Tag Archives: cafe

Black coffee, Cafe Review

Beanhunter’s Top Brisbane Cafes

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Beanhunter's top Brisbane cafes
Beanhunter’s top Brisbane cafes

Beanhunter, a somewhat awesome website and an essential app featuring user submitted cafe ratings and reviews. Their app is incredibly useful when you are travelling and need to find a half way decent cafe somewhere new, and the quality of the reviews that come from the community is very high. Based on their community’s input, Beanhunter have recently released their top cafe lists for 2013. This lists cover cities from around the world and Australia including Brisbane.

  1. Ltd espresso + brew bar (Fortitude Valley)
  2. The Fort Specialty Coffee (North Lakes)
  3. Cup Coffee Roastery (Woolloongabba)
  4. Dandelion & Driftwood (Hendra)
  5. Reverends Fine Coffee (Fortitude Valley)
  6. Dramanti Artisan Roaster (Wynnum)
  7. Cleanskin Coffee Co. (Brendale)
  8. One Drop Specialty Coffee (Fortitude Valley)
  9. Uncle Joe’s Coffee House (Coorparoo)
  10. Elixir Coffee (Stafford)
  11. The Single Guys (Kenmore)
  12. Bunker (Milton)
  13. Dramanti Espresso (Brisbane CBD)
  14. The Frisky Goat Espresso (Brisbane CBD)
  15. Grindhouse Specialty Coffee (Stones Corner)
  16. Toby’s Estate Espresso Bar (Brisbane CBD)
  17. First Pour Brisbane (West End)
  18. Pourboy Espresso (Brisbane CBD)
  19. Blackstar Coffee (West End)
  20. Campos Coffee (Fortitude Valley)
  21. Shucked (Newstead)
  22. Merriweather (South Brisbane)
  23. The Corner Store Cafe (Toowong)
  24. Fifth Battery Coffee Roasters (Fortitude Valley)
  25. Sourced Grocer (Teneriffe)

The full list of Beanhunter’s Brisbane’s Top Cafes 2013 can be found here.

Unfortunately I have only been to and written posts about a small number of those that made the top 25. From the last few years I have only reviewed 8 of the 25 that made the list for 2013.

1. Ltd espresso + brew bar (Fortitude Valley) (Review)
3. Cup Coffee Roastery (Woolloongabba) (Review)
4. Dandelion & Driftwood (Hendra) (Review)
5. Reverends Fine Coffee (Fortitude Valley) (Review)
7. Cleanskin Coffee Co. (Brendale) (Review)
10. Elixir Coffee (Stafford) (Review)
18. Pourboy Espresso (Brisbane CBD) (Review)
20. Campos Coffee (Fortitude Valley) (Review)

Next year, I might try to address this.

TL;DR

  • Beanhunter’s app is awesome while travelling
  • There are still a lot of good cafes to visit.
Black coffee, Cafe Review

Cup Coffee Long Black

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Black coffee at Cup Coffee
Black coffee at Cup Coffee

It has taken me ages to get around to writing this. One of my friends has been telling me for ages to check out Cup Coffee. The cafe is in West End on Russell Street, just a short walk from Vulture Street. With a high roof and a large open roller door, the cafe looks like it was built out of an old workshop. A gentrified old workshop, with seats, coffee machines and some interesting robot themed artwork on one wall.

Cup Coffee roasts their own beans, and not just for their own use. According to their website they supply about nine other cafes. They produce blends and single origins, available through their own cafe and their business customers. Us normal people can buy their coffee either at the cafe or online via their site.

Cup Coffee Menu
Cup Coffee Menu

The cafe itself sells coffee, unsurprisingly, and a limited range of food. The coffee itself is good, some of the best I have had in Brisbane. They certainly didn’t do anything wrong when they made it, and the bean’s flavours were obvious. Though like a lot of other cafes, the single origins offered seemed to tend towards fruity.

TL;DR

  • Good Coffee
  • Not a lot of choice for food
  • Roast beans, and seem to do a good job

Cup Coffee
http://www.cupcoffee.com.au/
Phone: 07 3846 3746
85 Russell Street
West End 4101
Queensland

Black coffee, Cafe Review

Cremosa Espresso Bar Coffee

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Cremosa Espresso Bar
Coffee at Cremosa Espresso Bar on Queen St.

Brisbane, like most cities, has a lot of cafes in the CBD. Most of them are also pretty boring. And what is even stranger, not all of them are open early. Fortunately for those who sometimes end up heading to work far too early in the morning, the Cremosa espresso bars are.

Cremosa is a hole-in-the-wall style espresso bar at the bottom of the Aurora Tower on the corner of Wharf and Queen Sts. According to the internet the espresso bar opens from 6:30am on weekdays, though I am sure it was not that early the first time I was there.

It is a little different from what you would expect in an espresso bar, as there is actually a decent number of tables just outside. Service and the coffee were both good, because apparently, they use an array of Gaggia Classic 2019 coffee machines. The coffee I had was made on a traditional espresso style blend, and Cremosa also serves single origins.

There are a number of Cremosa espresso bars in Brisbane, making it a rare decent chain cafe. If you were expecting a huge pile of fried meat to go with your morning coffee, I would imagine that Cremosa would, like any espresso bar, disappoint you. However, if you just want a good coffee I don’t think you would regret it.

TL;DR

  • It is an espresso bar with chairs
  • There are currently three of them in Brisbane
  • They don’t have a kitchen, not that it even matters

Cremosa Espresso Bar
http://www.cremosa.com.au/
Facebook Page
76 Albert St, 420 Queen St, 280 Adelaide
Brisbane 4000
Queensland

Black coffee, Cafe Review, Reviews

Queen Bean Office Coffee

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Long Black at Queen Bean Cafe
Long Black at Queen Bean Cafe

One of the best things about working in Brisbane’s CBD again is that there is no shortage of cafes, even out towards the Valley. It is hard to be more than a block away from a cafe in most buildings, and some office blocks even have their own on the ground floor. The building where I am working is one of those.

The cafe is called Queen Bean and occupies a largeish space just off to the side of the building’s foyer. The coffee was not remarkable one way or the other, but the food is good. The cafe’s layout caters to their takeway and sit down customers, though in the morning rush it does seem to get crowded around the counter.

The coffee they serve is from a company called Green Bean Coffee, though unfortunately the roaster’s website has turned into a domainer’s landing page recently. The coffee has a lighter flavour than most commodity coffees, and does not become overpowering with every extra shot.

Queen Bean Espresso is a nice cafe, and if you are tired of wall-to-wall Di Bellavazza d’Oro, the brand of coffee is different enough to be worth trying. The worst I can say is be careful that when you order an extra shot, you don’t end up with a mouth scaldingly hot coffee.

TL;DR

  • Their coffee is OK, the food is good
  • They do not use one of the more common coffee brands
  • Apparently ‘extra shot’ sounds a lot like ‘extra hot’ at times

Queen Bean Espresso
http://queenbean.com.au/
545 Queen Street
Brisbane