Getting a glimpse into the back end of the coffee industry isn’t as simple as leaning over the counter to see the barista’s hands working the machine. The many inputs that go into a cup of coffee, from the café, roaster, equipment supplier and individual staff members can present a multi-tiered maze for the casual observer, let alone someone interested in opening a café.

Melbourne café and roaster Market Lane Coffee has always had its focus on the ground on which it stands. First founded in Prahran Market and now with eight locations across inner Melbourne, each one is close to director of Market Lane, Jason Scheltus’s heart.

There’s a few things going on behind the counter at Went To See the Gypsy, the new café from the team behind The Gypsy in Potts Point. For starters, the espresso machine is built into the structure, rather than sitting up on top, but getting into the details with head barista Simon Gautherin opens up the future of coffee.

Just five kilometres from Australia’s northern most point is Papua New Guinea. Since independence from Australia in 1975, PNG has emerged as a significant coffee producer close to two of the major coffee consuming countries in the world …

For every green, sustainable or so called eco product that we buy, there’s always the question at the back of one’s mind; how can buying more be the solution to a world that requires we use it up less? Huskee is going some way to answering that question.

Having been at the helm of café-cum craft roaster Pablo & Rusty for the past fifteen years, CEO Saxon Wright has had a front row seat to the rapid transformation of coffee in Sydney and around the world. This has meant that Saxon has had to take on many hats, from roasting, to green bean sourcing to technological innovation.

As the largest coffee event in a region obsessed with getting the most out of the brewed bean, the 2019 edition of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo was not getting any smaller.

Welcoming us into the Australian office, Mark Howard, customer relations specialistt of Caravela coffee, noted, “We're very much an origin based company.” 

What do you do when you know a country produces good coffee, but the coffee from that country is exported as a high-volume, low value product? That was the question that faced Tercio Borba, when he came to Australia from Brazil. 

Cafes and community are often talked about together. Whether it is providing a meeting point for locals, or a piece of infrastructure that is as vital as a library, the best cafes are those that are enmeshed in their local surroundings. 

Two decades ago, Kenyan coffee farmers armed themselves with bows and arrows and marched on the offices and factories of the companies that process and export their beans. Fed up with low prices for their crop and and complex credit system that tied them into relationships of debt and dependency, the farmers had had enough. 

If you do one thing, do it well, would have to be the motto of Dan Yee, co-founder of Artificer coffee in Surry Hills. Taking an only coffee approach to the competitive café market in inner Sydney, marks out Artificer as a an outfit dedicated to their craft.