2016. november 15. írta: világevő

Melbourne, coffee capital of the world

I love Italian coffee culture; I even find lots of excitement in the Hungarian coffee scene. But what I’ve experienced in Australia exceeded my already high expectations.

I found good coffee places in Sydney as well, but what surprised me is that while in Europe most of the “progressive” fine dining restaurants follow the new waves in coffee brewing (e.g. French press, chemex or use of other equipments), down under, even at places where they follow the latest wine trends (sometimes even the non-sense ones), they have espresso based coffees only.

But Melbourne rocks. It’s really full of restaurants and coffee shops, everything is crowded and everyone is eating and drinking like there’s no tomorrow. At the restaurants, bars, cafés you need to queue before getting in. It’s likely that the number of specialty coffee shops is only exceeded by the number of the top lists of the best specialty coffee shops. I visited quite a few in the end and I wasn’t disappointed at all. I saw professionalism everywhere. It wouldn’t make much sense to rank them, so I will just present my favourite ones through pictures. I drank mostly espresso, which is special, but obviously you’ll find a flat white, Australia’s favourite, or different types of filter coffees almost everywhere.

There are a few signs, which indicate that you are in one of the coolest coffeehouses. If some of these are true, then it’s guaranteed that you are at the right place:

long queue
the place is difficult to find, hardly recognisable, there are no signs, it’s far from the street
standing room, no seats
the barista lady has tattoos and piercings
the male barista has a beard and/or tattoos
in front of the place, lots of people are sitting on things, which were not meant to be sat on, e.g. on beer crates
there’s a separate coffee menu
the coffeehouse has its own roasting machine
the guests are hipsters
everyone is dressed awfully
the interior design is very minimalistic
there are guests with strollers
the graphic design (if there’s one) is of high standard
lots of people are taking selfies, or are posting on instagram
and, last but not least, the coffee is very good!

PATRICIA

(this was maybe my favourite, I even got to taste their filter coffee after my espresso, when they saw that I am interested in the topic. From the street, the place was completely unrecognisable; you could only see the people sitting outside. Since there are no seats inside, they hang the newspapers on the wall to make it easier to read them - very clever idea.)

This is how they work at Patricia:

A video posted by Andras 'Vilagevo' Jokuti (@jokuti) on Apr 7, 2016 at 9:46pm PDT

SEVEN SEEDS

(They also do wholesale, and you can even eat in the huge cafe. The graphics, colours, pictograms are mesmerizing.)

This is the way they work at Seven Seeds:

A video posted by Andras 'Vilagevo' Jokuti (@jokuti) on Apr 10, 2016 at 1:02am PDT

MARKET LANE COFFEE
(they have several stores)

THE VERTUE OF THE COFFEE DRINK
(It’s a very hipster place, there is only one tiny sign in a dead-end street behind a petrol station. But inside, the ambience is very lively and they have a huge breakfast menu as well as their own roasting machine.)