or the grinder.

There should be a clear sound when you press the shot button with few seconds delay before the shot begins.

Taste Referring to the flavour notes provided by your coffee roaster is always a good reference point when tasting coffee. But regardless of what coffee it is, your espresso should have a smooth balance of sweetness, acidity, and bitterness.

A long-lasting sweetness in your palate is indicative of good espresso while lingering bitterness can mean issues with the coffee or its preparation.

Tactile Tactile, also called mouthfeel, is a good way of assessing coffee.

Coffee can have heavy body and texture or light and clean mouthfeel.

It is important to understand the difference between the two as they give you very different experience of drinking coffee. Your coffee needs to provide the right level of mouthfeel to match the flavour profile.

Now that you have a clear idea of what attributes your espresso needs to have, let’s look at some common issues you may come across.

1. Bitter/Burnt: Natural bitterness can add to the flavour and complexity to a coffee but when the bitterness overpowers the characteristics of a coffee, it is often a sign of a problem in your espresso.

Excessive bitterness can come from: – Stale beans: Coffee beans after roasting starts to degas and open more surface area for extraction. The ideal time to consume coffee after roasting is between seven to 28 days, which means coffee that is older can lose its aroma and easily over-extract. This process is accelerated if the beans are left in the open, under direct heat and sunlight. Open coffee in the hopper or dosing chamber can absorb smell from its surround, so it is important to only put as much coffee as you need for two hours of service and keep remaining beans inside the bag and sealed into an air-tight container to prolong its freshness.

– Over-extraction: Over-extraction refers to unwanted solubles getting extracted from coffee causing harsh bitterness. Besides stale beans, over-extraction can occur when you overdose coffee in your group handle or when the grind particles are too fine, both of which slows the pour and creates long contact time between water and coffee. Regular grinder calibration is the key to maintaining ideal dose, extraction time and water volume. Refer to BeanScene’s April 2021 issue for step-by-step calibration guide.

– Dirty equipment: Regular cleaning is important to avoid coffee buildup in your group head and handle. Any coffee that is left behind will continue to heat from the machine resulting in acrid unpleasant bitterness. The best way to remove all buildup is by using espresso cleaning chemical at least once every 24 hours. Some of the ways to maintain cleanliness throughout the day is by purging between shots, rinsing group handles at regular intervals, and scrubbing group heads with a cleaning brush.

2. Sour/Acidic: The right level of acidity is favourable in coffee which can add brightness and character, but high levels of acidity or sourness can be negative. Sourness is often caused by: – Bean freshness: Unlike old, stale coffee which can give over-extracted flavour,

beans that are too fresh have high levels of Co2 gas, which can interfere with optimum extraction. This often results in coffee that is uneven, lacks balance and can be acidic in flavour.

Around seven days of resting is ideal to allow some of the gas to escape resulting in consistent shots.

– Under-extraction: This is the opposite of over-extraction where not enough solubles are getting extracted from coffee resulting in acidic, imbalanced, and weaker flavour. This happens when you under-dose coffee in your group handle or grind particles are too coarse. Following the recipe and calibrating your grinder is the best way to manage extraction issues.

3. Bland: Bland is a very vague way to describe a coffee and it could mean few things: – Milky: This refers to milk-based coffee not having enough cut-through of coffee flavour. Lighter roasted coffees therefore aren’t ideal for milk based as they tend to taste weaker against milk. An under-extracted coffee can have lower intensity as well which then mixed with milk can get further diluted lacking the cut-through. This can be fixed by calibrating the grinder regularly. Also, when pouring milk into the espresso, it is important to retain most of the crema. Coffee where crema is washed or blended aggressively can taste milkier than a coffee with sharp wellmaintained crema.

– Watery: A widely accepted brew ratio for espresso coffee is 1:2 to 1:2.5 coffee to water ratio. Higher ratio often produces weaker and sometimes watery coffee. Therefore, it is important to regularly check the volumetric on the coffee machine and ensure the dose is correct. This could also occur due to channeling where small gaps or cracks in your puck can lead to water channeling through the bed of coffee rather than extracting evenly. Proper grinding, distribution and maintaining water pressure are some key areas of focus to avoid channeling.

It is very important to keep assessing your coffee throughout the day as changing weather, over-use of equipment, difference in roast date can create inconsistency in coffee. Using the above cues and listening to your customers and troubleshooting will be key to maintaining high quality coffee in your café.

The roast profile of your coffee will dictate the colour of your espresso and crema.

Any coffee that is left behind will continue to heat from the machine resulting in acrid unpleasant bitterness.

A long-lasting sweetness in your palate is indicative of good espresso while lingering bitterness can mean issues with the coffee or its preparation.

An under-extracted coffee can have lower intensity, which when mixed with milk, can get further diluted lacking cut-through.

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ESPRESSO YOURSELF

Amy Zhang of Archer Specialty Coffee Roasters is the 2022 ASCA Australian Latte Art Champion.

Amybear ASCA Australian Latte Art Champion Amy Zhang shares her winning nationals design, taking inspiration from her favourite Disney movie.

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ooking back on the past few years, lockdowns have changed the lives of countless people, inevitably causing anxiety, depression, and boredom for many.

It took away people’s spark, and happiness, myself included.

Fortunately, now that the lockdown policy is over and the economy is gradually recovering, our barista community can finally get back to work, serving tasty coffee to our customers.

I considered how I could use my latte art skills to encourage more people drink tasty coffee, and at the same time create a sense of joy. I want to create latte art designs that are vivid and interesting and resonate with more people.

I was surprised to receive so many messages and photos of baristas attempting my designs from the Australian Latte Art Championships (WLAC), in particular my Amybear design, based on the ‘Lots-oHuggin’ Bear from Toy Story. I didn’t expect so many baristas to connect with this pattern, and share it and the happiness it brings, with their own customers.

So, for my first BeanScene column as the Australia Latte Art Champion, I’m going to show you how to create my Amybear pattern.

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All my designs embrace my love of Disney movies, especially this character from Toy Story.

I always like to give the Amybear a smile in the hope that it’s contagious. The pattern is fairly easy to pour and suitable for all levels of baristas to replicate.

The technical pain-point of this pattern is how you hold the cup. I use what I call the ‘turning cup skill’, making sure to always rotate the cup as I pour. As a righthanded person, I use my left hand to turn the cup.

All the rosettas and drawing line sections of this pattern are completed during the turning movement. To prepare either hand to perform the ‘turning cup skill’, I suggest practicing Coffee Trainer Yuanyi Zhang’s ‘wreath pattern’ to begin with. This is not an easy task as you need to keep your preferred hand steadily swinging, and at the same time evenly rotate your other hand on the cup. You can download a metronome app and set it up to assist your swing rhythm when pouring.

That way you can put more focus on the moving rotation of your nondominant hand. I use this method myself when training and find it very helpful.

To perfect this design, remember to relax your body, arms, and neck. You can’t pour good latte art when your muscles are too stiff. As long as you can draw, you can pour.

Starting with the cup handle at 12 o‘clock, build your base. In line with the cup handle, pour two curving rosettas using the ‘turning cup skill’ at the base of the handle. Make the first rosetta with nine leaves, and the second underneath with six leaves.

Turn the cup handle to three o‘clock. Leave a two-centimetre gap for the ear above the first rosetta and pour a seven-leaf rosetta while turning the cup. The cup’s handle goes back to 12 o’clock in a continuous movement. Drag a line to the bottom of the cup handle. This is the top of Amybear’s nose.

Pour the last four-leaf rosetta in the middle of the cup and without stopping, draw a s-shaped curving line to connect to the top of the nose.

Continue the dragging movement by drawing a curved c-shaped line.

Continue the drag directly to the bottom of the second rosetta. This creates the mouth.

Control the flow rate. Pour two C-shape ears. The right ear is at the junction of the third rosetta and the line.

Draw two curving eyebrows and a solid circle under the top of the nose, not too small and not too big. You can play around with the bear’s expressive (happy or grumpy) by adjusting the angle of the eyebrows.

Finish your design using the ‘high to low’ drop foam skill to make two eyes. The two eyes should be parallel to the cup handle.

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BREW THE PERFECT CUP ON THE MARCO SP9

Baristas, are you up for the SP9 Brew Master challenge?

Test your coffee knowledge and brew the perfect pour-over on the Marco SP9 for your chance to win.

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NZSCA

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

New champions NZSCA’s Emma McDougall recounts a jam-packed weekend of events, results, and hotly contested competition that proves New Zealand’s coffee talent is well and truly alive.

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From left: Top three NZ Latte Art Champions Hoony Chae, Dennis Hsueh, and Honoka Kawashima.

Image: @7.30_y, Yuki Zhang

hat a weekend for coffee the NZSCA finally had. On Friday 15 July, the New Zealand Cup Tasters Championship, held by epic venue host L’affare Melrose in Newmarket, saw 28 eager cuppers compete for the national title in front of supporters and coffee lovers who enjoyed the pumping atmosphere.

The first round saw two-time Cup Tasters Champion, Alan Bruce from Flight Coffee Roasters in Wellington, take the lead. The next three cuppers chopped and changed with steady numbers and tight times coming in.

In the end, Ewan Kim from Camper Coffee, Auckland was victorious, became the new national champion with a stunning 8/8 in a slick time of 2.09 minutes. Ewan has been competing almost every year since 2017 and got so close to winning in 2019. Thankfully he came back again.

Han Lee of Meebz Coffee in Auckland was runner up, scoring 7/8 in a time of 1.44 minutes. August Hislop of Atomic Coffee Roasters in Auckland placed third with a score of 7/8 in a time of 1.48 minutes. Former champion Alan Bruce scored 5/8 in a time of 2.16 minutes.

The key to Ewan’s winning preparation, he says, was to “drink lots of brown stuff and familiarise yourself with many different coffees. The more you taste, the more sensitive you get”.

“It’s also a brain game so don’t just slurp without connecting your palate to your brain. Do not over-practise close to the competition date. Your tongue gets tired too,” he says.

Ewan will now compete in the World

Cup Tasters Championship in Athens, taking place in June 2023.

Thanks to our sponsors, Cafetto, Ozone Coffee Roasters, AMC Roastery Supply, Acme Cupco, Alpro via Real Foods, and Marco via L’affare.

It was a quick turnaround, with judges calibration on the Saturday, then the Meadow Fresh New Zealand Latte Art Championship on Sunday 17 July. Host venue The Sapphire Room in Ponsonby Central, Auckland was the place to be, with 13 competitors vying for the national title.

Dennis Hsueh of Grey Street Kitchen in Hamilton poured three beautiful designs and will now represent New Zealand at the World Latte Art Championship in November 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan.

In response to winning, Dennis says: “no great thing is suddenly created, success comes with patience and dedication”.

We think the “ghost pour” (practicing hand actions without tools) is the best training technique, and Dennis agrees.

“My practice routine has slightly

changed. I first started sketching out my latte art patterns on a piece of paper.

Repetitively, I have the pattern pasted into my brain’s memory. In the practice, I would repeat the same movement over and over again until I think it was the result that I wanted,” he says.

Hoony Chae from EOS Coffee in Auckland was this year’s runner-up, a former two-time NZ latte art champion.

Honoka Kawashima of Frank’s Coffee in Wellington took third place.

Many thanks to our sponsors Meadow Fresh, La Marzocco, AMC Roastery Supply NZ, Cafetto, Loveramics, Allpress Espresso, and Alternative Dairy Company, for all their support.

After four date changes, all our sponsors continued to believe in us, as did our community of judges, volunteers, spectators, and supporters.

For more information on the New Zealand Specialty Coffee Association, or to join, visit www.nzsca.org

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PEOPLEON ONTHE THEMOVE MOVE PEOPLE

People People on onthe themove move BeanScene celebrates the latest industry appointments in the Australian and New Zealand coffee landscape.

RAY KELLAND – INTERNATIONAL SALES, AREMDE STEPHEN GALLARDO – NATIONAL TECHNICAL MANAGER, ESPRESSO MECHANICS Stephen Gallardo has joined the Espresso Mechanics team under UCC Coffee Australia, where he will look after the company’s national team of technicians and contractors.

In his new role, Stephen will support his team in the areas of training and customer services, liaise with manufacturers, address technical issues, and support new and existing customers.

Stephen has worked in the coffee industry for the past 15 years. He held previous technical roles supporting customers which include 7-Eleven, McDonalds, BP, Nestlé, and Starbucks, where he received lots of experience working with super automatic and traditional espresso machines. After looking for a new challenge and change of scenery, Stephen says he’s excited to take on the new role with Espresso Mechanics.

“I’m excited to learn about a new range of equipment and once I do, I feel confident I can train, support and lead a strong technical team nationally,” he says.

To contact Stephen, email: stephen.gallardo@ucc-coffee. com.au 106

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Ray Kelland is the latest team member to join Brisbane-based design and coffee-equipment manufacturer Aremde. He’s been brought on to oversee international sales and support its global network. He’s the perfect man for the job, having more than 22 years’ experience in the industry, holding state and national management titles at Toby’s Estate and Bear Bones Espresso. With this experience, Ray will be tackling the international market, facilitating Aremde’s expansion into new countries and regions. Ray is not only an expert in coffee, but is an aficionado in 80s and 90s skateboards.

To contact Raymond, email raymond@aremde.com.au

JENNIFER ABELA – BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, ESPRESSO COMPANY AUSTRALIA Jennifer Abela has joined Espresso Company Australia as a Business Development Manager for Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia. With a history of 14 years in the coffee industry, Jennifer has developed a diverse skill set spanning across account support, training and equipment sales/consultation, working with companies such as St. ALi and Proud Mary Coffee.

Jennifer will bring her passion for people and incredible coffee to the Southern states, nurturing and building new partnerships within the coffee community and educating on equipment solutions.

Espresso Company Australia have long identified the incredible coffee culture in this region and is excited to provide stronger support in this area, with plans to grow its presence further in the future.

To contact Jennifer, email: jennifer@espressocompany. com.au

WANTED: EMPLOYEES! Is your business looking to fulfil a vacant position in the coffee industry? Tired of sifting through non-industry specific candidates via saturated marketing platforms and failing to find “the one”? Look no further. BeanScene has created a new “Jobs” page on our website to help target industry-specific roles.

Standard and premium listings are available. All job listings will be promoted through our weekly EDM and shared on BeanScene socials.

For pricing inquiries and more information, contact: COURTNEY WALKER courtney.walker@primecreative.com.au +61 481 736 890 If you have taken on a new role in a prominent coffee business, or if you would like to promote your exciting new hire, send details of the career news alongside a high-res photo to Sarah Baker at sarah.baker@primecreative.com.au

LO C A LLY R OA S TE D S U P P O R T I N G S U S TA I N AB LE CO F F E E P R OJ E C TS ¡Tierra! emerged in 2002 from a social responsibility project, to improve the social and environmental conditions and production techniques of some coffee producing communities.

In Australia, we are proud to support the work being done in Lambari, Brazil and Meta, Colombia with our locally roasted food service range.

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