Melbourne's Coffee Culture?

We moved here, led to believe Melbourne had a great coffee culture. Sure, the city has lots of cool cafes, but we've got to say, we've been very disappointed by the quality of the actual joe. Even our very favourite local haunt, North (left) doesn't always get it right - though we heart its poached eggs and its smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese and capers. Really, even Canberra had better coffee. (Belated thanks to the guys at Tonic for getting us through those 2 years of purgatory.) Now, we don't want to buy into the whole Sydney/Melbourne thing, but we can think of plenty of places in the harbour city where coffee means a velvety, caramelly brew, not bitter, thin dishwater.
Well, Susan and David were pleased to see John Bailey bursting the bubble on Melbourne's coffee pretensions in last week's The Age:

Melbourne: you don't know coffee. I know it comes as tough news. Earlier this year Lord Mayor Robert Doyle made the outrageous claim that our bean culture was overrated. The city's acclaimed cafes went into defence mode, but those at the frontline still admit that there's a gap between our notion of the city as a macchiato mecca and the reality you're faced with when the brown stuff in a cup arrives at your table.

A large part of the problem comes down to simple economics. "There's a lot of cheapness," says Trenfield. "It's dollar driven. That will always be there."

He recently visited a cafe whose owner was raving about the quality of coffee they bought at a cut-rate price. Trenfield looked in the hopper and saw the kind of product that, in his experience, growers throw onto the street in New Guinea. It's more useful as road-fill.

Anyone who finds themselves behind a coffee machine seems to feel qualified in taking on the title of barista, but that's not enough, says Metcalf.

"If you go into a noodle place, they'll cook you noodles right in front of you, and it's served to you fresh. For some unknown reason we get this mentality that if we grind a shitload of coffee, just toss it in the machine, reheat milk, chuck it into the cup and throw a whole lot of sugar and chocolate powder and throw it out there, that you're going to be quite satisfied. From my point of view, I'm not satisfied with that."

While there is still a large number of coffee drinkers happy with what the experts would deem to be an ordinary cup, there is at the other end of the scale a more discerning, knowledgeable and growing crowd of coffee aficionados who take their brew very seriously.

Single origin coffee is hot stuff in Melbourne today - beans sourced from a single region, rather than blending diverse and possibly conflicting flavours. The notion is hardly new. "We started with single origin coffee in 1989," says Trenfield. "People would say 'isn't it just the same? Coffee's just coffee'. Well, wine is just wine. Red wine is the same as white wine, isn't it? No. It's not."

"This is not rocket science," says Metcalf. Peek behind the counter at any of Melbourne's more serious coffee houses and you might think differently. The machines scattered around South Melbourne's St Ali wouldn't be out of place in a mad scientist's lab. Forget a quick pick-me-up - some of these contraptions look like they could reanimate the dead. Increasingly, sophisticated gadgets with stellar price tags are putting coffee-making on the same level of esoteric eccentricity as molecular gastronomy.

St Ali last week launched its latest acquisition - the Slayer. Owner Salvatore Malatesta is obviously proud of the sleek, gleaming machine. There are only a handful of these hand-crafted beasts in existence so far, and Malatesta points out the serial number on his: 0001. The purchase set him back $32,000.

The Slayer is appropriately named, too. The first sip is like a kick in the head. The coffee in the cup looks like a rich, melty chocolate, but the flavour is so strong that it sends you spinning. I have to agree with Trenfield - coffee isn't just coffee.

Then there are the Japanese siphon bars, which have been all the rage in the past few years. You'd be hard pressed to guess that the transparent, tea-like substance they produce is coffee. They're the ghost of an espresso - no body at all, but with the purest, most subtle of flavours.

Others rave about the Clover, a high-tech cross between a plunger and a vacuum pot. With an $11,000 price tag, it's not surprising that there are perhaps half a dozen in the country. Don't expect many more to pop up: the popularity of the Clover ended when Starbucks bought the rights to the machine and removed it from circulation.

You'll find a Clover at Carlton's Seven Seeds, along with numerous other contraptions for the production of top-class coffee. "It's different in that it's a filter style, not an extraction," explains co-owner Bridget Amor. "It's generally consumed black. It's usually a higher end coffee so it's clean and it's flawless. You should appreciate it for what it is. But if a coffee's got faults, it's going to show in a filtered coffee. It's going to show everything."

The true appeal of the Clover - or the siphon, or the Slayer - is geared towards the "coffee geek". It's a term that comes up again and again to describe the growing culture of coffee connoisseurs who make their consumption a point of difference. They engage in vociferous online debates on internet forums, blog-damn their bad experiences and form cults around their favourite cafes.

You can see the sub-cultural appeal of places such as Seven Seeds or St Ali before you set foot in the door. Parked in the foyer or out the front are a fistful of fixies, the single-gear bikes that have inexplicably created a new class system for cyclists. Inside it's an equally mysterious mix of oddly-spectacled designers, asymmetrically coiffed temps and tattooed indie kids. Coffee is cool.

St Ali, Seven Seeds and the other specialty coffee houses of Melbourne can be loosely aligned with what's become known as the "third wave" of coffee. The term was coined by US luminary Trish R. Skeie. The first wave, according to Skeie, is all about consumption. The industrialisation of coffee as a product: Maxwell to Nescafe. The second wave follows the Italian migrant influence, with espresso machines producing a new appreciation for the texture and variety of a well-prepared coffee. The third wave turns to the bean itself, at its source, and looks for the best way of conveying its flavour.

Do the new high-tech coffee machines really make such a difference to consumers? "I think so, for the coffee geek world," says Amor. "But we have the everyday punter that will try filter coffee and most will either love it or hate it. And they try to compare it to espresso but you shouldn't. It's a completely different beverage."

Amor's position echoes that of other Melbourne third-wavers - different from but respectful towards their predecessors.

"I'm slightly nervous to call ourselves third wavers," says Malatesta.

"To dismiss the work of second wave specialty guys is a little bit silly. Coffee's a drug, and it's a drug with rituals belonging to a tribe. Dismissing an entire culture is a bit impolite and maybe a bit arrogant."

What do Melbourne's established coffee companies think of the new kids on the block?

"Well, they don't like us," says Malatesta. "The commercial roasters have the view that third wavers are a passing trend as opposed to a firm and established subculture that's growing. They tend to think that we're possibly wankers. However the ones who do take us seriously see us as a threat because they see us carving away at what were traditionally their accounts."

Trenfield isn't a big fan of whiz-bang machines. "The most important thing is the ingredient. It's the coffee. It's the human energy that happens all the way along the process.

"If you don't have a good coffee to start with, you can't make it good just because you've got a good barista. I'm sorry. You can have good coffee and make it lousy, but it doesn't go the other way. The barista can be the barista champion of the world but he ain't going to make a good coffee."

There will probably always be cafes that deliver less-than-five-star coffee. Amor takes a philosophical position - her establishment might be one of the city's best, but "it's what we do. Our food side of things is simple and where we specialise is the coffee. I guess a place that is really good at doing food and that's their passion, their coffee may suffer a little. But it just shows where your passion is."

Malatesta says that the increasing sophistication of Melbourne's coffee culture means that cafe owners can't just rely on the city's reputation for good brews any more. Even franchises such as Starbucks and Gloria Jean's have converted instant coffee drinkers to whole bean coffee.

Trenfield offers similar advice. "More people are experiencing coffee. Which means there are more people who are wanting to actually engage with the qualitative element of coffee. Even if it is a small number, at least that's happening. Sure there's a lot of competition, but what comes along with that is a group of people who are dedicated more to the quality end of things."

Metcalf provides a hint to Melbourne's cafe owners: customers need to be given more opportunities to taste high quality coffee. Some Melburnians know a good bean.

Not all, but some.

"Don't disregard those people," says Metcalf. "I tell you, 10 years ago when I started with basic espresso coffee I could have told people anything and they'd have believed it. These days I'm standing in a class of 10 people and six of them will be questioning the reasons why I'm presenting this way versus what they're doing. There's a huge difference in the consumer attitude towards coffee, which is good."M

THE ART OF THE BEAN

There's no One True Way to make a good coffee - different tastes appeal to different palates. But there are a few things to keep in mind when you're on the hunt for a caffeine fix.

■ Unless it's a specialty store, most cafes will only offer a single brand of coffee. It's a bit like a restaurant only stocking a single type of wine, but there you are. Learn which roasters suit you and keep an eye out for branding.

■ Unhappy coffee drinkers usually vote with their feet. If you spot numerous unfinished cups on tables, keep walking.

■ Scan the space behind the counter - does the milk jug look like it's been squatting on the bench since Christmas? Does the person preparing your coffee watch it pour, or sit back and expect the machine to do the work? A wham-bam quick-as-lightning serve doesn't necessarily result in a better cup.

■ Finally, ask your barista about the coffee they serve. Better roasters will educate their clients on the subtleties of the product.

■ Here's a blind list of cafes our coffee cognoscenti recommend as safe bets: The serious players right now include Brother Baba Budan in the city and sister store Seven Seeds in Carlton, St Ali in South Melbourne, Liar Liar in Hawthorn, and Auction Rooms in North Melbourne. One source nominates Richmond's 7 Grams as a contender; Demi Tasse in Lonsdale Street and Wild Cafe in Elwood also score a vote each. The Dancing Goat on King Street has been scoring awards, no doubt in part due to it being co-owned by the Victorian Barista of the Year, Jesse Hyde. And one of the first cafes recommended by a coffee insider is well off the beaten track - Barclays in Heathmont.

At the mo, we can really only rely on 2 joints for our daily caffeine fix: Seven Seeds and Auction Rooms, both in North Melbourne (also out of the finals series). But we hope to be proved wrong on this - put us on to your good brown liquidy thing now...