Industry profiles

coffee blockchain

BeanLedger improves coffee traceability with blockchain

BeanLedger is using Blockchain to improve traceability throughout the coffee industry, and People of Coffee is leading the charge to support it.

When Amelia Franklin entered the coffee industry in 2006, she did so because she viewed it as an opportunity to make a living while making a positive contribution. 

She operated as Amelia Franklin Coffee Roaster for 12 years, and in 2018, began the company’s transition to People of Coffee in Bellingen, New South Wales, to better reflect its community values.  Read more

Zest Specialty Coffee flavour design

Zest Specialty Coffee on the design of flavour

Zest’s Mandy DelVecchio on how to explain the intricacies of specialty coffee flavour notes to an untrained palate.

At Zest, we’ve been exploring the specialty coffee lexicon for years. Our mission as roasters has been to properly translate what exactly flavour means to the people who still don’t get it.

For most of us in the coffee industry, the third wave has granted us the well-developed skill (and obsession) of tasting coffee. Cupping sessions for us are purpose-driven. We are savvy to the flavour wheel. We can pick tropical fruit notes and delicate floral, chocolate, and sticky pineapple-jam flavours with a single sip. But, for the everyday drinker, understanding flavour comes with a very different learning curve. Read more

Almond Breeze Barista

Almond Breeze Barista Blend’s low-sugar future

Almond Breeze Barista Blend provides cafés with a great tasting and high performing low-sugar dairy alternative that ensures consumers can control how many calories go into their cup.

The “low-sugar” movement is gaining momentum in Australia. Schools, hospitals, and sporting venues in several states are banning the sale of sugar-rich soft drinks and junk food in their canteens and cafeterias. Numerous organisations including the World Health Organization and Australian Medical Association have called for a tax on sugary drinks, similar to those imposed on tobacco and alcohol. Read more

ideal water composition for espresso extraction

Seven Miles identifies the ideal water composition for espresso extraction

Water is one of only two ingredients required to make coffee, and its quality is almost as important as that of the beans. 

While many baristas think of water quality in terms of how it affects filter coffee brewing, Dr Adam Carr of Seven Miles Coffee Roasters’ Coffee Science Education Centre (CSEC) says the same principles apply to espresso. Read more

Australian Subtropical Coffee Association

Australian Subtropical Coffee Association on shaping the future

Overcoming data free observations on Australia’s coffee production was a big hurdle in the early days. 

Research in the subtropics during the 1980s and 1990s was challenged by such beliefs that coffee “must have shade to produce high quality” that “hand-picked coffee is better quality than machine harvested coffee”, or that “high altitude is required to grow the best quality coffee”. Read more

New Zealand coffee

NZSCA reflects on World Coffee Championships

Even with the countless preparation and practice hours required to compete at world level, not every competitor will win. With the financial and mental investment high, what happens when the competition doesn’t go to plan? Stepping onto the stage with the backing of sponsors, family, friends, employers, colleagues, and customers is daunting, even more so on the world stage. With the right mindset, competitions can be richly rewarding, regardless of the result.

With intuitive skills and an impressive coaching ability, Masako Yamamoto coached and travelled with 2017 and 2018 New Zealand Latte Art Champion Leo Li to the World Championships in Brazil.

Masako says her background as a barista trainer gives her the invaluable skill to identify a student or staff’s strengths and weaknesses, and help bring them out.  Read more

Scottie Callaghan

Scottie Callaghan in the fine print

While working in Hong Kong for a Chinese start-up named Holly Brown, Australian coffee professional Scottie Callaghan noticed a lack of cafés in the area offering the personalised service he was familiar with.

“There was a gap in the market where there was no café offering an Australian espresso bar experience: a friendly barista, ready and prepared to make you a good cup of coffee and do so efficiently, and remember your name – all the little customer service things that are expected in Australia,” Scottie tells BeanScene. Read more

Ordermentum

Win-win with Ordermentum

Ordermentum, the brainchild of Adam Theobold, Founder of Beat the Q (now known as Hey You), and former Toby’s Estate Managing Director Andrew Low, is helping Australia’s food and beverage industry trade smarter. The B2B web-based ordering and payments platform streamlines a café’s ordering process, saving time and money for both the retailer and the supplier.

When Adam kept hearing from café owners about a need for a platform that took the pain out of ordering and payments, he jumped at the chance to develop the solution.  Read more

Stojo

Sto yo’ joe with Stojo

When Jeremy Sargeant walked along Kuta beach in the popular holiday destination of Bali in the early 1990s, he recalls swimming in the pristine water and walking along the beach with nothing but sand between his toes. 

Upon returning to the idyllic spot in 2016, he describes a completely different scenario.

“I couldn’t swim in the ocean and I couldn’t walk along the beach because of the volume of rubbish,” he says. “There were graders going up and down the beach all day long pushing rubbish into huge piles for collecting, and then dumping the rubbish into bushland. By the time the beach was cleared, the tide would bring in a fresh collection of rubbish.”

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Square One

Square One training looks beyond the machine

With 28 years of hospitality experience between them, the Square One Coffee Roasters team of two, Head Roaster Elika Rowell and two-time Southern Region Cup Tasters Champion Tom Bomford, aims to support burgeoning small businesses in any way they can.

“We want to see [our wholesale customers] not only succeed in serving delicious coffee, but also make sure their cafés are financially sustainable,” Elika says.

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