Long Black Coffee at Sip Cafe

Seating both indoors and outdoors, slightly uncomfortable chairs and reasonable coffee. Most urban cafes are very similar and Sip Cafe in Teneriffe seems to fit this description too. Sip Cafe is on Vernon Tce, near the river. It is one of the small cafes at the bottom of the apartment blocks in Teneriffe.

The coffee was OK, exactly what you could expect from Di Bella. It was served with a chocolate freckle, which you need to eat sooner rather than later. As it turns out, chocolate melts when it is too close to hot liquids.

Apparently their breakfasts are not too bad, at least according to one of my friends who I was meeting there for coffee, and according to Sip’s Facebook page. This time we did not get a chance to test this for ourselves; as we had all eaten before we met up.

There actually isn’t anything wrong with Sip Cafe. The coffee is good, it has a fridge with a glass door and the usual drinks, and if you live in the apartments above it, the location is great. It is just that there is no real compelling reason to go there other than convenience.

TL;DR

• The coffee was OK
• The cafe was OK
• There is not much more to say really

Sip Cafe
Facebook
Sip Cafe, 54 Vernon Terrace
Teneriffe
Ph: 07 3257 1799

Fonzie Abbott on Racecourse Road

Racecourse Road is not a good place to go for coffee; there are not many places that can do a passable long black. You can find dining, a Coles Metro and occasionally even large numbers of drunk people with a temporary interest in horses, but finding a good coffee is harder. Unless you go to a small espresso bar called Fonzie Abbott, just next to Vagelis.

Fonzie Abbott Cafe

Fonzie Abbott is named for the first pet and first street that one of the owners lived on, just like the pornstar name meme. I can only assume that this is somehow related to the rooster in their logo.

The cafe is more of an espresso bar, with a small footprint and not too many seats. The coffee they serve is not just the best on Racecourse Road, but compares well against cafes in other areas too.

Fonzie Abbott uses both blends and single origin beans, with the single origin beans changing regularly.  There are a few light meals and a selection of beers available as well, and apparently they also do Espresso Martinis on Fridays.

There are not many places on Racecourse Road that can do good coffee, and fortunately Fonzie Abbott is an exception. The decor tends towards hipster, with its second-hand aesthetic and the mix of blends and single origin beans. It is my pick of the street if you want a good coffee, long black or otherwise.

TL;DR

• Better than the other cafes on Racecourse Road, because…
• The coffee is actually good
• Pornstar meme name
• Espresso Martinis

Fonzie Abbott Espresso
http://fonzieabbott.com
Facebook
Fonzie Abbott Espresso, 1/30 Racecourse Road
Hamilton
Ph: 07 32684293

Long Black Coffee at the Coffeeguy

After weeks of being told about the place, I finally visited a great cafe/coffee lounge in Wooloowin called CoffeeGuy. It was not until a friend and I arranged to catch up on the weekend there that I finally got around to checking the place out.

The cafe is near Rhubarb Rhubarb, a resturant that at least two other guys told me is a great way to apologise to an aggrieved partner, and when you walk in, the first thing you notice is the space. The place is large, and the tables, chairs and couches are spread out, creating a completely different experience from most other cafes. It did not take long for one of the staff to notice my confusion, and with their assistance I ordered a pair of long blacks and found somewhere to sit until Chris arrived.

Yellow Bourbon Beans

Once Chris arrived, I found out that I had ordered the wrong coffee. According to Daniel, the owner, I should have ordered one of the single origins, because that is what Chris usually got, and not their regular blend. Fortunately he saved me and brought out another pair of long blacks to replace the ones I had chosen. It was a dry prepared Brazilian bean they roasted themselves.

In fact they have a small roaster off to the side of the cafe. The owner was more than happy to talk about the coffee he had, including some Yellow Bourbon Camocim Organic he had just got in. Like the other exceptional baristas and cafe owners in Brisbane, Daniel clearly loves coffee, and even has his own cafe recommendations he is willing to share.

The cafe is a great place, the coffee is exceptional and the cafe itself is unique, though a Finnish friend of mine did say they had coffee lounges like it in Europe. There is really only one thing that I can find to pick on, and that is the lack of a kitchen. There are cold snacks and biscuits available though, and that is more than enough to make CoffeeGuy a great place to spend a Saturday morning.

TL;DR

• Open floor plan and a lot of space between customers
• CoffeeGuy is purely about coffee, there is no kitchen
• Good service
• There is a roaster in the corner
• They know coffee and have a changing range of single origins

The Coffeeguy
http://www.Coffeeguy.com.au
CoffeeGuy, Shop 2, 85 Kent Road
Wooloowin
Ph: 07 3357 4440

Black Coffee at Gloria Jean's

I thought it would be best to start with a joke. An Italian, an American and an Englishman were going to meet in the Valley for a coffee. The Italian could not make it. So they go to Gloria Jean’s instead.

The Gloria Jean’s shop on the mall in Fortitude Valley has nice chairs, a few couches and air conditioning. They also charge $4.25 for a regular long black. The stores are similar to Starbucks: all coffee is served in disposable cups with an ironic ‘Rainforest Alliance’ logo (take that evil trees!), they offer a wide range of syrups and substances to add in, and if you order a black coffee, it usually is not that great.

The coffee smelled burnt in an interestingly worrying way and was too hot, which was almost certainly the cause. It was also one of the more watery long blacks I have had recently. Even the McCafe coffee compared favourably to it.

Like Starbucks, Gloria Jean’s is not really in the business of serving black coffee. Just one quick look around the store and it is obvious that they sell far more milky coffee flavoured beverages than black coffee. With the market they cater for, and the range of syrups and interesting interpretations on the theme of ‘coffee’ on the menu, maybe a sugarless black coffee is not what they had in mind.

TL;DR

• Nice franchise stores
• Coffee is not really their thing

Gloria Jean’s Fortitude Valley Mall
Gloriajeans.com
McWhirters Urban Market
Fortitude Valley, 4006

Little Big Man Espresso

There is a strong positive correlation between the number of cool suburban cafes in Brisbane and the value of the Australian dollar. This is hardly controversial as any country able to support a growing number of nifty locations serving coffee away from the inner city must have something going for it.

You’ll find one more of these on the corner of Thorrold and Dickson Streets in Wooloowin. Little Big Man Espresso is in a good position for the morning commuters. Dickson Street carries a lot of through traffic, and it is surrounded by houses and near a train station.

Takeaway Coffee From Little Big Man Espresso

Little Big Man Espresso is actually located in a mostly unchanged old corner store. With the counter at the back of the building, there are tables and chairs inside and a number of stools and low tables just outside the door. There was even one solitary drawing on one of the walls, hopefully promising more to come.

The cafe looks very cute and is so new it has no real visibility online just yet. They serve Genovese coffee and do a respectable job with it, and already seem to be attracting the early morning weekend crowd. If you live in Wooloowin, be sure to check it out, a local cafe is not to be ignored.

TL;DR

• Looks cool
• Great commuter location
• Serves decent coffee

Little Big Man Espresso
Facebook Page
86 Dickson Street
Wooloowin

A Long Black Coffee at Bar Moda

It is hard to find a good coffee in the city outside of normal work hours. After 4pm, almost all of the cafes close, leaving just a handful huddling around the mall, nothing like the number of options available during the workday.

Bar Moda is an office hours cafe. Sitting in the foyer at 307 Queen Street and surounded by other office blocks, it is not likely to get much foot traffic on the weekend. During the week is another matter entirely though.

Bar Moda has two counters, one facing out of the building and another inside. There is seating near both, but most importantly, the two counters keep the takeaway orders turning over fast. The coffee is strong and good, though the latest one I had was pretty hot for black coffee. I imagine it would have been fine as a milk coffee.

There is one more thing: they have free WiFi via CafeScreen. The service looked interesting and it ran an image insert/replace in some RSS feeds within Flipboard. Twitter and email were fine, but I did not stay long enough to try it out properly.

TL;DR

• Takeaway orders move fast
• Good coffee, better if you like it with milk
• Free WiFi

Bar Moda
307 Queen Street
Brisbane CBD, 4000
ph: 3221 0101

Campos Cupping Room

I only know of two dedicated cupping rooms in Australia, one in Sydney and another in Brisbane. And both are in Campos cafes. The one in Brisbane has been open for a few months now, and at least from what I’ve heard, has been popular. There isn’t much about it on their website, and I only found out because I saw the cupping room at the cafe, and some discussion on Twitter.

Aprons

I had never been to a cupping session, and I had no idea of what ‘cupping’ even was. Dandelion and Driftwood sell cupping journals. When I first saw them, I had absolutely no idea what they were for. However, as this session was being held at one of my favourite cafes, which is also a local roaster, a group of friends and myself booked a Saturday session.

The Cupping Room

On the day, the five of us were shown to the meeting room out the back, where we were given aprons (apparently spills are not uncommon) before heading into Campos’ dedicated cupping room. It was very cool. The light fittings were made from coffee cups. The lights were low and the room seemed full of coffee paraphernalia, though no more so than the rest of the cafe.

What is Cupping?

Removing the grinds

The brief description of cupping that I got from Coffeeresearch.org is that:

Cupping is a very specific coffee tasting technique, removing as many variables as possible to make it easier to compare different beans.

I learned that it makes it possible to compare coffee beans on their own merits. The tightly controlled preparation method means the tasters know they are experiencing exactly the same thing as the next taster, be they in the same room or in another country. It makes it a lot easier to talk about the coffee if you can remove all other variables.

The Coffee We Tried

Campos had six different coffees for us to try: five single origin varieties from Kenya, India, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Ethiopia, and a commodity coffee for comparison. Each bean was served in a small bowl, with water heated to a specific temperature, left to brew, and then stirred, and then brewed some more, before the grounds were scraped off the top. It seemed to be a fairly involved process.

The whole time the coffee was being prepared, and during the tasting itself, everything about the beans was explained. They covered how each of the beans were processed, where they came from, who grew them, and a lot more.

The highlight of the whole session was being able to compare so many different varieties of coffee. Each was distinctive and had its own qualities, with the Indian Malabar Monsooned beans being the most unique. The only comparison more striking than the Malabar and the rest was between the single origins and the commodity coffee.

Why it was Cool

At just $11 it is cheap, and if you pay $20, you walk away with 250 grams of the coffee you liked best. If you like coffee but did not even know what a cupping session was until you read this, then go and do one. It is a great experience, and Campos has taken a commercial activity and turned it into a great customer experience. If you already knew what cupping was, you are probably already interested in booking a session.

TL;DR

• Try many kinds of coffee
• Find out more about said coffee
• Take home the coffee you liked best

Campos Coffee
http://www.camposcoffee.com/
11 Wandoo St
Fortitude Valley QLD
Ph: 07 3252 3612

@CamposCoffee

Work Desk Coffee

Industrial estates are not known for cafes. Currently I work in an office in Eagle Farm, and unlike when I worked in Spring Hill or Milton, getting a decent coffee is all but impossible. Barring work-supplied instant coffee, the only other options are to bring in your own takeaway coffee, bring what you need to make it yourself, or the coffee van, which turns up most mornings around 9:30.

The Coffee Van

In case you have never seen one, a coffee van is pretty much just that. A van, with an espresso machine and an amusingly spelled or phrased name, whose purpose is to drive around selling coffee and light snacks.

The coffee itself is usually acceptable and the prices are fairly reasonable, comparable to what you would expect to pay in a cafe. Which is good, considering the lack of alternatives closer than a ten minute drive away. The one that stops by my office is a Cafe2U franchise van, which fills the cafe gap as well as can be expected.

It never is just about the coffee though; cafes are more than just a well placed espresso machine. A coffee van is not something you can go to for lunch, or a destination for a coffee run and a chance to leave the office. A coffee van does not come close to replacing the ‘Cafe Closest To The Office’ experience.

For those who have been consigned to the office denizen nether hells of a suburb in the middle of nowhere, the coffee van is a rare glimpse of how things could be, if you worked somewhere else.

TL;DR

• If you work near a good cafe, treasure it.

Late Lunch Vagelis Long Black Coffee

To some in Brisbane, Racecourse Road, Ascot is known for cafes. Which is odd, since almost all of the cafes on the street are not especially remarkable. There is a Coffee Club, a Grill’d, a small Japanese place, and a few other restaurants and cafes, but none can compare to a decent cafe, let alone somewhere like Campos or Dandelion and Driftwood. Casual dining is the niche Racecourse Road fills now, with a number of nice small places that serve ordinary coffee and good food.

Warm Lamb Salad

Vagelis is one of these. Their coffee is unremarkable, but it’s good for casual dining. The menu has a very Greek theme, and it is the better for it. Both the keftedes and warm lamb salad certainly won’t let you down.

This time, I went for the lamb salad over the keftedes. The lamb was tender, and marinated perfectly, and while they certainly filled the plate with green leafy stuff, they did not skimp on the important parts: the lamb itself, feta cheese, tomato, eggplant, olives and capsicum.

The coffee itself sits a little to the right of the thick bit of the bell curve. They use Di Bella coffee and the result is decent. But still, as harsh as this sounds,  if you were after remarkable coffee, you would not be on Racecourse Road.

TL;DR

• Coffee OK
• Food good
• If you want excellent coffee, why are you on Racecourse Road in the first place?

Vagelis
http://www.vagelis.com.au/
Shop 2/ 30 Racecourse Road
Ascot
ph: 07 3268 4293

A Long Black at Jam Jar

Jam Jar faces the street with a small foyer, with a counter and a reservation book. You walk through to the back to find a semi-outdoor setting with a collection of different kinds of tables and chairs set up under cover. The space looks like the back of a workers’ cottage, filled with too much furniture, but in a good way. The walls both inside and out the back are covered in art, and actually do make Jam Jar a really unique space.

My coffee came out fast, and it was OK. On just the long black, Jam Jar would be unremarkable. But Jam Jar does more than coffee. They also do food. Very good, and very interesting food. Actually, go look at their menu right now, it’s worth it.

I followed the coffee up with a Mountain Goat Hightail, and along with the nibbles, it made for a great afternoon. Jam Jar is somewhere different, great for a long drawn out lunch, and seems to be more of a beer and food destination than just a cafe.

TL;DR

• Coffee is OK
• Food is better
• Goes well with beer
• Nice art

Jam Jar
http://www.jamjarwestend.com/
138 Boundary st
West End
ph: 07 38443395

@jamjarbrisbane