Visiting Veneziano Coffee Richmond is a unique experience. Passing its roastery operations, cupping lab and a smaller interactive micro roastery, you are welcomed into its newly opened 80-seat dining space. But that’s not all Veneziano Coffee Roasters has to offer, with a state-of-the-art training studio upstairs.
Veneziano’s training school runs three sessions a day, covering everything from the barista basics to roasting and cupping.
Read more
I love creating coffee cocktails. Experimenting with different recipes, ingredients, and techniques is super rewarding. It teaches you how many possible ways there is to serve coffee.
In July 2018 I won the Australian Coffee in Good Spirits Championship. For me, this win felt like the culmination of five years of competition.
Read more
Sam Low says his two passions, specialty coffee and Chinese gastronomy, share more in common than is immediately obvious.
“[Gastronomy] is one of those topics you jump into, and the more you try to understand it, the less you understand,” Sam says.
Trends Sam says are gaining momentum in the coffee and food industries are traceability, and the flavour of terroir.
Read more
Much like a car, espresso machines require regular check-ups from a trained professional to prevent potential issues and replace worn parts.
Service Sphere Director Maurizio Marcocci says it’s surprising how many café owners and roasters still don’t understand the benefit of regular maintenance.
Read more
Competitions are one of the most rewarding growth experiences available to a barista. They’re scary, fun, tough, and competitive, but highly worth trying to benchmark your skills and putting yourself in a challenging position.
The hardest part about starting your competition campaign is knowing where to start. Competing can be quite a daunting process: standing up in front of a panel of judges, displaying your skills to professionals and in some cases, presenting a speech with the countdown clock and flashing cameras in your peripheral. The key to starting your competition preparation, however, is to do just that – start.
Read more
It’s an awkward feeling when you haven’t been invited to the hottest ticket event of the year. Nobody likes missing out, and no-one likes being an after-thought invite. To avoid such disappointment, consider yourself personally invited to the biggest coffee dedicated event of the year – MICE, taking place from 7 to 9 February, 2019.
Are you excited? You should be. This is a once-a-year opportunity to celebrate the Australian coffee industry, your industry.
Read more
Winning the coveted Cup of Excellence (COE) competition is like winning an Oscar at the Academy Awards. Just as the esteemed movie awards celebrate the best in cinematic production, each year the COE commends hundreds of farmers who submit their best coffees for assessment. The coffee with the highest score out of 100 is announced in front of hundreds at an awards ceremony, only without the red carpet arrival and golden statue. In this competition, becoming a champion is the reward.
Ismael Andrade knows this feeling well. On 30 October, his name and farm, Andrade Bros Estate Coffees, comprising Sao Silvestre and Capim Branco farms, was announced as winners of Brazil’s Naturals COE competition with a score of 93.26 for a lot from the Paraíso farm in the Capim Branco Terroir unit.
Read more
To Ona Coffee, the skills of its baristas are as important as the quality of its coffee.
That’s why Ona employs baristas with competition credentials as its trainers. National Head Trainer Devin Loong says this means the professionals who are pushing the boundaries of coffee are the ones representing Ona.
Read more
Coffee is an incredibly complex product, with many links in the chain from the origin that it’s grown in, to the final beverage we consume. You may hear some people say that the producer has “the most important role, because without them there is no coffee”. Or maybe you’ve heard that “it’s the barista that is the key, for without their careful preparation and customer service, all of the farmers’ hard work can be in vain”. I’m a roaster, so you may expect me to say that we have the most crucial task of reaching the full potential of the green coffee. The truth is, you probably won’t hear me say much at all, because I’m a coffee hermit, hiding in the roasting room and at the cupping table.
Read more
Summer is no rest period for hundreds of small business operators. While office workers remove themselves from the stresses of daily work, meetings, and deadlines, many cafés are preparing for unpredictable volumes of customers and daily profit associated with summer trading.
To relieve the stress for café owners heading into the holiday break, Parikshit Kikla, Founder of 360 Accounting Services, works with cafés, restaurants, and other small businesses on a daily basis, assisting them to keep track of their finances and understand how their stores are running.
Read more