The five trends every coffee lover needs to know about

Bored with your regular flat white? From coffee with nitro bubbles to Mexican coffee beans, these trends will spice up your daily grind

Cam Stephens pours a nitro coffee at Mecca Coffee, Alexandria. Picture: Justin Lloyd

LOVE your coffee but bored with your usual order? Spice things up with hot new trends:

NITRO COFFEE

The next time you fancy a cold one, skip the pub and head to your local cafe for nitro coffee instead.

Nitro coffee is black coffee served cold and creamy, thanks to small nitrogen bubbles.

The batch-brewed filter coffee is brewed with hot water, cooled, kegged and charged with nitrogen gas before being run through a tap with a restrictor plate, like a stout tap in a pub.

A nitro coffee at Mecca Coffee, Alexandria. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Mecca Coffee’s head of coffee research, Cameron Stephens, says its popularity will soar in summer.

“There’s obviously a shift towards cold drinks in general as the days get hotter,” he says. “A lot of people don’t want you to mess with their morning coffee, but may well come back for an afternoon cold pick-me-up.”

NEW BEANS

We’re moving on from single estate to new coffee regions such as Myanmar and Mexico.

Toby’s Estate’s green bean buyer Charlotte Malaval says its Underdog Series, which launched this week, will highlight a new region each quarter besides favourites from Kenya, Brazil and Colombia.

Toby's Estate Underdog Series showcases coffee from upcoming regions, such as Myiang Village.

“We want to give other countries that produce incredible coffee the chance to shine,” she says.

Mexican coffee from Oaxaca is “really impressive,” with flavours ranging from strawberry jam to juicy watermelon because of the beans’ fermentation process using different types of yeast and ageing them in mescal barrels.

Malawi coffee uses a washed process to create a very bright, refreshing cup with citric, floral and green tea notes. Uganda supplies natural coffee, which is the sweetest of the line-up. It tastes like marzipan and has a lot of stone fruit characteristics.

EDIBLE COFFEE CUPS

The company that brought us coffee in a cone earlier this year has just launched the Picono. Like its predecessor, the wafer cup has an internal chocolate coating that is thick enough to hold hot coffee for 10 minutes but it also has a flat bottom so the drinker can put it down between sips.

The Picono, a coffee served in an edible coffee cup.

Coffee in a cone is served at 50 cafes in NSW including Bacino at Balgowlah and Tiny Giant in Petersham. The Picono is currently available at 10 cafes, including Kusuka in Haymarket and Pasikato Fresh in North Strathfield.

“Coffee in a cone holds about 70ml, like a macchiato. The Picono is 50ml and is a little bit more adult,” says distributor Gina Lewis-Enright of Enright Foods.

DECONSTRUCTED COFFEE

Fussy drinkers particular about the amount of milk in their coffee are fans of The Grounds’ DIY mix.

Black coffee is served separately to milk and water, so customers can construct their brew and adjust the strength and coffee-to-milk ratio to their liking. But it only works with coffees that have multiple elements, such as mocha and ice coffee.

A deconstructed coffee from The Grounds.

“There’s a certain point where you can take it too far. I’ve seen people do deconstructed lattes and cappuccino, but then it just becomes ridiculous,” says The Grounds’ head of coffee, Jack Hanna.

COFFEE TO YOUR DOOR

Forget trudging to the shops for your beans, now you can get them delivered.

The Little Marionette launched its coffee subscription service two weeks ago and founder Ed Cutcliffe says the response has been overwhelming.

The three-month commitment is priced from $13.50 a fortnight for a 250g house blend to $18.50 a fortnight for premium single origin beans and customers can call their baristas if they need expert advice.

The Little Marionette’s coffee subscription service.

While the price is competitive, the appeal is receiving just-roasted beans.

“Coffee is all about freshness because you’re working with oils that oxidise. The coffee on supermarket shelves is long dead,” Cutcliffe says.

“After three weeks, the oils in speciality coffee go off, there’s zero body, acidity or nuance. You’re better off drinking instant at home than something off a supermarket shelf.”