Where to get the best coffee here and overseas
From Collector in NSW to Stumptown in New York, Single O co-founder Emma Cohen shares her favourite spots to get a caffeine hit.
Emma Cohen and her husband Dion ditched their corporate gigs in 2003 to open a coffee roaster and cafe in Sydney’s Surry Hills.
Their goal was to introduce Australians to high-quality, sustainable, single origin coffee at a time when “the market was saturated by dark roasted and often burnt coffee” with no transparency on where it came from or who produced it.
“Coffee was still a pretty stale product in a shiny packet imported from Italy,” Cohen recalls. “Going out for brekkie or even for coffee wasn’t that common, at least in Sydney. Single origins weren’t a thing. Blends were pre-blended as opposed to roasting each origin individually to its best potential.”
The farm-to-table philosophy was taking off in dining in the early 2000s and Single O was trying to do the same thing with coffee – Cohen calls it “crop to cup” – and chefs and foodies got behind it. “We didn’t know it at the time, but we were part of the ‘third wave’ coffee movement, which was roasting high-quality coffees lighter to bring out their distinct flavours.
“The early days were challenging to say the least, but we were intent on introducing customers to the nuances of coffee, the incredible variety of origin countries and growing regions, and the producer behind each and every bean.”
The couple’s risk paid off and now they are celebrating 20 years in business, with cafes in Queensland, Japan as well as Sydney and a wholesale business that ships around the world. They are also big advocates for sustainable coffee, highlighting the impact of climate change on growers and coming up with innovative ways to save waste.
“At the end of the day, we’re coffee lovers who love sharing that passion with other people, serving them a great cup of coffee in the morning and hopefully making the world a little better in the process,” Cohen says.
How cafe habits have changed in the past 20 years
Cafes around the world, and especially in Australia, exploded into this vibrant, much-loved sector of hospitality. Black coffee consumption has grown. For example, in our Surry Hills cafe it has gone from 2 per cent to over 25 per cent. The Aussie palate sure has evolved and there’s a real appreciation of the quality and flavour profile of the coffee itself – there’s far fewer people trying to mask their order with three sugars these days. Filter has become popular enough for us to turn one of our cafe counters into a self-service bar, with hot and cold coffee on tap. Iced oat latte is now the No. 1 selling beverage in our Newstead cafe in Brisbane.
Best places for a coffee in Australia
This is hard. Single O Surry Hills and our stand at Carriageworks market on Saturdays in Sydney are on weekly repeat. In terms of great recent coffees I’ve had in NSW:
Honor Bread in Bermagui, Top Shop and The Farm Three Blue Ducks in Byron Bay,
Old Maids Brunswick Heads and Milkwood Bakery in Berry. Black Cockatoo in Katoomba is also great. We have their coffee and focaccia, and stock up on bread and pastries. Further afield, Clunes General Store in Clunes is fabulous, Bread & Butter in Launceston, Tasmania and Morning Market (pictured) in Fitzroy and Prahran is my pick for Melbourne’s best coffee.
Is Melbourne the coffee capital of Australia?
Yes, in that Melbourne coffee serves up cracking quality and has the most cafes and roasters per capita. No, in that every eastern seaboard city is also punching well above its weight. Our regions also produce great coffee too, and Some Cafe in Collector (pictured) is an example. It’s a quick turn off the Federal Highway to/from Canberra for some seriously top-notch coffee, breakfast and lunch. It is also a great stock-up spot for their house-made tomato sauce, house-reared honey and more.
My most memorable coffee
Dion and I were in Antigua, Guatemala (pictured), in 2003 just a month or so before deciding to start a career in coffee. It was black, two cups were poured from a jug by the gentleman who ran the guesthouse, and it felt special to drink it in the coffee lands. A couple of months later we set out to create our first blend in Sydney. I remember it was a Sunday and tasting how different and enjoyable the components were — Chiapas Mexico was chocolatey while Sidamo Ethiopia tasted citrusy. I wondered, ‘Why not serve these unblended?’ This was a significant moment.
Where I get coffee when overseas
In London, I hit up Monmouth Coffee in Borough Market, and Rosslyn on Queen Victoria St. In New York, Stumptown (pictured), because it’s the original. A lack of good coffee overseas drove us to launch Parachutes. They are single pourover bags filled with our high-quality coffee. Dion discovered the brew method in a hotel room in Tokyo, poured the low-grade coffee out, put ours in. He then sourced “Phylis”, our Parachute machine in our roastery where we now produce freshly roasted, ready to brew Parachutes for Aussies heading anywhere and everywhere. We only cry when we don’t pack enough of them.
Why tokyo is my favourite city for food
I love eating eastside around where our roastery and Hamacho cafe are located. We usually hit up Ichikatsu for tonkatsu under the Ryogoku railway station on day one of our visit because Dion can’t wait, and I love Hosokawa soba noodle shop. For night time, we have found this cool little standing eatery and bar in our neighbourhood called Chuno Jo. Then if we want a taste of home, breakfast at Bills Ginza (pictured) or a jaffle at Single O Hamacho with, of course, coffee.
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