Why is Aussie coffee so good?

Why is Aussie coffee so good?

Coffee is a bit of a national obsession in Oz and it's no secret that we think we do it pretty well. Each year we consume 6 billion cups of it, and this weekend Australia will be defending its crown at the World Barista Championship in Panama. So we thought we’d have a look at:

• How the competition works

• Why and how Australian coffee got so good

• And why it can be so hard to find a decent cup overseas

🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Anna Pykett

Prefer this in your ears?

Listen to our podcast 🎧

Listen time: 12 minutes

Squiz the Shortcut

How come coffee is such a big deal in Oz?
Along with sunshine, beaches, Kylie and AC/DC (depending on what you’re into), our coffee and cafe culture is a source of national pride - we are the home of the flat white after all… Although our Kiwi mates would beg to differ. 

How did we get so good at it?
For a country with tea-drinking British roots, you might be wondering where our international reputation came from, and a large part of it’s to do with our migrant communities. After World War II, the Australian government actively recruited European migrants to grow the population, so people from different parts of the world started arriving in Australia, and the Italians and the Greeks brought their coffee machines with them. 

And we’re so happy they did… Why were the machines such a gamechanger?
Historian Professor Andrew May reckons espresso machines were a big step forward for the flavour of Aussie coffee. He says they made for a much more controllable coffee-making process, which resulted in a less bitter brew with a creamy top, and things took off from there. Also, side note - an espresso is the key ingredient in a flat white, so we can thank these machines for our signature coffee.

So what did this mean for cafe culture?
Espresso bars then started popping up all over the place, which were run by Italian migrants, but it wasn’t just migrants who hung out in them. By the 1960s, coffee shops became popular with bohemian types, teenagers, as well as migrants. 

What did it lead to?
A café boom in the 1980s and 1990s, which took coffee culture mainstream. This new generation of cafés started paying more attention to where their beans came from, how fresh the roast was and how the coffee was extracted. By the year 2000, there was an independent café on pretty much every street corner, and they were all fighting for our morning coffee orders. This was a win for all of us, because it meant that the standard of the coffee kept getting better and better, and the rest of the world started noticing. 

It did, and then came the Aussie-style cafes overseas…
They started popping up in countries all over the world, particularly in the US. In 2002, some Australians living in New York opened up one of the first Aussie cafes called Ruby’s, which did so well it became a hospitality group that now has several cafes across the States, although today they’re called Little Ruby’s. Tim Sykes is one of the owners, and he says the reason Australian coffee is so popular and so tasty is to do with how it’s made. 

What’s the difference between how Oz and US coffee is made?
Sykes says Aussie coffee is technically very different from American-style coffee, because every drink is made fresh-to-order with espresso machines, while the US tends to lean heavily on big batches of drip coffee. He’s also talked about the smoother, lighter roasts used in his cafes, which he reckons taste better than the darker and more bitter roasts used in a lot of American cafes. 

While we’re talking about US coffee, let’s talk about a little Seattle-based chain called Starbucks…
Great idea. To wind back the clock, Starbucks rocked up in Sydney in 2000. It expanded to 84 stores, but by 2008, it had shut 61 of them down. So what went wrong? In a nutshell, the local scene here was just too good and the chain grew faster than its popularity. 

Just explain that a bit more…
People didn’t want to pay more for bigger cups of sweeter, sugary, syrupy coffee, and some reckon Starbucks didn’t really understand the Australian market, which really values things like customer service and community connection as well as how the drinks taste. Starbucks admitted defeat, with one of its execs, John Culver, conceding that “Australia has a very sophisticated coffee culture.” It’s worth noting that Starbucks has bounced back a bit - there are now nearly 100 stores here, and Queensland has the most of any state.

Given coffee is serious business here, do we grow much of it in Oz?
Not really - of the 6 billion cups of coffee we drink here every year, less than 1% of the beans used are actually grown here in Australia, but we do have around 40 growers, which are mostly found in northern NSW, south-east Queensland and tropical north Queensland. 

So the World Barista Championship is on over the weekend - how does it work?
It’s kicking off in the early hours of tomorrow (Friday) morning (AEDT) in Panama. Competitors have to prepare 12 coffees in 15 minutes: 4 espressos, 4 milk-based drinks, and 4 unique signature beverages, all while different judges mark them on different criteria. 

What are the criteria?
Each espresso made has to be exact, or competitors lose points, and they’re marked on everything from the taste to how tidy their bench is. Sensory judges score taste, balance and presentation, and a technical judge scores technique and cleanliness. Think of it a bit like The Great Australian Bake Off or MasterChef, but for coffee.

How has Team Oz done in the past?
Pretty well - we’ve won it 4 times since the event started in 2000, which ties us with Denmark in equal first place. Melbourne’s Jack Simpson brought home the crown in 2025.

Who’s flying the flag for us this time round?
Aussie barista Gabrel Tan - and he has a cool story. He moved to what some might argue is our coffee-capital Melbourne from Malaysia, and he was actually part of the team that helped Jack prepare for last year’s event. Tan was crowned the best barista in the country after 4 straight podium finishes in 4 years - and on his fifth year of trying, he bagged Australian coffee’s highest honour. 

What’s the process to reach the national final?
Baristas have to get through regional heats called the Community Coffee Champs first. And in case you’re wondering, for Gab’s milk coffee and signature drink, at the Nationals he chose to make coffees from Indonesia.

While we’re talking Indonesian coffee, have you heard of cat-poo coffee?
Yes… You did read that properly. It’s called Kopi Luwak, and it’s produced from coffee beans that have been partially digested by the Indonesian palm civet, a cat-like mammal native to major islands like Java, Sumatra, and Bali. The cat eats coffee cherries, ferments them in its stomach, and then poos out the beans. If you’re thinking that sounds a bit, well, gross - don't worry. The outer layer of the coffee bean gets removed during processing, and the remaining beans are cleaned before being roasted. And in terms of what it tastes like, apparently it’s aromatic, smooth, earthy, with a sweet hint of chocolate. Tempted..?

So are we all coffee snobs OR is Australian coffee just better than everywhere else?
Several experts agree that Aussie coffee is elite. Food critic Pat Nourse, who used to chair the Oceania voting panel for the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards, said Australian coffee is up there with the best in the world. But not everyone agrees…

Tea drinkers…?
Not just them… In August, The Age published an opinion piece by a journalist who argued the quality of Aussie coffee is a myth, and much of it is overpriced compared with overseas. But many agree that even though we might not grow much of the stuff, when it comes to turning a bean into a brew, Australia punches way above its weight.

How can we keep tabs on Gab in the comp?
You can follow along on his Instagram here… Go Gab, we’ll be up early (flat white in hand) to cheer you on.

Onto our Recommendations

Reading/listening: Here’s that The Age opinion piece we mentioned that argues airport coffee in Italy is better than most of Melbourne. And here’s the podcast episode that discusses it…

Reading: This CNBC piece explains why Starbucks didn’t do as well as perhaps it would have liked here when it first launched in the noughties.

Happy Halloweekend

Halloween doesn’t have to mean door-knocking on your unsuspecting neighbours because there are 2 spooky nights planned in Sydney to give you an alternative. Think fancy dinners but with roaming zombies and a tarot reader, plus a Day of the Dead party with DJs, live Latin music and a free salsa lesson (plus happy hour from 5pm, which might help with that salsa dancing…). Find out more here.

Recent Shortcuts