Coffee for the culture

Single origin coffees are a constant in Australia’s specialty scene, but some roasters and venues are hanging their hat on specialising in origins close to their hearts.

The debate of single origin versus specialty blends remains constant in Australasia’s café scene. Whether the brew of choice is an Arabica blend with beans from major origins like Brazil or Colombia, or a niche, small lot single origin, the stories and culture behind the beans continues to be a critical part of what makes coffee so special.

While many cafés and roasters in Australia and New Zealand will sell single origin products alongside tried and trusted house blends, there is an emerging market that targets just one origin from which to make all its products, from smaller producers like Sri Lanka, to larger scale producers like Vietnam or Ethiopia.

Something different, something new

While Melbourne or Sydney may be the places one first turns to when looking for unique coffee experiences, there’s one restaurant in Traralgon that specialises in cuisine – and coffee – from the heart of Sri Lanka.

The Leaf Restaurant and Bar, run by husband-and-wife pair Sureshi Fernando and Suresh Silva, has become a popular spot in Victoria’s La Trobe valley since opening just over a year ago.

As the first Sri Lankan restaurant in the region, it was already exposing its customers to something they may not have tried before, and outside its traditional curries and meals, its coffee stands alone as a unique single origin experience in Australia.

“We source our coffee beans directly from Sri Lanka. They’re organic, hand-processed and hand-picked by a group of 10 women, so every time someone buys a coffee from us it helps that community as well,” says Sureshi.

“I believe we’re the only place in Australia with these specific beans, and the response to them has been amazing. Australian people love their coffee, so we’ve had great feedback. We’ve been told it’s really smooth and not too strong, and we have customers that come in just for the coffee.”

Sri Lanka is far from a heralded coffee origin in the modern world, producing less than 8000 tonnes per year across its largely smallholder farm network.

The Leaf’s connection with this origin stems from the fact that Suresh and Sureshi were born and raised there and came to Australia about 15 years ago.

“The coffee factory we work with in Sri Lanka is owned by one of my husband’s school friends,” says Sureshi. “It’s incredible and it’s generating jobs for that community. He’s taking these women into entrepreneurship which is so important. We had some samples sent here and they were amazing.

“This factory, it’s only a few women. Their children, their salaries, their meals, and their day-to-day lives are helped by this coffee that we sell, so it’s amazing to be a part of that. We display that story in our restaurant as well, and customers love to buy coffee to help that cause. That’s one of the great things about coffee; it connects to everywhere.”

Vietnam may be a more well-known modern coffee origin than Sri Lanka, but the strong and full-bodied Robusta it is renowned for doesn’t always mesh perfectly with the lighter roast Arabica preference of Australia’s espresso-led coffee culture.

Steven Nguyen, Founder of Phin Coffee, started his coffee career as a Sydney barista, and has since held various roles in the industry.

It was during COVID, after opening his own café, that Steven branched out and started Phin Coffee to help improve the perception of Vietnamese-grown coffee in one of the most discerning coffee cultures in the world.

“The Vietnamese population here is big and the coffee industry is so diverse. It took about two years to plan everything and figure out how we would penetrate the specialty market that is such a big fan of lighter roast espresso coffee,” he says. “Vietnamese phin coffee is an alien way of brewing coffee to a lot of people.

“There has always been big demand for Vietnamese coffee in the suburbs of Sydney, Brisbane, and even Melbourne. For two years I spent every day knocking on the doors of Vietnamese cafés and banh mi restaurants. Now, we’re pushing about 300 kilograms of wholesale coffee per week.”

Vietnamese-style coffee, made using a phin filter and sweetened condensed milk, has long been a loved and ritualistic alternative brewing method in Australia, and it’s one that is gaining some popularity as the demand for multicultural food and beverage experiences grow.

While the market for Vietnamese-grown coffee has always been comparatively small, the launch of roasters specialising in the beans – all around Australia – is exposing more people to the style.

“When cafés here think of Vietnamese coffee, they always think of Trung Nguyen. There has never really been many Vietnamese coffee roasters or suppliers in Australia. Now we get emails from people who say they’ve been to Vietnam and loved the coffee but couldn’t find anything that tasted like it here in Australia,” says Steven.

“Around 95 per cent of our online orders come from people who don’t actually have Vietnamese backgrounds, so there’s a real appetite for people to try it.”

Challenging perceptions

Vietnam is famed for its Robusta production, and although Australia is – typically – a largely Arabica-favouring espresso, Steven believes there’s significant opportunity for Robusta coffee to break through.

While beans sourced from the likes of India or Uganda tend to be more popular than their Vietnamese counterparts, he believes there’s an emerging market for high-grade robusta from different origins.

“I think there’s a misconception about Vietnamese Robusta in Australia. We know Vietnam is the biggest producer of Robusta in the world and it has the distinct chocolatey characteristic and full body, but it might not have the complex, fruity flavours of Arabica from Brazil or Ethiopia,” he says.

“In Australia, Vietnamese Robusta is not used as widely as something like Indian or Ugandan Robusta, and it’s very rare to find Vietnamese Arabica on the Australian market,” he says.

“I’ve heard a lot of roasters say they prefer these origins because they taste better, but I don’t believe that’s true.”

Steven’s Vietnamese heritage, and specialisation in Vietnamese beans, has enabled him to access beans from all over Vietnam, including the rarer Vietnamese Arabica varietals.

“We source different beans from Vietnam Gia Lai all the way to Son La,” he says. “We try to push forward a very traditional way of brewing. The phin is a traditional device that was introduced to Vietnam about 50 years ago when the French colonised Vietnam, and it has a lot of influence and tradition.

“At the time, Vietnamese people didn’t have much, so they took the French press and innovated it to make it even simpler. You don’t even need filter paper; you just need a device and some ground coffee.”

Sharing a heritage brew

There is one, critical thing that ties the story of The Leaf, Phin Coffee, and countless roasters and venues around Australia: the use of coffee as a vehicle to expose people to different cultures.

Coffee represents more than just a beverage. From farmers in Sri Lanka, to brew methods in Vietnam, and anything and anywhere in between, it’s a way of life and a point of connection.

For Sureshi and The Leaf, coffee has provided an inroad for Sri Lankan culture to be experienced in regional Victoria.

“Sri Lanka is mostly famous for its tea, but there’s an incredible history to its coffee as well. It’s been lost over the years, but it’s starting to rise again. We want to create a unique experience to our community and give a little bit of Sri Lanka to the valley,” says Sureshi.

“We want to provide more experiences, we have traditions like Sinhala and Tamil New Year coming up, it’s a time where people give away free food on the street, there are ice cream stalls and rice and curries, and lines of people coming to have food. We’re hoping to do something similar because we have so much to share.

“We serve typical lattes and cappuccinos, but in Sri Lanka coffee is traditionally served black with herbs like coriander and ginger, to prevent people from getting sick. It has a strong flavour, and it tastes a little bit different. Hopefully we’ll be able to start serving that soon.

“The coffee we sell holds a strong cultural significance for us, and it’s something very close to our hearts.”

For Steven, he hopes Phin Coffee can help expose some of the world’s most fastidious coffee drinkers to a whole new world behind the beans.

“Vietnamese coffee, even in Vietnam, is a dying craft. Young people are starting to adopt espresso machines, and I think in the next 10 years espresso-based drinks are going to take over,” he says.

“If we don’t try to preserve the traditions, even in Australia, then Vietnamese coffee will be lost, and people won’t know what it is.

“Phin Coffee, to me, is my personal way of approaching people to explain to them what real Vietnamese coffee is, and how it can stay relevant in the future.