Where did the Australian Coffee School come from?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that coffee schools in Sydney and Melbourne are some of the best in the world.

The Rise of “Australian Coffee” and the Coffee School Concept

Though many in the sunburnt country may not know it, “Australian coffee” is a term held with reverence overseas. In such far away places as New York and Detroit you can order exotic “Flat Whites” and “Piccolo Lattes”, which are served alongside Vegemite and avocado on toast. Coffee schools in Sydney and Australia churn out some of the best baristas in the world. Is the fabled “bottomless” coffee to be replaced by its more specialised “Long Black” competitor?

Well perhaps not right away but the Australian “invasion” of the Big Apple has begun. Why? Well if America has steakhouses and Britain has pubs, Australia has cafes and it’s all thanks to immigrants (some of them were even refugees).

Specifically European immigrants from Italy and the Balkans who poured into Australia in their thousands after the devastation of World War II. They came determined to build a better life for their children and that included coffee. They brought strange new coffee machines and strange new coffee brewing techniques and set up strange new cafés in Melbourne, Sydney and everywhere else you can find people in Australia.

Of course, it wasn’t strange to everyone. Australia’s oldest café was established in 1916 in the Blue Mountains and is still going! Nevertheless the breakthrough came with new techniques from Italian baristas, which are now taught at coffee schools in Sydney and across Australia.

Exporting The Australian Barista

Over the course of a few decades the Tea Lady was replaced by the barista. In fact coffee consumption statistically trumped tea as the beverage of choice in 2012 at home, at work and everywhere else according to BIS Shrapnel. And so the Australian barista now has something to teach their fellow European and American coffeephiles.

At Black Market Roasters, we run the Coffee School in Sydney where we teach budding baristas the skills and latte art techniques they need to join this growing group of coffee nerds.

Zac Hamides