Does Canberra do coffee better than Melbourne? Photos: Thomas Lucraft.
Melbourne: laneway cafes, painfully cool hipsters, terrible weather and over-crowded trams. And, until recently, the best coffee in Australia.
But I am here to bust this case wide open: Melbourne has been knocked off its coffee perch by none other than humble Canberra.
It’s a big call, I know, but I have the receipts to prove it!
To start with, coffee is no longer at the forefront of Melbourne’s trendy food and dining scene. The cool kids are drinking matcha and milk tea. I found myself in desperate need of a flat white one afternoon in Melbourne’s CBD and walked past THREE separate milk tea shops before I saw a blessed coffee machine.
ONA Coffee is surely our bean ambassador. Photo: Kazuri Photography.
Each milk tea takeaway had some kind of ‘how-to-order’ sign aimed at assisting those of us who are terribly uncool and unsure whether this joint does pots of Earl Grey (they do not).
Milk Tea is the next iteration of the bubble tea trend, serving different types of tea in elaborate ways: topped with a creamy foam, blended with fruit and heaving with sago pearls. It’s certainly a lot of fun and can be very tasty, but it just doesn’t sate my caffeine addiction.
Matcha is, at least, very well caffeinated, and I even visited a truly excellent matcha-focused cafe (the green powder ground before my very eyes!) However, matcha still doesn’t scratch that coffee itch.
Finally, a cafe is in sight and what should they be serving but Canberra’s very own ONA coffee beans!? And this was not an isolated incident: I drank ONA at several Melbourne cafes over my short visit. I’ve even had it in sunny Darwin (iced, naturally).
ONA is not even my go-to Canberra coffee (it’s very good, just not my local grind), but it has become our de facto bean ambassador.
To further highlight the global supremacy of ONA coffee, in 2019 I was sitting at a cafe in Esfahan, Iran. In the corner, a few staff were undergoing a barista training session, and my ears perked up when I heard the name Canberra. I asked the trainer to explain what he was saying.
“You have very good coffee there. The best barista in the world comes from Canberra.”
He was, of course, referring to ONA founder Sasa Sestic, who is big enough in the world of coffee to have his own Wikipedia page. And apparently, he’s such a big deal that he gets a mention in Iranian barista circles. Who knew?
I know, and I’m sure you do too, that Canberra’s coffee scene is much bigger, broader and more diverse than just one man and one brand. But I think it’s telling that Canberra’s coffee star has ascended beyond Melbourne’s historic supremacy.
Is matcha the next big thing for cafes? Photo: Kazuri Photography.
But perhaps it’s actually a sign that we are behind the times. Maybe we are on the precipice of a milk tea revolution, or a matcha-green takeover (at least it’s handy for supporting the Raiders)!
Either way, it made me feel the tiniest bit patriotic to see the Canberra flag waved in Melbourne.
Original Article published by Lucy Ridge on Region Canberra.
