News Articles by Jennifer Murray
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The Espresso Menu Explained
Typically only found in Australia, we are however starting to see some Aussie-inspired ‘Flat Whites’ pop up in different specialty coffee destinations around the world, mostly as a novelty or talking point. The flat white is comparable to the American latte. Often served in a bowl or ceramic cup, the American latte is nearly an exact replica of what we call a flat white.
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Brazil — Cup of Excellence and Farm Time
I remember thinking that Colombia was a long way away — and I know Dean will agree. It is. Just getting all the way to Monseratte from Perth is an absolute mission! So as I flew over Bogota (according to my in-flight entertainment) with another five hours still to go, plus two more internal flights, I finally grasped just how far I was going and how BIG Brazil is.
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New Era for Indian Coffees
Five years ago, I ummed and ahhed over Monsoon or Tiger Mountain branded coffees. They were savoury, dusty, baggy and cigar-like — and I wasn’t quite sure whether I liked them or not. All I knew was that they blended poorly, had a very bubbly crema and required a very different grind setting to most of the other coffees I was using. Fast track forward five years and I’m no longer a fan of these coffees. Sounds harsh, but those coffees were just that: harsh! Now that the global quality standard has rapidly increased, the old-style Indian coffees just don’t stand a chance against the super sweet and refined coffees of today. That’s pretty much all I knew about Indian coffees, until my recent visit to India, that is.
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PNG: So Close, Yet So Far Away
Every time I visit somewhere new, I am humbly reminded that the complex journey from seed to cup has its own set of unique challenges and opportunities which are particular to each country. My first visit is always an exercise in listening, observing and trusting my instinct. Whilst I never know what to expect, against all odds, the results are often new relationships, lasting friendships and precious life experiences. My first visit to PNG was all that and more.
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There's Something in the Water
There is no escaping the fact that all coffee beverages are made up of at least two ingredients — the coffee itself, and water. Although it’s a topic we have covered before, it’s still one that is widely neglected and rarely considered when troubleshooting quality issues. Not only is water one of the only two ingredients required to create a coffee drink, it also accounts for nearly 95% of your final beverage. So, rather than considering water as a facilitator in turning coffee into liquid, it really needs to be considered as a crucial ingredient that has enormous influence on the final taste.
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Coffee Context
Let’s face it, the trend in Perth is that cafes are investing more seriously in something consumers (yes, that’s you) have been demanding for years: better quality. Every time a coffee is returned because it’s “just not right”, a bad review is posted on-line or a full cup is left on the table, consumers unwittingly form part of the masses demanding a higher standard.
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A Great Plan Comes Together at Bench Espresso
Long time friend of Five Senses, Vanessa Moore, has realised her dream of building her very own cafe from the ground up and we couldn’t be more excited. As Ness is a perfectionist by nature, Bench is the result of lots of planning, attention to detail, experience and hard work. It’s undoubtedly a destination for all coffee lovers, as well as the perfect spot for the lucky ones working just east of the city.
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Gems of Araku
I’ve just come back from two weeks of intensive coffee travel in South India and now I’m finding myself completely re-thinking everything I thought I knew about Indian coffee. My trip had a twofold purpose. The first week was dedicated to the Gems of Araku cupping competition, where we focused on a non-traditional, but emerging coffee growing region in South India. Week two…
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Giving Quality a Number
With massive growth in the number of coffees available for purchase, having the skill to discern and accurately articulate their value is quickly becoming very useful. As much as we love to get sucked into the inevitable quality debate, snapping up the best coffees requires us to get over our own personal subjectivity and force ourselves to start throwing down some definitive numbers.
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Sea Shepherd Fueled by Five Senses
The Sea Shepherd needed some coffee and we were keen to get on board! The famous boat has been parked in Freo for the last couple weeks finalising preparations for their 100+ day trip into Antartic waters with a mission to find and intercept the Japanese whaling boats.
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Finally, an Affordable Home Grinder!
We are excited to introduce the Baratza grinders to Australia. In terms of home use options, they easily tick all the boxes. They are compact and easy to use, have conical burrs, and most of all, combine build quality with affordability.
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Talking Coffee in Tanzania
When I found out that Sustainable Harvest’s ’Let’s Talk Coffee’ conference was being held in Moshi immediately following the Rwandan COE, I managed to extend my trip to East Africa and make my way to Tanzania.
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Cup Of Excellence, Rwanda Style
Rwanda was awesome! What can I say, it was my first trip to East Africa, my first opportunity to participate in the Cup of Excellence, and I was surrounded by people who didn’t get bored of talking coffee for a week straight. When you get this kind of a group together you quickly realise that the whole six degrees of separation is more like two in the world of coffee.
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Colombian Coffee First Hand
Jen and Dean spent a couple weeks in Colombia during the coffee harvest earlier this year. The idea was to see firsthand what goes on behind the scenes with one of our most popular origin offerings. Jen brings us an account of their time in the Colombian Andes.
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Cupping coffee – why we do it
Cupping is a tool that provides us with a consistent, qualitative platform to evaluate coffee samples. Why is this so important? Cupping resonates to the very core of our business, it’s how we come to understand specific origin character, it enables us to compare and contrast previous samples, to indentify faults or taints and, most importantly, it’s how we select coffees for purchase.
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Why grind on demand?
Our bags contain coffee seeds (aka beans) that have been planted, grown, nourished, pruned, hand-picked, pulped, sorted, shipped in from coffee regions around the world, carefully tasted and selected, craft roasted at their peak, immediately packed in bags with one-way valves that keep oxygen out and are now ready to be ground and enjoyed by you.
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PNG coffee gardens
Mount Elimbari, the highest mountain in the Chauve region of Simbu, is very significant to Five Senses. It was here that we purchased our very first bag of coffee, but most importantly, it represents the strong and growing relationship we have always had with PNG coffees.
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What's changed?
On a recent coffee crawl, I couldn’t help but notice that the coffees I tasted were much cleaner, livelier, and more interesting than they were just a couple of years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I think the focus has always been on quality, it’s just that in recent years it feels as though there’s been a surge in the number of coffee professionals who are ready to break some boundaries and re-evaluate their options when it comes to providing a memorable coffee experience.
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Elixir Coffee Specialists opens
The wait is over! Justin Kenny and Jonny Nease have opened their new joint venture, Elixir Coffee Specialists, at 145 Stirling Highway in Nedlands.
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Yes sir, Yes sir ... Three Bags Full!
A beautiful piece of Melbourne’s history and architecture is currently undergoing a loving mix of restoration and renovation in preparation for its grand re-opening this century. A spacious section of the old Denton Mills Hat Factory, established in Abbotsford in 1888, is the newest site for Nathan, Sarah, Diamond and Ben’s cafe — Three Bags Full.
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There's something about macchiato
Ask a room full of people what a long macc is and I guarantee you’ll get mixed opinions. Better yet, ask a room full of baristas and long macc drinkers for a definition and it’s likely to end in fisticuffs! Here’s my two cents on why LM customers are the hardest to please and why baristas continually argue over how a long macc should be served.
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Say hello to the Clever Coffee Dripper
Say hello to our newest addition. I first came across these little drippers at the 2008 Seattle Coffee Fest, but it wasn’t until I saw them in action at Café Myriad in Montreal that I had the chance to appreciate how good they actually are. It’s such a simple idea that you can’t help but kick yourself for not coming up with it. They tick a lot of the boxes that need to be ticked when you’re thinking individual brewers. They’re simple, cheap, virtually unbreakable, and commercially viable, because you don’t need to sit and nurse them through a brew. Lastly, the concept actually works.
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Stepping it up in Trinity Arcade
Tartine Café is nestled nicely in its very own little nook at the St George’s Terrace entrance to Trinity Arcade. Owner Niall obviously had a vision for his café, and has managed to create a warm and inviting atmosphere. The creative re-vamp just goes to show that good planning and experience can transform any space, however unprepossessing, into something very special.
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A Clover in our midst
The first Clover to ever grace Western Australian soil is sitting pretty on Richard Muhl’s workbench. Although it’s only paying a flying visit, I thought this was a great opportunity to take a closer look at this infamous machine.
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A taste of things to come
It’s safe to say that in our industry, Australians are refocusing their attention on the intricacies of classic brewing methods. I recently returned from my year in North America, inspired and ready to tackle brewing parameters, only to find I’m not the only one with new drinking habits. Just like espresso, black coffee results are often based on subjectivity; there are so many factors that we can attribute to a quality cup. With the Extract Mojo ™ system (EM) now available, we jumped at the chance to take a more calculated approach to our brewing explorations.
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Syphon coffee on the menu in Subiaco
Syphon coffee has generated quite a buzz in the specialty coffee industry, and we reckon it’s well deserved. Over the last few months, our roasters have been spending increasing amounts of time experimenting with syphon cuppings and raving about the results. We can’t count the number of times we’ve heard “this is the best coffee I’ve ever tasted”…
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From cup to origin — part II
We finally touch down in Guatemala City and catch a cab straight to Antigua (a city in the central Highlands of Guatemala), where we base ourselves for the next eight days. The last couple of weeks were great, but the change of scenery is timed perfectly, as we’ve pretty much had our fill of courses, conferences, parties and stuffy hotels. Since this is our first trip to Central America, we’ve come without much of an agenda. The real idea of this impromptu visit is to go with the flow and establish some footing in a region we know so well in theory, but so little in practice.
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Perfecting your distribution
Distributing coffee grinds is always at the centre of many baristi debates. A barista is the public face of specialty coffee, and it is up to him or her to translate the coffee’s best characteristics into the cup for the customer. A café barista can only be expected to work with what is available to them, meaning that decisions about machinery and coffee supply are extremely important for owners. The basics of coffee preparation, things like grinding to order, not re-steaming milk, pre-heating cups, cleanliness and so on, have, for the most part, become common practice. This makes techniques such as distribution, dosing and particle size very valuable, as they are some of the few variables that remain open for barista interpretation.
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Quality and speed — tips from the pro
Stepping behind the bar in someone else’s café can be a bit daunting, even for someone with many years industry experience. In my role as Head Trainer for 5 Senses, café owners often invite me to put my skills into practice in their café, frequently during their peak ‘busy’ periods!
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A 'Coffee-Off' in Spring
My usual visit to Spring Espresso begins with barista Andrew ‘Super’ Tang and me having what I guess could be called a ‘coffee-off,’ in which we frantically exchange the latest exciting news from the specialty coffee world in the hopes of being the first to know. Unfortunately for me, Andrew normally wins, but happily for Spring, it means they are always on top of their game. And you can definitely taste it!
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What’s your coffee base?
Sure, perfectly steamed, silky milk enhances the coffee experience and yes, some milk brands taste better than others. However, let us not forget the real player here — the often-neglected espresso base, that has evolved for better or worse as the industry has grown. Here’s a look at some of the current trends and ‘faux pas’ that exist in cafés today, and what you can expect in the cup as a result.
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