Creating coffee connoisseurs

The rise of home machines and the educated ‘prosumer’ is shifting the landscape for cafés, but in ways people might not expect.

For the longest time, the act of getting a coffee was an inherently community-based experience. Customers would pull up to ‘their’ café – that might even remember their name and order – and walk out with their favourite brew and a smile.

Recently, that ritual has shifted. The rise of the home barista and educated prosumer continues to alter when and where coffee is consumed. However, that doesn’t mean the age of the buzzing local café is coming to an end. In fact, it could galvanise the professional industry.

Accommodations are already being made for these at-home coffee connoisseurs, with manufacturers advancing home machine technology, roasters offering fresh coffee delivered to the front door through subscriptions and retail propositions, and cafés retailing home equipment and beans to open a new revenue streams.

Breville, with its Barista Express, Bambino, and Oracle ranges, are leaders in the home machine space. It believes this rise of at-home coffee consumption is raising the bar for coffee everywhere.

“The rise of the at-home barista has fundamentally changed how people engage with coffee,” the company says.

“Home coffee drinkers are more informed than ever – they understand extraction, milk texture, origin and roast profiles, and they’re actively applying that knowledge every day at home.

“As a result, expectations around coffee quality have lifted across the board. People are more attuned to flavour clarity, balance and consistency, and they’re increasingly confident in knowing what good coffee should taste like. That depth of understanding naturally carries through wherever they drink coffee.”

Whether these prosumers prefer simple filter or espresso-based coffees, or construct their own signature concoctions, the rise of at-home brewing has opened new avenues of personalisation and passion to coffee consumers.

Breville believes this ability to trial new brews, recipes and methods not only improves individual coffee skills but increases how much people value the expertise of their local baristas.

“For many prosumers, their interest deepens through exposure to different brewing methods, origins and styles, which then informs how they dial in coffee at home. It’s created a more curious, engaged coffee audience that values craft, transparency and quality over convenience,” it says.

“From Breville’s perspective, the growth of home coffee has raised standards across the entire coffee ecosystem. As people become more skilled and invested in making great coffee at home, it drives a broader appreciation for quality, encourages experimentation, and pushes the industry forward overall.”

Jade Jennings has been a fixture of Melbourne’s coffee scene for more than 20 years and is seeing this change in real-time.

Through her journey with Hudson’s Coffee, where she ended her time as Area Manager for CBD and Melbourne Airport, and Veneziano Coffee Roasters, where she became National Training Manager after overseeing national retail operations and being responsible for barista training for wholesale partners, she’s now fully dedicated to training the next generation of baristas with Melbourne Coffee Academy.

The 2016 Australian Barista Championship runner-up – where she finished behind Hugh Kelly – teaches a range of standalone classes including Basic Espresso, Latte Art, Advanced Espresso, and Filter, as well as a four-day Barista Apprenticeship course.

She says an eclectic mix of students ranging from café owners to home enthusiasts attend her classes, but the number of prosumers looking to upskill has surged in recent years.

“We have a mix of students from café owners, baristas wanting to upskill, home espresso enthusiasts, school students wanting to gain employment, through to professionals wanting a career change,” says Jade.

“Without a doubt, this has definitely increased since Covid. Although we don’t like to think back to that time, we all remember what it was like to not be able to go to our local café, and the industry saw a huge rise in customers wanting to make café quality coffee at home.”

Despite this rise in home barista expertise, Jade – who is speaking on the How to turn a hobby into a career panel as part of the MICE26 Café Education Series – says cafés aren’t being left behind due to this change in coffee consumption. Rather, they have a key role to play in building and guiding interest among this cohort.

“Hospitality fosters loyalty, and the customer becomes the spruiker for your business,” she says. “Businesses simply can’t afford to give substandard service; the competition is too high. It just gives the customer the opportunity to try the café next door.

“Customers are always going to be loyal when they receive great hospitality. Maybe they can be more discerning and hold us to a higher standard with more coffee education, but again this can only be a positive thing. We all know the difference between a good service or product and a bad service or product.”

“Customers always want to support local businesses, so cafés have the opportunity to expand their offering to include retail, work with their roaster to educate staff on approachable ways to make coffee at home, either using blends for customers that prefer their coffee with milk, or rotating single origins for those that like to explore different processing methods and flavours.”

Jade believes proper training of staff is critical to creating this good hospitality, and cafés have the opportunity to tread their own path in creating closer engagement with their customers.

“If you are going to introduce retail into the café, staff need to be trained on how to sell it. Don’t be afraid to come out from behind the bar and speak with customers at the retail point to assist them with making an informed choice,” she says.

“Simple questions could be ‘how are you making coffee at home?’, ‘do you drink your coffee black or with milk?’, and ‘what flavours do you like in your coffee?’. These will help narrow down what the best beans are for them.

“You could also offer samples in an air pot of single origins, offer a small free coffee with any retail purchase, or run a frequent Q& A session where the Head Barista goes through a different brew method that uses a simple recipe and allowing the customer to have a go themselves.

“This can only be a positive for the industry as it forces us to stay ahead of the curve. I know for myself I get excited when I can share my coffee knowledge with customers that want to learn more and I can make that connection.”

There are few coffee machine manufacturers with as much influence on both the home and commercial sectors as La Marzocco.

A favourite of cafés across Australia, La Marzocco has been steadily expanding its range of home coffee machines with its Linea machines and range of grinders.

2026 marks 11 years since the launch of La Marzocco Home, almost 80 years after Giuseppe and Bruno Bambi first started the business in 1927.

Brand and Marketing Manager at La Marzocco Home, Alexios Antonopoulos, says the passion people find for coffee will, more often than not, start in the local café.

“Top cafés absolutely set the benchmark. When customers experience beautifully dialled-in espresso, precise milk texture and a thoughtful workflow – that becomes the expectation everywhere, including at home.

“Cafés are really the frontline of coffee education. Most prosumers didn’t start with a spec sheet – they started by talking to a barista.”

“Good cafés demystify coffee. They explain origin, processing, extraction, why something tastes the way it does. That curiosity grows naturally, and for some people it turns into a real passion.”

“From there, it becomes aspirational. La Marzocco is a brand people associate with the best cafés in their city – places they trust and keep going back to. So, when someone decides to replicate this experience at home, they often look to the same equipment they’ve seen in their favourite café spaces.”

That desire boosts the home coffee setup with recognisable equipment across all levels of machine has seen the gap in quality of home machines and commercial machines slowly drop.

“Over the past decade, the gap between professional and home machinery has definitely narrowed. Prosumer customers are more informed and engaged. They understand extraction variables, temperature stability and pressure profiling,” says Alexios.

“Since the launch of La Marzocco Home in 2015, we have seen an increase of prosumers using our compact espresso machines to emulate a small café environment at home or running a low-volume commercial business with peace of mind that quality and performance won’t be compromised.”

Alexios adds the rise of the prosumer has been critical in creating an even more connected coffee community, from roasters right through to the final customer.

“This year, La Marzocco Home will be taking a series of prosumer events around the country. The goal of this event is to connect aspiring home baristas with roasters, cafe owners and local coffee enthusiasts to encourage education and transparency behind the bean-to-cup process,” he says.

“Coffee is inherently social. It’s about conversation, shared spaces, enjoying great coffee together. Showing up locally matters. You can’t build real community purely online.

“For us in Australia, it’s about keeping the ecosystem connected – cafés, roasters, technicians and home baristas. Education keeps standards high, but community keeps the industry healthy. At the end of the day, coffee is about people. If we keep showing up locally and investing in those relationships, the rest follows.”

Jade Jennings will be speaking on the ‘How to turn a hobby into a career’ panel with Brian Leonard and Josh Taylor, starting Saturday 28 March at 10:15am.