From The Australian, Entrepreneur:
BOUTIQUE ROASTERS
Unique blends stand out from the crowd, writes Ed Charles
IT’S a typical Melbourne location, an old warehouse off the main drag of Clarendon Street in South Melbourne, better known for its brothels than its beans.
If it wasn’t for the smell of coffee roasting you wouldn’t even know St Ali was in this back alley.
But despite the unpromising location, the micro-roaster and cafe named after the father of coffee, the 14th century Sufi mystic Ali ibn Umar, is one of the most exciting roasters and cafes in Melbourne and is packed.
It is one of the new generation of coffee grinders driven by a passion for top-quality single origin beans rather than profit alone.
The first small roasters began emerging in Australia in the 1960s. One of the best known is Grinders’ Giancarlo Giusti, who arrived in Australia from Verona and in 1969 started roasting on Lygon Street.
In 2005, the company was bought by Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA), perhaps a sign that the business had become more about the 2000 outlets where its coffee was available than the beans itself.
CCA is still on the lookout for boutique grinders but few are ready to sell out.
Single Origin Roasters in Sydney is typical of many in being passionate about producing a quality product and their ethics.
“It was about doing things in a way we were proud to do it. It is about having pride in your business and quality first and foremost,” Single Origin Roasters’ Martine Folden says.
The company was founded in late 2003 by Martine, her husband Gavin, and Dion and Emma Cohen.
From humble beginnings that involved dragging 70kg bags of coffee to their apartment and experimenting with a popcorn machine, they are now roasting about two tonnes a week. “There are a couple of things that have really helped move it along,” Folden says. “From where I stand the bigger companies, whether they be the Starbucks or the McDonald’s McCafes, have really increased awareness that espresso coffee is valid — that it’s no longer just about filter coffee.”
Jamie Royal, founder of Canberra-based Kaldi coffee, says what consumers are now interested in is small more individualistic retail outlets.
“I’m noticing across consumers in Australia that people are reverting back to the smaller business and the more personal service. Ten years ago there wasn’t the competition. There was really only the big players and the imported coffees coming in from overseas,” he says. “People turn to a smaller roaster now as they want to differentiate their cafe from the one next to them. People want to be different.”
Peter Wolff of Veneziano, in Melbourne, says that the growth of wine and food-tasting courses is driving the desire to experiment with the flavours of single origins.
Plus a new generation of affordable 15kg to 50kg computer-controlled roasting machines is making it easier for small roasters to break into the market.
Wolff also says that restaurants are turning away from Italian-style blends and imports, picking up on the freshly roasted coffee trend.
Phillip Di Bella in Brisbane runs the largest and fastest-growing micro-roaster in Australia.
Di Bella Coffee roasts more than 400 tonnes a year, all designed to suit the Australian taste for cafe latte and flat whites rather than the short blacks favoured by Italians. “Di Bella has done something that was quite simple and extraordinary,” he says. “We tailor-made coffee to suit the Australian palette. That’s what Giancarlo (at Grinders) and the rest of them didn’t do.”
The first roasters in Australia did start supplying coffee machines, often signing cafes into long-term contracts.
The new generation business model is more about the quality of the roast as a selling point, although they still will supply espresso machines. Kaldi’s Royal says: “People are saying I don’t need to be signed up to a two-year contract to get a coffee machine.”